USmominHK
Proud Parent
- Aug 13, 2024
- 9
- 2
My daughter is 8 and started out doing dance and gymnastics equally. Gymnastics is now her primary activity and dance (ballet and contemporary) are there for fun and friends as one of the classes is a school dance troupe with her buddies.
We switched gyms last year and she had to put in a lot of time to get the bar skills but now she loves it and says bars are her favorite apparatus. She sounds built similarly to your daughter. Her pullover took a really long time because she had to build the strength and the emphasis on conditioning and strength building is not as high here where we live in comparison to gyms in the U.S. She took a long time to get a pullover - maybe even over a year - because of needing to build upper body and core strength - but single back hip circle was really fast (weeks) and double hip circle as well. The dance flexibility and focus definitely helped on beam and she won many medals there over the years. Vault was a struggle that also took time because it is hard for the kids - especially smaller lighter ones - to get the push off the spring board and understand the physics of translating running full speed forward and turning that speed into vertical height. By the end of the season she got it down well so it is doable but it was a lot of time to focus on the fundamentals for those skills.
Remember that gymnastics has turned into a power sport over the years. While flexibility is part of it, flexibility can be achieved faster than strength. My daughter also went to kids CrossFit twice a week for 3-4 months and this made a huge difference in her strength level (our gym is light on conditioning).
So it depends on your kid, your gym, and your schedule! Hopefully this helps you make a decision.
We switched gyms last year and she had to put in a lot of time to get the bar skills but now she loves it and says bars are her favorite apparatus. She sounds built similarly to your daughter. Her pullover took a really long time because she had to build the strength and the emphasis on conditioning and strength building is not as high here where we live in comparison to gyms in the U.S. She took a long time to get a pullover - maybe even over a year - because of needing to build upper body and core strength - but single back hip circle was really fast (weeks) and double hip circle as well. The dance flexibility and focus definitely helped on beam and she won many medals there over the years. Vault was a struggle that also took time because it is hard for the kids - especially smaller lighter ones - to get the push off the spring board and understand the physics of translating running full speed forward and turning that speed into vertical height. By the end of the season she got it down well so it is doable but it was a lot of time to focus on the fundamentals for those skills.
Remember that gymnastics has turned into a power sport over the years. While flexibility is part of it, flexibility can be achieved faster than strength. My daughter also went to kids CrossFit twice a week for 3-4 months and this made a huge difference in her strength level (our gym is light on conditioning).
So it depends on your kid, your gym, and your schedule! Hopefully this helps you make a decision.
