WAG Xcel Friday morning sessions

[TheXcelMom]

Thank you everyone for your input. I have learned a lot and I appreciate you all very much.

 

[Tmacs]

At lower DP levels 2-4, most of my daughter's meets were Fridays. I disliked it at the time but also liked it because we had so many more weekends free! Now, almost every weekend is taken up by meets.
Also, a meet may be required but you do not have to go. I did not take my daughter to a travel meet at L3 because I thought it was ridiculous to go at that level. The coaches weren't happy but they got over it and fast forward to optionals, it's all forgotten and didn't make one dent in her progress or relationships at the gym.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Also, a meet may be required but you do not have to go. I did not take my daughter to a travel meet at L3 because I thought it was ridiculous to go at that level.

You know about a travel meet before you commit to it.

You do not know a report time until after you commit to the meet and pay. When we commit to meets I block out our calendar Friday to Sunday, until report times are published.

And our gym also lets us pick the meets we want to attend. That’s not so for all gyms. There are gyms out there that you are either all in or not on team.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

This is all the truth. It all makes great sense too. There are very important reasons behind each one of the items that you listed. For example... and these are going to be my opinions..



. Level 8 and up I would mandate all meets.

Why?

 

[JBS]

@Deleted member 18037 Great question.

For Levels 9/10... they are on a National level that requires dedication. Level 8 is basically to introduce them to this concept and give them a year to figure it out. We still have had L8's that don't attend Regionals due to spring break vacations... this is fine... nothing I can do about it... however... we will now have a discussion about it. At L9/10 our goal is the Super Bowl (Westerns / Nationals)... so if they are not committed to our goal... we will let them go. Upper level meets such as Regionals... Westerns... Nationals many times require that school is missed.

In other words... we will not train athletes at L9/10 that are going to opt out of meets. That does not mean that athletes do not miss competitions. It means there will be a discussion about it each and every time. We have never had ad issue at Level 9/10. 100% of our spring break L8 families in the past have always shifted their vacations to another time of year by L9.

Ultimately it's just a policy... at the point in which a family breaks this policy... then we would have to figure out what to do. It would be an individual conversion with that family & athlete about goals and the future along with a re-explanation of our goals as a club.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

@Deleted member 18037 Great question.

For Levels 9/10... they are on a National level that requires dedication. Level 8 is basically to introduce them to this concept and give them a year to figure it out. We still have had L8's that don't attend Regionals due to spring break vacations... this is fine... nothing I can do about it... however... we will now have a discussion about it. At L9/10 our goal is the Super Bowl (Westerns / Nationals)... so if they are not committed to our goal... we will let them go. Upper level meets such as Regionals... Westerns... Nationals many times require that school is missed.

In other words... we will not train athletes at L9/10 that are going to opt out of meets. That does not mean that athletes do not miss competitions. It means there will be a discussion about it each and every time. We have never had ad issue at Level 9/10. 100% of our spring break L8 families in the past have always shifted their vacations to another time of year by L9.

Ultimately it's just a policy... at the point in which a family breaks this policy... then we would have to figure out what to do. It would be an individual conversion with that family & athlete about goals and the future along with a re-explanation of our goals as a club.

Me thinking it out. And I’m Region 6. So you qualify To states. That only takes one meet if all goes well. At that point, Regional and National kick in. So here if there are 6 local meets are scheduled they all don’t have to be mandator. It only takes 1 to qualify.

My kid, is signed up for 2 local meets. Out of 4 possible. she Scores well enough that as long as it’s not a disaster she will qualify for states. We signed up for 2 just in case. She qualified for state’s first meet. Same with her L9 teammate. The L9 teammate only did that meet.

Now they are both going to states where mine could qualify to go regionals (unlikely due to a shortage of bars coaching at our gym, and a story for another day, SH). Her L9 teammate could qualif. But doing additional mandatory local meets won’t get them to regionals or in the case of the L9 Easterns. Only their performance at states matter. That is their mandatory meet.

