Yes, but he’s a gymnastics coach in the Midwest, not a genie in a lamp. It’s one thing to develop a gymnast to a high level, entirely different trying to salvage something from someone else’s poor coaching
She was 11 years old when she switched to Graba's gym, so I suspect Graba is the one who pushed all the elite difficulty on her, without fixing (or attempting to fix) all her form issues first.
Hopefully her team looks at the scores from this event and starts a course correction. Once you've been established at having bad form, even minor repairs to it are going to be overlooked because you are known to be messy. Maybe they should pick an event or two and have her only compete those while they go back to basics on the others. Though I guess as a junior, you have to do AA to qualify for anything. It is too bad because she obviously has the fight to overachieve but she is going to be held back and I think even colleges are not going to be interested with her current form.Maybe she has really pushy parents
He certainly could have pumped the brakes. But she got to him already doing Hopes, from a gym that had her do levels 8 and 9 at the same "meet." I'm guessing her parents aren't exactly rational.
That's exactly what I am talking about. I would have expected Graba to do exactly THAT three/four years ago. Instead, he kept pushing difficulty and 'elite' on her.
So what is the rationale behind capitulating to parents regarding elite? Isn’t it not profitable for a gym to coach elites? By saying no and having the parents go elsewhere, they’re not really losing money, or am I totally off base?
Coaches who get someone to the Olympics sometimes go a little crazy trying to get back there. They end up taking any and all elites ("elites") and putting up with crazy parents they wouldn't have tolerated beforehand.
