All-Star Do You Ever Get Frustrated With Your Gym/coach ?

[cheermominar]

This year at my CP's (she is 8yrs Jr3) gym is so different then last year (mini1) . The coach seems to have taken a different style/method this year. 1st comp. is this Sat. and they are not ready. They actually started the 1st part of dress rehearsal way better then they have been doing (not doing the full routine, just pryimid, stunts and tumbling), but the coach waited until the last 15 min of practice (2hrs long) for the girls to go full out. By then they where tired and doing horrible and still haven't heard music. Anyway, a majority of us parents are frustrated with how coach has been doing things this year :( Just wondering if others at times feel this way about their gym/coach. Thanks

 

[notimeforthat]

There is a HUGE difference between mini 1 and junior 3..... HUGE!!!!!
Im sure it is very frustrating for you and the other parents. IMO level 2 is a must in a cheer career.... My daughter was at level 2 for 3 years before going to level 3.
What you are telling me is typical behavior for a level 3 coach. It's a bit unfair to expect an 8 year old to do such a tremendous jump at that age. Good luck!

 

[BlueCat]

You have not given nearly enough information to know whether the coach was doing anything "wrong". Junior 3 teams are not run the same way as mini 1. I would avoid trying to compare the experiences if possible.

Not being "ready" for a competition is always subjective. This is particularly true for competitions in November. I cannot even begin to count the number of parents who have complained about the readiness of our teams. Different programs and different teams "look ready" at different times of the year. Some look great at their first competition and then rarely get much better - others can look like a train wreck early and then pull it together in time for NCA or Worlds. (We tend to fall into the latter category.) There is no single "right" way to prepare a team.

 

[Mamarazzi]

Completely agree with BlueCat. I've learned - after getting myself all worked up and frustrated and ready to walk on the mat and give "those coaches" a piece of my mind - that 99.9% of the time, they know exactly what they're doing. This is their job. How the team looks reflects on the coaches WAY more than it reflects on you, so of course they will handle the team the way they deem best.
Just sit back, enjoy comp season, and try not to bleacher-coach. And for goodness sake, don't feed into the other parents' gripes. Turns everyone negative and it makes for a pretty crappy season.

 

[cheermeup]

This is a tough call. If it's just that you don't like the way practices are running, then I wouldn't worry too much, especially since they haven't competed yet. This is your CP's second year? If yes, mini 1 is a lot different thn j3, you may not be used to how things are done in higher levels. J3 is a very competitive division.

Going full out at the end of practice is normal for us. If the kids can hit the routine full out when they are tired, hitting it fresh at a competition shouldn't be a problem.

If its not hurting my kids, I try to let the coaches coach.

 

[xomckenzieee]

I used to coach J3 and I can honestly say my team usually looked TERRIBLE at our first competition in November. You have to remember you're dealing with kids 14 and under, a lot who usually have never competed or been in a level 3 routine before. Give it time, November and December are usually months that team compete just to get on the floor and get their quirks out.

 

[Megan(:]

I was on a J3 team last year, and we were not ready for our first competition! Our practices were run the same way and now that I am on a senior team I realized that it was a good way to run the practices. If we weren't hitting a stunt we worked on it, did a stunt through if they still weren't working we worked on them again. We always tumbled and did fullouts last. We pulled it together in time for the first competition and we had 3 eight year olds. I think the reason it is so different for you and your CP is because it is a major age jump so the kids that are older can handle it better.
I hope that it gets better for you and your CP!(:

 

[Rhiley]

I can share by my experience that any level change is a huge difference in coaching style and atmosphere... In the past, I went from 4 to 5 and even that difference is well-noticeable, I couldn't imagine 1 to 3...

 

[NEliteSteven]

Chill. If my parents were to really watch practices with my Senior 3, 2 weeks ago, they would have asked not to compete at our first competition. The team just does NOT practice well. Then at the first competition, they were grand champs, and practices have been much better. Sometimes you just need to have faith in their abilities and remember that they were put on the team for a reason. Usually they will rise to the occasion--atleast in my experiences. Or, they'll crash and burn and really start putting in more effort so it doesn't happen again. You have to start competing at some point, and if you wait to compete until they are perfect, you'll probably be waiting the whole season.

