2023 Winter Cup

[KristyJ]

Honestly Jade is capable of finished and graceful movements. She just seems to struggle to connect to her music, to bring in feeling, and to link her movements into a whole performance instead of separate poses. She has improved at it! But it’s clearly not an inborn talent and I don’t think the routines she’d received in the past helped it any.

 

[MaryClare]

You have completely missed the point.

No, there aren’t 6 year olds chucking double fronts. I said the presentation of the routine is that of a 6 year old. I think if there was a 6 year old chucking double fronts, we’d be shaking our heads and this is no different. These do matter, if you don’t want them to matter then watch tumbling instead. You don’t, or at least shouldn’t get a pass just because you have the required level of acrobatic skills.

Has there been worse routines? No, I really don’t think there has been. My comments were not “self righteous”, I was genuinely shocked at what I was seeing. Certainly we see plenty gymnasts lacking in musicality or expression, but that isn’t what I’ve criticised in this routine. This gymnast lacks in even the most basic movement and presentation skills. It’s completely different to struggling with artistry. It’s so fundamental that it even makes some of her skills dangerous and potentially sets her up for all sorts of musculoskeletal issues as she grows.

 

[MaryClare]

Jade struggles with expression and artistry and there’s no quality to her movement, but from a technical standpoint she doesn’t do anything wrong. That’s completely different

 

[KristyJ]

What I am saying is that you are holding up young children as the example of something so advanced while ignoring the ways in which this pre-teen is also advanced in other ways, and then talking about her as though she has no skill. There have absolutely been elites with worse presentation, sometimes at worlds, and I should think you would know that with as long as you’ve followed the sport. If I was a coach, would I change some of the emphasis in her training? Sure, yes, I would. But she’s not the epitome of awful.
Honestly, I wonder if the shoulders-by-the-ears thing is because she’s feeling nervous and shy on the big stage.
Edit to note, you were not at all the only one whose tone I was addressing above, there were definitely others too.
(So as to avoid a double post, I agree re: Jade though)

 

[MaryClare]

It is precisely because her skill level is advanced that I’ve been critical of the other elements of the routine. We’re not talking about a low level gymnast who doesn’t train much. If you have time to teach your gymnast D level tumbling before they are even a teenager, but not address the most basic presentation, that is a grave error by the coach and absolutely should be called out, as well as the system that allows judges to give that athlete an elite qualifying score. It shouldn’t happen

 

[Puffin]

I think that there is a discussion about how the US programme is developing its gymnasts on the dance and presentation aspects of the Code. The problems of US gymnasts losing out internationally because of poor dance, artistry and presentation was a constant debate under Tom’s tenure as NTC yet little seems to have changed as we go into 2024.

I think that USAG needs to consider tightening the requirements for qualifying as a senior elite as there seems to be a huge variation in standards. Winter Cup had a big field of 30 - but only 5 managed to score 52 and fewer than 50% of the field managed to score 50. When you look at the profile of the scores, with a few exceptions, the low scores were not the result of a terrible meltdown on 1 or 2 events but were gymnasts scoring 11s and 12s across the board.

I think it was a shock to many observers that the giant US programme has so many “elites” scoring in the 44-48 range. Unlike previous quads there doesn’t seem to be a lot of bright talent coming through and the team will depend on the NCAA gymnasts

 

[MaryClare]

I agree, however it wasn’t so much the seniors that shocked me but the juniors.

The US has always had a large number of senior elites, many of whom compete one season (who wouldn’t want to try to qualify to nationals and get the chance to compete alongside Simone etc) but then drop back to L10 until they go off to college.

For me the shocking thing has been the quality of the juniors. Outside of those already on the junior national team, the level drops off a cliff at the moment. Maybe I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like it was that way in the past. The US always had a large number of juniors, including many yet to make the national team, who looked like they had the potential to be a top international elite. Of course, so many get injured or decide to change course along the way but at the moment, that doesn’t seem to be there anymore.

Does it matter, as long as everyone is safe and having fun? Well yes, because whilst no one is getting paid and a large number of the athletes are under 18, it is for all intents and purposes, professional sport. The winter cup will be a costly event to run, and I doubt it turns a profit. Would it have been more sensible to have 1 session for seniors and juniors, with more stringent qualification criteria? Yes. Especially since we have learned that the reduced participation at jesolo and other international events is down to budgetary reasons. It could be said that potential future world champions in the junior national team, are being deprived of opportunities previously given to top US juniors, ie Jesolo, just so that enough junior who’ll score i the 40s and drop back to L10, can compete at the winter cup

 

[Sparklesmom]

But why do you care if they do only the winter cup and then drop to level ten? This is THEIR journey, not yours. Maybe their big goal was to just qualify and then they got the score to compete there so this was like a dream come true. To come on a public message board and absolutely verbally destroy a 12 year old is unacceptable to me. There are plenty of ways to point out how she needs to improve without being a total jerk. “I would really like to see her work on her posture and presentation”. “she would really benefit from working on her expression during her floor routine”.
Finally she is YOUNG. a literal baby. you have to remember that the juniors were VERY affected by COVID and the shutdowns. The pool is a lot smaller, so many girls of that level quit during the shut down or are not quite where they would have been if the pandemic had not happened. It honestly makes me so upset to see how nasty people can become about a literal child, a young child, not even a teenager because they don’t think she is up to snuff or WORTHY to share the floor. I know that I will never make you understand or change your viewpoint- you clearly think you are in the right. I just don’t see that it is necessary or the right thing to do. JMO

 

[MaryClare]

There is a huge, huge difference between making legitimate criticism of a routine on a message board, and verbally abusing and belittling a gymnast in your care.
I’m sorry your daughter had a poor experience, and understandably you are hyper sensitive to criticism of gymnasts as a result. But as I said, the criticism is of the coaches and the system that produced the gymnast.

