Anon Xcel level

[Anonymous (b69d)]

Just out of curiosity, would a gymnast with the following right now likely move up to gold for the season starting January 2026 at your gym?

-consistently scored 36.7s-36.9s at silver

-Has ROBHSBHS, front tuck, standing back tuck, nice ROBHSBT on tumble track (hasn’t taken it to floor yet but will shortly), front handspring, walkovers, may have side aerial, good leaps, etc

-glide kip isn’t consistent yet but making a few every practice with straight arms (no long hang yet), squat on, jump to high bar, “baby giant”, double back hip, ugly new flyaway, cast to horizontal not a problem

-vertical handstand 75 ish % of the time on beam, cartwheel, back walkover (inconsistent still), split jumps good, not sure about full turn

-apparently getting over vault table w/ FHS. Often won silver vault (FHS)- consistent low 9s all season.

-does well with peers and focuses well for age but still very young.

No drama or hurt feelings or anything-just wondering about the variety of requirements etc across gyms for golds! Thanks!

 

[GymCAMom]

At our gym, yes.

 

[Anonymous (1aa2)]

At our gym, probably, but our coach typically requires higher skills than the actual requirements. The coach also only makes final level decisions in the fall, so it would depend on how some of her skills improve during the summer.

 

[Anonymous (e0b1)]

At our gym, yes. Might be a couple more skills to get but that can be worked on during summer and early fall.

 

[Anonymous (b69d)]

At our gym, yes. Might be a couple more skills to get but that can be worked on during summer and early fall.

What other skill are typically expected of your golds?

 

[Anonymous (c2df)]

Yes. Depends on the gym though, some may require skills like the consistent kip.

 

[Anonymous (4a5e)]

Definitely would for us. Most of our silvers don't do round off backhandsprings and the ones that do move up. We honestly try to get out of silver if we can.

 

[Anonymous (b69d)]

Yes. Depends on the gym though, some may require skills like the

Definitely would for us. Most of our silvers don't do round off backhandsprings and the ones that do move up. We honestly try to get out of silver if we can.

Interesting. Our gym typically doesn’t let anyone do silver without a ROBHS. One difference may be our girls go level 6 after gold.

 

[Anonymous (4a8e)]

At my gym, 100% she would be going to Xcel gold!

 

[Anonymous (beb1)]

At our gym, the coaches might have her train gold over the summer and see if she can clean up skills like the flyaway and get a ROBHSBT/kip. At least at my gym, the coaches try to standardize skills like kip, flyaway, ROBHSBT, and CW/BWO on beam for competing gold (gold goes to DP optional lv 6, so the coaches stress DP standards and skills in xcel). That being said, a lot of girls at my gym typically spend 2-3 years in gold just because there is so much room for upgrades at that level, and the coaches do make accomodations for kids who are working hard but are missing/struggling with a few skills.

All in all, I think my gym would let her move to gold, but definitely the xcel standards can be VERY different from gym to gym depending on where the Xcel Golds move up to (DP 5-6 vs. Xcel Platinum)

 

[Anonymous (f2a0)]

At my gym, she would definitely be gold. Possibly even platinum if she improved at lot over the summer

 

[Anonymous (e9eb)]

She would be gold at my gym.

 

[Anonymous (3f4d)]

At our gym, she would definitely go to Gold. If she got the kip consistently, had the ROBHSBT on the floor, and could work toward a clear hip circle, then she would have the chance to score out and compete the rest of the season at Platinum (we allow mid-season move-ups).

 

[Anonymous (b69d)]

Wow so interesting. There is so much variety. She will be repeating silver regardless of summer training. I’m not entirely sure why but there’s been talk of “move slow to move fast” etc. I think there are some politics at play and some concerns about her age (7- I’ve never seen a gold at this gym younger than 8 almost 9) but it is what it is. Silver is weird. At state the majority of girls in her division weren’t even doing ROBHS but there is room in the level for my DD to compete ROBHSBT (which she put on the floor since I started this thread). It encompasses such a wide range of skill so I’m hoping there’s room to grow with a second year. She has a fabulous coach (who doesn’t appear to be the one with the final say on levels) who plans to treat this as her level 4/5 year (they go level 6 after gold) so not sure what will happen after this repeat year. Potentially one year of gold instead of the typical two or maybe skip altogether… not sure.