 

[12stepCheermom]

Sounds pretty much how our practices are run. If I could change anything at all it would be to have them drill, drill, drill and drill some more in routine sections. Like...when "we hit it 5 times clean as a team we'll move onto the next part" kind of drill. Then, when you're tired, in the last 15 minutes we'll put it all together and throw a full out. Twice. But, I'm just a little competitive :)

In either case, it sounds like a standard practice to me.

We just had our first competition and some teams were fine (three first place finishes and one beat out the other for grand champs of lv 4) some had little things here and there and others were train wrecks. I'll also say the entire competition we attended (cheersport charlotte) the winner in each division seemed to be the cleanest of the disasters. I didn't see one single CLEAN team all day (including ours) and some of them were downright scary.....like turn the music off before someone dies scary.

It's November.

And like BlueCat said, I watched (probably the first three outings) from Senior Elite last year and they were disasters. That team went on to kill it at Worlds and bring home a globe.

Sometimes I think the schedule itself is part of the practice. It made an impression on our train wreck teams that they didn't want to look like that again, and it's not nationals season yet, so part of the plan may, in fact, be to throw them into the pool and see if they sink or swim. If they sink, that may just be what needs to happen to motivate them to swim when Nationals season rolls around and that's not really until January.

 

[Just-a-Mom]

To answer your question, YES, others feel this way. Feeling frustrated is not a problem - we all get frustrated with our kids, the coach, the gym, other parents, etc. It's how you react that matters. I agree with what has already been said - the coaches know what they're doing, that's a huge change in levels, it's only November, and ya gotta compete sooner or later. All true. After that first comp your practices will adjust accordingly.

Put faith in your coaches and try to steer the parent room conversations to something non-cheer related. I know when I used to actually watch practices and talk to the other parents about what we were watching, we'd all leave mad and stressed. But when we turned our backs to the gym and talked about work, vacations, 50 Shades of Grey :eek: and whatever else, we generally left laughing and stress free - which passes on to cp, because she doesn't have a 2 hour car ride home listening to me rant about how they're not ready. And guess what... No matter what mood you and Suzie's mom and Sally's mom leave with, that team IS competing this Saturday. So just sit back and enjoy.

 

[mommadonna]

Sounds pretty much how our practices are run. If I could change anything at all it would be to have them drill, drill, drill and drill some more in routine sections. Like...when "we hit it 5 times clean as a team we'll move onto the next part" kind of drill. Then, when you're tired, in the last 15 minutes we'll put it all together and throw a full out. Twice. But, I'm just a little competitive :)

In either case, it sounds like a standard practice to me.

We just had our first competition and some teams were fine (three first place finishes and one beat out the other for grand champs of lv 4) some had little things here and there and others were train wrecks. I'll also say the entire competition we attended (cheersport charlotte) the winner in each division seemed to be the cleanest of the disasters. I didn't see one single CLEAN team all day (including ours) and some of them were downright scary.....like turn the music off before someone dies scary.

It's November.

And like BlueCat said, I watched (probably the first three outings) from Senior Elite last year and they were disasters. That team went on to kill it at Worlds and bring home a globe.

Sometimes I think the schedule itself is part of the practice. It made an impression on our train wreck teams that they didn't want to look like that again, and it's not nationals season yet, so part of the plan may, in fact, be to throw them into the pool and see if they sink or swim. If they sink, that may just be what needs to happen to motivate them to swim when Nationals season rolls around and that's not really until January.

Thanks for this! I feel better now... :oops:

 

[kristenthegreat]

I'd compare it to the difference between JV and Varsity Volleyball (or at least, how my mom coaches).

My mother is a JV Volleyball coach, and how she handles the freshmen is different than how she handles the seniors (she helps coach Varsity). So a freshman missing a serve is a bit 'Oh, you'll do it next time, and try this!' Whereas seniors are a bit more 'Christina, you're making me crazy. Get it together next time..'

 

[Zinger_bebe]

It's amazing how the adrenaline works when they take the mat! A big hot mess can turn itself around pretty quickly when it counts :)

 

[BuegeSmalls]

Everyone feels like that at one point. I can remember many times at the last practice before a competition thinking to myself that we were going to look like fools out there on the floor but ended up pulling it together.