Parents Training group confusion

[Jbaines29]

My 6 yr old daughter has been doing gymnastics for 2 years now and in that time we moved up to hot shots and from there, she was placed on a training team at 5 with a total of 9hrs/week. We’ve been doing that for the last 9 months with the intention to skip level 2 and possible 3. The gym is now telling us that they are moving all the girls to the Xcel track (silver, gold, platinum, diamond) until levels 8-10.

They informed us this week that starting in June, my daughter would be in a “superstar” group and only have 6hrs/week in the gym while some older girls in our training group (ages 8-9) will be in silver or gold.

My frustration is that she will be getting less hours and repeating the same skills and less opportunity to develop new skills. Am I reading too much into it or should I be concerned.

For context, based on skills she’s level 3/4 but hasn’t had a formal evaluation or been in competitions to assess her level.

 

[Dahlialover]

You need to talk with some of the more connected gym moms at your gym to find out what the deal is.

The gym may be using Xcel to do an end-run around compulsories (not my favorite) but the fact that they are cutting your daughter’s hours and delaying moving her up to a competitive level, suggests that they may be switching to a more traditional Xcel model, with less intense hours and less of a focus on developing optionals level gymnasts. They may be planning to phase out optionals (levels 8-10) entirely when their current group of athletes leaves, which might actually be in the next few weeks! If you are attached to your daughter doing a similar program to what you started, you should probably start researching other gyms. Try-out season is coming up, so I would get on that now to maximize your options. Good luck

 

[Jbaines29]

You need to talk with some of the more connected gym moms at your gym to find out what the deal is.

The gym may be using Xcel to do an end-run around compulsories (not my favorite) but the fact that they are cutting your daughter’s hours and delaying moving her up to a competitive level, suggests that they may be switching to a more traditional Xcel model, with less intense hours and less of a focus on developing optionals level gymnasts. They may be planning to phase out optionals (levels 8-10) entirely when their current group of athletes leaves, which might actually be in the next few weeks! If you are attached to your daughter doing a similar program to what you started, you should probably start researching other gyms. Try-out season is coming up, so I would get on that now to maximize your options. Good luck

Thanks! They are also moving current level 6 girls to Xcel and some parents aren’t happy. Right now, we have several level 8-10 girls with some leaving for college in the fall to continue gymnastics.

I’m not familiar with gymnastics but I understand the Xcel vs JO track and just want to make sure my daughter is progressing and not regressing. May look into new gyms.

 

[fav_teresa]

For a 6 year old silver/gold is a great track to be on. The exel track tends to have way less hours. I am a 12 year old and on platinmule and do 9-12 hours a week

 

[JustAGirlWhoLovesGym]

From your description, it sounds like your daughter could do well in silver/gold skill-wise. If the coaches are moving some of the older girls up to Xcel, it makes me think that this could be because of age. Are the girls in your gym's Xcel program generally older (9, 10, 11 ish)? If so, the coaches might have wanted her with peers that are more developmentally similar to her instead of girls who are almost 2x her age. She could make friends better this way, and it would most likely streamline the coaching process.

As for why your gym is going to the Xcel track, there could be many reasons behind it. Xcel is usually touted as a program that is more flexible and requires less hours in the gym, etc. If your gym has a lot of teens who might be more academically focused and/or have other obligations outside of school and the gym, I can see Xcel being a way to retain more older girls (a lot of them quit during the transition to high school) and still allow them to move up without having to commit to a strict DP schedule. At your gym, are there different coaches in charge of DP vs Xcel? If so, the DP coach might be someone who is more strict about coming to practice/practice times, while the Xcel coach might be more flexible.

Also, how come the level 6 parents aren't happy? Are practice hours decreasing across the board?

 

[Jbaines29]

From your description, it sounds like your daughter could do well in silver/gold skill-wise. If the coaches are moving some of the older girls up to Xcel, it makes me think that this could be because of age. Are the girls in your gym's Xcel program generally older (9, 10, 11 ish)? If so, the coaches might have wanted her with peers that are more developmentally similar to her instead of girls who are almost 2x her age. She could make friends better this way, and it would most likely streamline the coaching process.

As for why your gym is going to the Xcel track, there could be many reasons behind it. Xcel is usually touted as a program that is more flexible and requires less hours in the gym, etc. If your gym has a lot of teens who might be more academically focused and/or have other obligations outside of school and the gym, I can see Xcel being a way to retain more older girls (a lot of them quit during the transition to high school) and still allow them to move up without having to commit to a strict DP schedule. At your gym, are there different coaches in charge of DP vs Xcel? If so, the DP coach might be someone who is more strict about coming to practice/practice times, while the Xcel coach might be more flexible.