I await your apology for inferring that I was causing a child to feel suicidal. Do bear in mind that another child, on this message board, had to call you out for how inappropriate it was.

 

[xxParkerxx]

This may be your daughter’s experience, but it isn’t everyone’s. I was also cussed at and screamed at for years. Also spent my very young years in an abusive home. Yet I’m still alive, not suicidal. I have learned to be resilient. So someone anonymously saying something on an internet message board shouldn’t be a problem. You yourself have proven my point. Also, if she’s twelve she shouldn’t be on here as the minimum age for an email - which you need to sign up - is 13. Thank you for proving my point. Also how does the internet insinuate things being worse that in person? In person would hurt more as you might actually legitimately know the person that is making the comment. You should be able to brush it off if you don’t know the person.

 

[xxParkerxx]

Yes! Not everyone reacts the same way and quite frankly if a comment made anonymously on a message board makes a child suicidal there’s other stuff going on and they should already be in mental health treatment. Though I’m not technically a child - a teenager who has been medically emancipated. That’s beside the point though. I too, was appalled by the posture. My XCEL coaches wouldn’t let a child compete like that as a bronze or silver - let alone junior elite!

 

[RedBirdie]

I was also cussed at and screamed at for years. Also spent my very young years in an abusive home. Yet I’m still alive, not suicidal. I have learned to be resilient.

I know you yourself are not yet an adult, so please know I am trying to say this gently. What you posted is not the flex you think it is. Cussing and screaming at a child is never okay. Abuse of any sort is never okay. Never. Full stop. And while it did not make you suicidal, that doesn’t mean you are somehow more resilient than others.

I’m in my 40s now. I am still unpacking, processing, and dealing with the effects of a life in high level gymnastics. Sure, I thought I was resilient, too, because I survived. I survived, but that doesn’t mean I am resilient. I look back on my early days of coaching and I want to apologize for what I put those kids through. I did what I thought was right because I didn’t know better. And while I never cursed a kid, I certainly called them crybabies, accused them of not trying, and told them they were wasting my time and their teammates time. Children. These are the things I said to children and I thought that was okay, and it’s not okay. It was okay because, well, they were said to me and I was resilient enough to deal with it. No. All I did was continue the culture of abuse that is rampant in gymnastics.

I would venture that I didn’t even start to be resilient until a took a job, after a period away from the sport, teaching mostly preschoolers. I learned more that year than at any other point in my years of teaching gymnastics. I vividly remember being so frustrated with a kid (he was about 5) and going to our special needs coordinator (and this was not a child with identified SNs, I just didn’t know who else to turn to) and saying “I don’t know what to do, he’s so bad!”

“There are no bad kids.”

That stopped me dead in my tracks. She helped me see in this particular kid that he was acting out because of his home life. I re-framed how I approached coaching completely. I was very fortunate to work at a gym that believed professional development was important and so I threw myself into taking every class I could.

So when I moved and took a job at another gym, I fairly quickly was able to spot that despite what they said, their preschool program was meant to identify future team kids, not a place where every kid could have fun for the sake of having fun. And I left, because I refuse to continue to be part of the abuse culture of gymnastics. There are no bad kids. But there are plenty of coaches out there who believe that and continue the cycle.

/novel

 

[Bob]

Random off topic but why did you think that was all ok for your daughter at the time, yet think now it wasn’t. Why not take her out of that situation and find somewhere with kinder coaches. I think in person far worse than on the internet. I’m not trying to be unkind to you but it does kind of come across that your attitude is a result of guilt.

 

[MaryClare]

Abusers are responsible of their actions, but so much could be avoided or flagged sooner if parents took greater responsibility for their child’s wellbeing and not seeing it as a legitimate trade off for sporting glory/scholarships/instagram endorsements.

Many parents will say I didn’t know, my child was told not to tell me etc. That is as much a failure of the ethos in the gym as it is of the parent-child relationship

 

[xxParkerxx]

I am not trying to flex whatsoever. The point I was trying to make is that if not all children who experience systemic abuse and things of that nature have lasting effects that are extremely severe, then not all children are going to have these extreme effects from an anonymous person critiquing a routine on a message board.

 

[xxParkerxx]

That is as much a failure of the ethos in the gym as it is of the parent-child relationship

Yes, all children should be able to tell their parents everything!

Why not take her out of that situation and find somewhere with kinder coaches.

Her daughter may have not said anything. Just playing devils advocate here

 

[Sparklesmom]

And I simply DO think words have power. And just because you sit anon on the internet in Russia doesn’t mean it is right to trash a 12 year old to the extent she was trashed. It was completely unnecessary and only furthers the culture of abuse in the sport. finally, blaming the parent?? So its the parent’s fault when someone who has been entrusted to an adults care is abused? All those victims of that doctor- its the PARENT who is at fault?

 

[MaryClare]

Why does it matter where I’m from? We are all anonymous. Is Sparklesmom the name on your driving licence?

I have literally just stated that abusers are responsible for their actions.

Parents who accept being excluded for the gym however are complicit in building the kind of atmosphere that allows abusers to flourish.

 

[xxParkerxx]

And just because you sit anon on the internet in Russia doesn’t mean it is right to trash a 12 year old to the extent she was trashed.

No one is “trashing” anyone. Simply critiquing.

 

[irichluck21]

Ok. Conversation has gone WAYYYYYY off topic and is getting heated.

Further conversation off topic from 2023 Winter Cup needs to be taken to private messaging.

Any comments following this post that do not go back to topic will be deleted by moderation team.

Thank you.