- Mar 31, 2010
- 1,399
- 810
Coming from a small gym, with probably less than 60 kids overall, it is a definite advantage for me to compete in the small gym category. We do not have full squads, we don't have the choice of multiple levels for the same age group. We put everyone on a team, and more often than not, it's by age, not skill.
I don't have the same amount of athletes to pull from to create my team as a large gym does. I don't have the same caliber athletes, with the same dedication, as big gyms do. I will never have full team tumbling. This puts me at a disadvantage at every competition.
As a coach, I do my best to improve each girls' skills and to create the best routine I can, given the ability level overall, and I'm seeing success this year. However, I do cringe occassionally when seeing certain gyms in my division knowing there isn't a chance for us... It's not about the winning vs losing, as much as it's competing against "like" teams. Teams that have the same challenges I have.
I've personally never seen a large gym abuse the small gym category. I know we've had to actually register for "small gym" when we signed up originally with certain producers because one time we forgot and were automatically added to the large gym category by default.
This is why I don't like the Small Gym division. (we have 3 teams and 60 kids, btw)
Why can't you have the same caliber of athletes? Why aren't they dedicated? Why will you NEVER have full team tumbling? If you go in feeling like its an insurmountable task to compete with the larger teams, then you probably never will be competitive with them.
When I look at a schedule and see that we're against a gym that has 6+ teams is competing against for example our Sr 3.
They'll most likely also have a sr 4 or 5, which tells me that their kids that have standing tucks or layouts or better are most likely not on their Sr 3.
This will put them against my sr 3 that has:
full squad toe touch 2 back handsprings
5 kids who don't have a running tuck yet 2 are basically there, just not consistently doing it on their own yet
6 kids with layouts or better (which means good clean speciality passes to tuck)
The other 9 all have round off bhs tucks
I don't see where my gym is at a disadvantage.