She is super fine with the plan so I’m not fighting it but it’s so odd- she has every skill the new gold group has with the addition of the 30% success rate kip (most of the girls in the group haven’t successfully kipped once yet). New season isn’t until January so such an early decision seems odd when you consider how much growth can occur in eight months.

Thanks for the insight, everyone. This sport is definitely a strange one at times.

 

[JBS]

Yes... she would move up at our gym... however... we don't currently have Gold so she would move to a L4 training group.

 

[Anonymous (54bc)]

Sounds like the only thing holding her back is her kip. Don’t let them hold her back only based on age it’s unfair to her. Maybe you could try a new gym for a second opinion on what level is appropriate. The only other thing I can think of is she might be able to throw all of the skills you listed but how clean and competition ready are they? Is a lot of work still needed to clean up form? My daughter never did xcel,, but did end up repeating level 3 due to not having her kip perfectly done for level 4. At the time, they fed me a bunch of garbage about her being so young and she should be on a team with kids closer to her age anyway since she was 6 and her teammates were 3-5yrs older. She literally had all the skills to move up but was held back due to age and her kip not being straight armed consistently. The new teammates that season were still older so none of it made sense logically. We left that gym after level 4 and a new gym had my daughter skip level 5 and now she is back on her original track. The old gym wanted her to compete level 5 even though she had the scores and skills to skip it. I couldn’t stand behind their ideology any longer.

 

[Anonymous (b69d)]

It can be so complicated.
I will say we love our gym in most ways- her coach and her teammates are wonderful and my primary concern is that she is in a healthy environment which it is. There are very few other choices within an hour and a half from us and my DD would absolutely not want to leave so I don’t think evals elsewhere is an option.

Her form is decent. She is making kip like 1-5 times most practices and it does have straight arms. She has some of the strongest tumbling on the team- explosive and good form. ROBHSBT is brand new and not competition ready but they have eight months. Her ROBHSHBS and front tuck are competition ready today.
There were concerns about getting over the table with being so much shorter than the others but she is doing it- it is requiring more effort from her for sure though.
Beam is where I could see the thinking- she has the skills but has often lacked confidence and consistency and has moments of hesitancy for sure. When she’s feeling good she’s lovely but is definitely still learning to trust herself on the beam.

At this point I think it just is what it is. She’s a good little gymnast but I doubt we are NCAA bound or anything.

 

[Anonymous (3f4d)]

Sounds like the only thing holding her back is her kip. Don’t let them hold her back only based on age it’s unfair to her. Maybe you could try a new gym for a second opinion on what level is appropriate. The only other thing I can think of is she might be able to throw all of the skills you listed but how clean and competition ready are they? Is a lot of work still needed to clean up form? My daughter never did xcel,, but did end up repeating level 3 due to not having her kip perfectly done for level 4. At the time, they fed me a bunch of garbage about her being so young and she should be on a team with kids closer to her age anyway since she was 6 and her teammates were 3-5yrs older. She literally had all the skills to move up but was held back due to age and her kip not being straight armed consistently. The new teammates that season were still older so none of it made sense logically. We left that gym after level 4 and a new gym had my daughter skip level 5 and now she is back on her original track. The old gym wanted her to compete level 5 even though she had the scores and skills to skip it. I couldn’t stand behind their ideology any longer.

If she was only 6, she wasn't old enough to compete Level 4.

 

[Anonymous (b69d)]

If she was only 6, she wasn't old enough to compete Level 4.

She is 7 and the gym competes xcel until optionals. She competed silver this past season (first grade).

 

[Anonymous (b69d)]

She is 7 and the gym competes xcel until optionals. She competed silver this past season (first grade).

Oops just realized you were talking about the previous commenter’s kid!