- Apr 7, 2024
- 11
- 5
My daughter is 6 and a dancer. She's also currently doing rec gymnastics classes. I kind of feel like rec gymnastics is not an ideal environment at this point because there's not as much focus on getting perfect technique as I'm guessing there is in competitive. My daughter is doing the floor and vault skills in her current rec class easily but still working on bars and beam. So they're basically leaving her to practice her own stuff on those apparatuses while the coaches help the other girls. Like she can easily do good performance ready front and back walkovers (FWO was learned in dance - her current rec class only does BWO), but can't do a back hip circle independently or a cartwheel handstand side dismount or a beam split jump. And those skills are what they are working on in her rec class and she needs to have all of them to move up to the next rec class.
I'm wondering whether it makes sense for her to try out for the team (they have open tryouts in a few weeks and I'm guessing she will end up in Bronze if she makes it, our gym only does Excel) and do competitive gymnastics just for a year or two. Like I'd like her to either perfect her technique on skills she already has or work on new skills. Neither of which is happening in her rec class as that's not the focus.
I don't really plan to have her be a gymnast long term because she's going to get pretty busy with dance in a few years and she and I prefer dance anyway, but I do think the cross training is valuable for competitive dance and it's a good sport in general. And we do a lot of acro in dance so a good BHS, back tuck, FWO, etc are critical. What do you all think? Thanks in advance!
I'm wondering whether it makes sense for her to try out for the team (they have open tryouts in a few weeks and I'm guessing she will end up in Bronze if she makes it, our gym only does Excel) and do competitive gymnastics just for a year or two. Like I'd like her to either perfect her technique on skills she already has or work on new skills. Neither of which is happening in her rec class as that's not the focus.
I don't really plan to have her be a gymnast long term because she's going to get pretty busy with dance in a few years and she and I prefer dance anyway, but I do think the cross training is valuable for competitive dance and it's a good sport in general. And we do a lot of acro in dance so a good BHS, back tuck, FWO, etc are critical. What do you all think? Thanks in advance!