One Nationals

[King]

At some point the definition of a failure changed to finishing anything other than first.

That's being a little holier than thou. No one said second was failure(but for some teams I understand that it is). But most competitions do not want a team to get 32nd place.

We can't all win. We can't all be top ten. And my thing is what's wrong with the possibility of that?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member 15]

At some point the definition of a failure changed to finishing anything other than first.

That's being a little holier than thou. No one said second was failure(but for some teams I understand that it is). But most competitions do not want a team to get 32nd place.

We can't all win. We can't all be top ten. And my thing is what's wrong with the possibility of that?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

I think you read something into my comment that wasn't intended.

Here is part of something I published just over a year ago:
The days of celebrating finishing anything other than first ended when we decided to create a separate division for every team. You can do a cartwheel, but not a back handspring, here’s a level for you. Oh, you have a back handspring, but not a tuck, here’s a level for you. A tuck, but no full, how about this option? You only have 20 people on your team, how about small divisions? You only have 100 people in your gym, how about small gym divisions? You can only find a few guys, how about Small Coed divisions? You can stunt, but not tumble, how about Level 4.2? How can a team get accustomed to celebrating a 3rd place finish when they are more likely to be in a division by themselves than a division with 3 teams in it?

 

[Mclovin]

While I definitely believe we need our level play, I don't think we need our divisions separated out as much as they are. I took a team to NCA and they placed 2nd. We were very happy with their placement. But our division was separated out by Small Gym, teams with 18 and under on the team, and teams with 19-20 on their team. What I am always asking myself is where would we have placed if all of those divisions were combined? Placing 2nd out of 6 is good, but placing top 5 out of 20-30 would have been even better, IMO.

 

[indiglow]

I say get rid of the small gym division and then adjust the age groups and then that should put more teams into each division/level.

Maybe something like:
Tiny 6 and under (level 1)
Youth 9 and under (level 1-2)
Junior 13 and under (levels 1-4)
Senior 12 - 18 (Level 2-5)
(Intentionally have 12 & 13 yr old able to be Jr or Sr)

 

[tumbleyoda]

At some point the definition of a failure changed to finishing anything other than first.

That's being a little holier than thou. No one said second was failure(but for some teams I understand that it is). But most competitions do not want a team to get 32nd place.

We can't all win. We can't all be top ten. And my thing is what's wrong with the possibility of that?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

A mantra often repeated and recited is 2nd place is the 1st loser. Personally I disagree but I do get the sentiment. Unfortunatley what has happened is that winning takes on so much more than just the sporting/competition mindset. It is not that we won but we beat you which means we are better than you which means your gym is not as good as ours. Again just reading these boards and no one celebrates we got 2nd , 3rd or lower no matter who deep the division is. As much as we want to say that it is just the kids saying this I also think the adults contribute. Then as I have posted before the business side creeps into it and adds a whole bunch more pressure into winning or else. So often it is this that makes people want to be in easy divisions.

My goal is always top 3 for every team regardless of division esp if they hit. But the first goal is to hit then deal with the rest. If we hit and win great. If we don't hit and win, maybe we got away with one. If we don't hit and don't win - get back to work.