About moving quickly through the levels at a young age.........
There are obvious risks in moving too fast no matter the age, so is it any different to quickly advance, a 7yo vs an 11yo who needs to catch up just to get to the optional levels many kids dream of. Assuming both kids are the stated ages upon completing the old L3, and progress a level per year beginning this fall as new L3, they'll be 10 and 15 respectively upon completing L7. So what's the point? Why hurry the process, as the 11yo still has a few years, maybe, to enjoy the optional levels, and the 7yo has nearly a lifetime chunk of 6+ years. They both get to go at least a little further, or do they?
The long term picture for the 7yo looks great, and she'll progress at a rate typical of her past, all things being equal, until she quits or slows down due to teen distractions or cumlative fear from a career's worth of HumptyDumpty moments. The 11 yo, despite her steady progress, up to the age of 14, may not be so lucky due to a process of neurological maturation casually referred to as 'pruning.'Link Removed
Because I care, I'll break it down to it basic principles as they apply to gymnastics, and save those who can't find their reading glasses, or just don't want to spend the time reading while simultaneously sewing a button on gymdaddy's shirt, cooking dinner, loading the clothes dryer, and putting another load into the washing machine.
As I understand it.....
Pruning takes place, as we age, to discard idle and seldom used synapses to allow for efficient work of the brain. Those synapses experiencing frequent use are retained as they've proven themselves important to the individual. The most critical span of time takes place as a child nears their adolescent years until they're well into puberty. The upshot of this is that the development of the ability to process motion, plan movement sequences, remember positions, and a few others, represents the building process taking place in the childs brain. The parts of the brain originally set aside for these activities will be retained, and grow, because they get frequently used. If, on the other had, a child experiences few examples of gymnastics motion, those synapses begin to deteriorate to give preference to those used more often.
I think that in the brain of a child who's participated mildly in the sport, there will be fewer synaptic connections available for gymnastics "processing" than would be available had she/he been more immersed in the sport, and frequently experienced skills that function frontwards, backwards, along the horizontal and longitudinal axis separately and together, and done them with and without flight. I guess you could say that the sum of experiences and their frequency represents another variable in the equation designed to answer that timeless question....... "when will my Susie start kipping."...... as that variable plus a few others really do define the words 'natural ability.'
The bottom line is the dear sweet child who started L3 at 11yo will not get up to the level of complexity for a substantial period of time to provoke the pruning process to favor the gymnastics beneficial parts of the brain, as some of those synapses have likely been discarded in favor of those being used to figure out why boys are such a pain in the neck, or gossip, or pop stars, and the ability to remeber every thing about them.
Does that help explain the preferential bias for 6yo and 7yo teamies, and why coaches with "national" credentials or aspirations prefer to move kids through at the pace they do?
