Parents Try the tougher skill or play it safe?

[Mrs. Puma]

This has probably been discussed before, but is it generally better to attempt a skill and fail or do an easier skill cleanly? DD's kip and flyaway are not solid yet and her first Xcel Gold meet is in 2&1/2 weeks. She still wants to compete them because she thinks the judges will like the fact that she tried even if they are ugly! Just curious...thanks!

 

[gymgal]

The judges will judge what is in front of them. She will not get brownie points for trying harder skills that she does not have fully. However, that doesn't mean she shouldn't compete them if she really wants to and her coaches are ok with her competing them. She just has to know ahead of time she will likely score lower as a result. dd competed a kip and bwo on beam all silver year, knowing that she would be scored lower than if she used a simpler more polished skill but she didn't care about the skills or the placement. I think it really helped her for future years as she was constantly practicing these skills in her routines in practice.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

The judges will judge what is in front of them. She will not get brownie points for trying harder skills that she does not have fully. However, that doesn't mean she shouldn't compete them if she really wants to and her coaches are ok with her competing them. She just has to know ahead of time she will likely score lower as a result. dd competed a kip and bwo on beam all silver year, knowing that she would be scored lower than if she used a simpler more polished skill but she didn't care about the skills or the placement. I think it really helped her for future years as she was constantly practicing these skills in her routines in practice.

thanks!

 

[sevenatenine2]

We are struggling with the same questions.

I'm compromising.

On floor, my daughter (I'm coach and mom, here) will throw her back tuck. It's not great, but it's good. She'll also throw a front handspring step out, round off, back handspring step out.

On bars, she has a base routine of glide, pullover, cast, back hip circle dismount. She's making about 5% of her kips now, but I really want to include it in her routine because I don't think it will get much better if she's not competing it. So we've been practicing kip, shoot through, wind mill, leg cut, cast, back hip circle, under swing dismount. I know it will score lower but I like to feel like we're progressing!

Beam is a very easy routine, for now, but looks good.

 

[sce]

This has probably been discussed before, but is it generally better to attempt a skill and fail or do an easier skill cleanly? DD's kip and flyaway are not solid yet and her first Xcel Gold meet is in 2&1/2 weeks. She still wants to compete them because she thinks the judges will like the fact that she tried even if they are ugly! Just curious...thanks!

Her thoughts are misguided, attempting an ugly skill (or not making it) is not better than doing an easier clean skill.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

There is a big difference between being able to chuck a skill and being able to compete a skill, and the higher up you go, the longer the gap between the two. Practice the new skills (uptrain) and compete the skills you really have.

 

[MILgymFAM]

We are in the same position, sort of. DD has her skills on beam and bars solid, but not on floor. Essentially she is competing in her comfort zone on bars and beam, but pushing herself on floor. She knows the scores will reflect that, especially towards the beginning of the season. In JO it's easy to say just uptrain harder skills and don't compete them, but in my experience Xcel doesn't uptrain until the summer. Since DD knows that Xcel doesn't do up-training, at least not here, and she wants to progress on floor, she will compete the hardest skills she can do safely and consistently, if not cleanly. Otherwise she will be practicing only the skills she already has solidly till next May.

 

[Faith]

A very clean routine will out score a more difficult chucked one.

However, it is a balancing act. If the more difficult skills are safe, and reasonable, then the increase in difficulty score will allow a bit of wriggle room for minor errors. Let's face it, mistakes can be made on simple routines still.

What deduction is she likely to get vs. what bonus? It she's going to get an 0.5 bonus and an 0.2 deduction for the kip then it's worth putting in in...

Ime too, judges do look more favourably on harder routines. Again, as long as the skills are safe and competition worthy. Every comp I've been to, a good routine with difficult skills will out score a good easier routine, even with bonuses taken into account.

 

[MILgymFAM]

A very clean routine will out score a more difficult chucked one.