 

[JBS]

@Deleted member 18037 We only need 1 competition with a qualifying score to get to State. If it was easier and less expensive to compete... I would want to see around 10 - 12 meets per season if they qualified all the way through.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

@Deleted member 18037 We only need 1 competition with a qualifying score to get to State. If it was easier and less expensive to compete... I would want to see around 10 - 12 meets per season if they qualified all the way through.

You all do 10-12 meets each season? Wow. Our Optionals have the option of 4 Because states are earlier our littles might get 8 in.

 

[Lucia]

One of the things that probably impacts some meet schedules is it's not only USAG...some meets host USAG (DP and Xcel), AAU and NGA. So that's more kiddos to get in over a long weekend.

 

[RTT2]

Why rent out a space and equipment? A gymnastics gym should already have those things. I have been to 3 meets, 1 was in a rented space, which seemed weird to me. The other two in the host gyms location. I don't know about the equipment for the rented space, I assume it came from the host gym. I did some of my volunteer hours doing the set-up at our home gym one, and everyone involved was unpaid volunteers. So were the admissions people and food sellers. I know the judges get paid, and if the coaches involved are hourly them too. The equipment was all ours. So it seems like a relatively inexpensive endeavor, though the man-hours are large. But that's why we have the volunteer hour requirement.

As for cancelling recreational classes - we are talking about 4 days of sessions that interfere with classes either way. It's just a matter of if they are Friday - Monday or two Saturdays and two Sundays. Since weekdays have more classes doing it over two weekends would actually seem beneficial in that regard.

 

[JBS]

You all do 10-12 meets each season? Wow. Our Optionals have the option of 4 Because states are earlier our littles might get 8 in.

We have 7 meets before State this season for optionals. So L9/10’s could hit 10 meets. Our State Meet is March 24th - 26th. We have our 3rd competition today.

 

[JBS]

Why rent out a space and equipment?

We run meets that do not fit in our home gym. We have actually rented out spaces that are over 6x the square footage of our home gym.

Many times in-house meets have "junk" equipment or equipment that is only good for the home team. For example... we only have a vault runway that is 74' long.

Rental equipment from the right supplier is "like new" condition. The equipment is sold off on a regular basis (usually at the end of season) and new equipment is rotated in.

Many gyms actually cannot fulfill the equipment specs without moving things or even purchasing more equipment.

Parking... viewing... restrooms are all things that are usually not good in "in-house" meets.

We will no longer attend "in-house" meets and are also no longer running our "in-house" meet. We moved to an indoor resort & waterpark... it's a true experience for the kids that they will never forget. We did a team pizza party in the waterpark.

 

[Dahlia]

I looked through a lot of our meet schedules and I've noticed a trend of level 2, 3, XB, and XS being on Fridays or the last day of long meets. In my state, the above 4 levels only need a 1 judge panel while all other levels require 2. They may be scheduled this way so some of the judges leave early or come later. If there is a difference in required number of judges in your state that might explain xcel on Fridays. ‍

 

[xcelgymmom22]

It also really depends on the year/your region. My DD's first two years of competing she only competed on Sundays, last year only Saturday, this year so far we have two Sundays and a Friday. She is also an XG

 

[Dahlia]

I looked through a lot of our meet schedules and I've noticed a trend of level 2, 3, XB, and XS being on Fridays or the last day of long meets. In my state, the above 4 levels only need a 1 judge panel while all other levels require 2. They may be scheduled this way so some of the judges leave early or come later. If there is a difference in required number of judges in your state that might explain xcel on Fridays. ‍

That was a shrug emoji at the end. Not sure why it doesn't show up as that.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

We have 7 meets before State this season for optionals. So L9/10’s could hit 10 meets. Our State Meet is March 24th - 26th. We have our 3rd competition today.

Wow. I don’t think we have ever had 10 scheduled in a season for any level. Including states. And I know a lot of kids who are at other gyms levels 9 and 10. They do about 4- 6, then states, regionals and nationals.

And our lower levels do more because their states are later, they might get 8 meets in if they do them all. Our policy as a family has always been 1 meet a month. The exception is December because we have a charity meet, non qualifier.