WAG When to Repeat a Skill in Competition??

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

ChalkBucket may earn a commission through product links on the site.
don't be confused about what Tom says and what coaches have to do with their kids to progress in the sport. :)

fyi, many colleagues that do this stuff have never been to Nationals with athletes. same goes for the Elite level.
 
A. I'm a career compulsory coach. 99% of the time when the kid does the "not right" thing it's because they got back in the beam or whatever within half a second and the coach had no time to get a word in edgewise anyway so wheeee let's see what Susie does now.

B. Sometimes you have to do the "not right" thing because these kids are very inexperienced and young competitors in gymnastics. I make all my decisions on an individual basis, not on the basis of what the rules say is the least deduction.

C. I have the kids practice competing and verifying routines so that they at least have some idea of what they are supposed to be doing when they compete. Doesn't always work. Little kids get confused.

D. If a child is capable of doing the skill correctly and they just messed up and fell, they pretty much always repeat it under my coaching or restart the routine correctly. The goal is to do the routine as correctly as possible. I have had a kid capable of a 9.5+ level 4 bars mess up and jump to the low bar and do a swing pullover. I have no idea what the least deduction in this scenario is (probably getting down and starting again but who knows. I'm not even sure the judges did) but I immediately said "get down and start again" and had her restart from a kip.
 
Back in L3, HC would make sure the girls were where they needed to be to start beam - right end of beam and correct side so they were turned the right way on the mount and would dismount on the side of the judges.
One time we had a different coach at beam during a meet that didn't do that at all. YG mounted from the wrong side, so was facing the wrong way when she stood up. She hopped down and restarted from the correct side (taking a 0.5 for the "fall") instead of just adding a pivot turn (max 0.1 for the extra skill).
 
Back in L3, HC would make sure the girls were where they needed to be to start beam - right end of beam and correct side so they were turned the right way on the mount and would dismount on the side of the judges.
One time we had a different coach at beam during a meet that didn't do that at all. YG mounted from the wrong side, so was facing the wrong way when she stood up. She hopped down and restarted from the correct side (taking a 0.5 for the "fall") instead of just adding a pivot turn (max 0.1 for the extra skill).

Oh goodness - this happened to my DD her second compulsory season... DD was last up of out of 10-12 girls. Teammates before her literally all fell except one. DD watched this, then mounted beam leftie (whoops). Somehow, someway, DD finished the routine without falling. I believe she maybe took one fewer steps before a skill to adjust? The correction wasn't noticeable to a relative newbie compulsory parent (me!). That was awhile ago, so I don't remember the specifics anymore.

As far as figuring stuff out, there are no hard and fast rules. ;) And as soon as you think you've figured out a rule, there's an exception to it. :) I trust the coaches to 'know' my kid at meets and decide how to handle a fall meet-to-meet based on available information (hit rate at practice/warmups/prior meets/emotional state/etc).

Good luck to your DD and her teammates!
 
Oh goodness - this happened to my DD her second compulsory season... DD was last up of out of 10-12 girls. Teammates before her literally all fell except one. DD watched this, then mounted beam leftie (whoops). Somehow, someway, DD finished the routine without falling. I believe she maybe took one fewer steps before a skill to adjust? The correction wasn't noticeable to a relative newbie compulsory parent (me!). That was awhile ago, so I don't remember the specifics anymore.

As far as figuring stuff out, there are no hard and fast rules. ;) And as soon as you think you've figured out a rule, there's an exception to it. :) I trust the coaches to 'know' my kid at meets and decide how to handle a fall meet-to-meet based on available information (hit rate at practice/warmups/prior meets/emotional state/etc).

Good luck to your DD and her teammates!

If you just mount on the left side using your left leg, then you can just continue as a righty from the straddle sit. A lot of kids do this in level 4 and 5 when they have a bit more presence of mind :) in level 3, what they tend to do is go on the lefty side as a righty, proceed to face the long end of the beam (should face short end) in order to swing their right leg over. This means they stand up facing the short side and have approx two feet of space to do the entire handstand backward walk section. Then they freeze and look at the coach and eventually turn around :)
 
If you just mount on the left side using your left leg, then you can just continue as a righty from the straddle sit. A lot of kids do this in level 4 and 5 when they have a bit more presence of mind :) in level 3, what they tend to do is go on the lefty side as a righty, proceed to face the long end of the beam (should face short end) in order to swing their right leg over. This means they stand up facing the short side and have approx two feet of space to do the entire handstand backward walk section. Then they freeze and look at the coach and eventually turn around :)

This makes a TON of sense! My DD had been sooo ticked off about it, while I'd thought everything had been just peachy, cause it looked just fine to me. :)
 
Well I once had a kid fall off on the handstand, get back on and repeat it (correct, she arched over) but when she got back up to compete she went way further up on the beam than she was originally (traveling away from mount area at this point). After the handstand in level 3, they move backwards approx to the end of the beam in order to have enough space to do leap, jumps, pivots, and turn all in one length. Well she traveled backwards to about the middle of the beam, but soldiered on. As she starts the jumps she pretty much has no more room on the beam (still has to do pivots and turns) so I'm wondering what she's going to do...she did her straight jumps as backward jumps.

I thought it was pretty creative. I guess it's better than getting down or stopping.

Just an example...no matter what I do these kids never fail to humble me.
 
to add another question to this (that may have been answered and I just didn't get the answer!), for the handstand girl example, if she did a nice handstand but then arched over and fell, does she get credit for the handstand but deduction for fall or NO credit for the handstand + deduction for fall?
 
0.5 for the fall, plus up to the value of the skill (in the case of the level 3 handstand, 0.6) for the incomplete skill. I am reasonably sure that most judges take the full value if they don't get either foot on the beam. So, typically, a total of 1.1.
 
Although I definitely had a kid do that and get a 9.025 this past season. I wasn't sure if a) the judges just got confused and thought she got a foot on (she definitely did not) or b) they just took the wrong deduction and only took a fall.
 

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

College Gym News

The Hardest Skills: McKayla Maroney

3 Skills that FIG Would Ban at First Sight

Back