However, it is a balancing act. If the more difficult skills are safe, and reasonable, then the increase in difficulty score will allow a bit of wriggle room for minor errors. Let's face it, mistakes can be made on simple routines still.

What deduction is she likely to get vs. what bonus? It she's going to get an 0.5 bonus and an 0.2 deduction for the kip then it's worth putting in in...

Ime too, judges do look more favourably on harder routines. Again, as long as the skills are safe and competition worthy. Every comp I've been to, a good routine with difficult skills will out score a good easier routine, even with bonuses taken into account.

There is no bonus points in xcel gold. Everything, if it includes the minimum required skills, has a 10.0 start value.


ETA: last year DD did bronze, and she took 3rd place on floor at a meet with a cartwheel cartwheel combo. There were girls doing robhs and FHS that looked clean enough to me, but the lower level routines were scored equally with the higher. Same on bars and beam. For scoring purposes, go in, do the minimum and do it cleanly, and you have your best bet at winning. You can perform higher skills and continue to grow as a gymnast, but not necessarily take home medals. It's all in what you are looking to get out of it, more so with xcel than JO, even.

 

[Faith]

There is no bonus points in xcel gold. Everything, if it includes the minimum required skills, has a 10.0 start value.

Ah ok, ignore me then . Although I do still think judges will mark more generously for tougher routines, but the will need to be clean. Bad form will get too many deductions...

 

[NoDramaMama]

My 7 YO dd would want to try the tougher skills, as long as they are safe. But, she also could care less about medals. Granted, she gets excited when she gets them, but is completely okay without them. She goes into meets with a goal notebook for each event and as long as she reaches those, she's happy (and focused, which is her issue).

 

[GymGirl's Mom]

Judges don't like "ugly" skills!

 

[gymgal]

I had assumed that the OP was talking about safe skills, just not polished. If a spectator is going to cringe when the child does the skill (as in - that is so unsafe) then that's a different story. And again, the child needs to know that she will see lower scores as a result of her decision to use more advanced skills, done not as cleanly as more polished lower level skills.

 

[sevenatenine2]

I know judges don't like ugly skills, but in our position, my daughter could compete and do well in XCEL Silver without learning one single new skill. She could do it with easier routines than Level 3 (which she competed last year). I don't want that for her, so we are going with around one tricky skill per event (minus beam, right now). She does better with pressure and I think competing the skill will make it more consistent than not. We'll see, though, and I'm glad we have base routines to depend on if we have to.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

We are struggling with the same questions.

I'm compromising.

On floor, my daughter (I'm coach and mom, here) will throw her back tuck. It's not great, but it's good. She'll also throw a front handspring step out, round off, back handspring step out.

On bars, she has a base routine of glide, pullover, cast, back hip circle dismount. She's making about 5% of her kips now, but I really want to include it in her routine because I don't think it will get much better if she's not competing it. So we've been practicing kip, shoot through, wind mill, leg cut, cast, back hip circle, under swing dismount. I know it will score lower but I like to feel like we're progressing!

Beam is a very easy routine, for now, but looks good.

What level is she competing?

 

[Mrs. Puma]

Thanks everyone! This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank God she does get a lot of uptraining. We're in a weird spot- we're at a small gym and in probably a much less competative part of the country than a lot of you guys. They moved her from the pre-team to the team so she's by far the youngest and obviously can't do a lot of what the older girls can. So she's competing Xcel Gold this year with the hopes of scoring out of 4/5 and doing optionals in the fall. So we'll see! Thanks

 

[sevenatenine2]

Mine is a Silver.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

Mine is a Silver.

Thanks. DD was wondering. She guessed between 3 and 4 from what you said so I guess that makes sense!

 

[sevenatenine2]

Oh, sorry. She was a L3 last year and was going to move to 4 this year, but we just weren't quite there on bars, although I think we could have made it, it would have been rough, and her teammate was struggling too so we are doing Silver. I call it Level 3.5.

 

[gymdog]

A flyaway is really not something you can not quite have and compete. What do her coaches say?