Also, how come the level 6 parents aren't happy? Are practice hours decreasing across the board?

At our gym, there are a lot of high school girls who are level 8-10 and train from 12-7 so they are homeschooled. From what I’m hearing we have a pretty robust level 8-10 but not a lot of coaches for the lower levels. I think that may be why they are moving to an Xcel track. The level 6 parents are upset because the hours will be reduced and some higher levels 7 girls will be with level 5-6 girls (from what I’ve been told).

My daughter is a solid level 3 and is training with girls 7-9 right now. The girls her age we were with in hot shots went to level 2 and we opted for the training group so I don’t see it being them wanting to keep her with her age group cause that’s not the case now.

I’m not sure what the age range is for the Xcel silver now but her training group teammate who just turned 7 will be in it. However, she has more mastered skills than my daughter and should really be in gold based on the other girls who got into gold.

 

[TumbleTwist]

Perhaps she hasn't progressed as well as the girls that have been placed on silver/gold. I know you say that she has level 3/4 skills, but how is the quality of those skills? My guess is that the coaches decided she wasn't competition ready. But she's still young, you have time.

But the bottom line is only the coaches can answer to why she wasn't moved up. We can all speculate, but you are better off asking them directly. Is it her age? The quality of her skills? Her behavior? It could be a number of reasons.

 

[Jbaines29]

Thanks and I agree she hasn’t progressed as well as the older girls going into silver/gold. My frustration is that she’s losing hours in order to work on closing the gap. I’m not a gymnastics person so idk about quality of skills but we also haven’t gotten adequate feedback from her coaches to evaluate her skills and what she needs to work on.

All I get is “she’s doing well, she’s still young but she takes direction and correction really well.” I did ask her coach what skills/criteria were used in making the new groups and what we can do to help her improve/close the gap. I don’t think cutting hours and putting her with girls who have less skills than her will help.

 

[raenndrops]

My 6 yr old daughter has been doing gymnastics for 2 years now and in that time we moved up to hot shots and from there, she was placed on a training team at 5 with a total of 9hrs/week. We’ve been doing that for the last 9 months with the intention to skip level 2 and possible 3. The gym is now telling us that they are moving all the girls to the Xcel track (silver, gold, platinum, diamond) until levels 8-10.

They informed us this week that starting in June, my daughter would be in a “superstar” group and only have 6hrs/week in the gym while some older girls in our training group (ages 8-9) will be in silver or gold.

My frustration is that she will be getting less hours and repeating the same skills and less opportunity to develop new skills. Am I reading too much into it or should I be concerned.

For context, based on skills she’s level 3/4 but hasn’t had a formal evaluation or been in competitions to assess her level.

Less hours isn't necessarily a bad thing. If her group will be smaller and able to work on progressions to higher level skills, then it makes sense. The girls going to Silver or Gold this year have to spend part of their time practicing their routines for meets. Those left in the old group won't have to worry about routines yet. They are calling her group "superstars." It sounds like they will be doing more with their lower hours.
A gymnast can't compete Level 4 at 6 years old. She could compete Level 3 ... but you are saying that the gym wants her group to compete Xcel until Level 8. This can be a good thing because routines can be tailored to the gymnast's strengths. They can also compete higher level skills (up to the max limit of the Xcel level) on their stronger events.
In Xcel, she would only be age-qualified to compete Xcel Silver. The gym may want to wait a year with her to uptrain more and be able to compete Maximum Xcel Gold routines at 7 years old. The next year, she could compete Platinum at 8 years old, and Diamond at 9 years old.

 

[Jbaines29]

Less hours isn't necessarily a bad thing. If her group will be smaller and able to work on progressions to higher level skills, then it makes sense. The girls going to Silver or Gold this year have to spend part of their time practicing their routines for meets. Those left in the old group won't have to worry about routines yet. They are calling her group "superstars." It sounds like they will be doing more with their lower hours.
A gymnast can't compete Level 4 at 6 years old. She could compete Level 3 ... but you are saying that the gym wants her group to compete Xcel until Level 8. This can be a good thing because routines can be tailored to the gymnast's strengths. They can also compete higher level skills (up to the max limit of the Xcel level) on their stronger events.
In Xcel, she would only be age-qualified to compete Xcel Silver. The gym may want to wait a year with her to uptrain more and be able to compete Maximum Xcel Gold routines at 7 years old. The next year, she could compete Platinum at 8 years old, and Diamond at 9 years old.

Ok, that gives me some hope. We have gotten very little communication as to the changes happening.