Gymkhana — Competitive Teams

Welcome to the exciting sport of competitive gymnastics. Gymkhana has had a competitive team program for over twenty years. During this time, our program
and coaches have produced high level gymnasts at all levels (except elite) who have qualified to many state, regional and national level meets. Some have received full and/or partial gymnastics scholarships to college. Gymkhana is a member of the
Tri-State gymnastics association. Tri-State sponsors many of our competitions. They also hove a team championship for each level. Gymkhana competes under the
auspices of USA Gymnastics, which is the national governing body for the sport of gymnastics in America. USAG sponsors competition for levels 4 through 10 and elite (national and international). International elites are the gymnasts you see on television, competing in the Olympics and world championships. These athletes work out two times a day, six days a week. Our coaches have the expertise to instruct at this level, but we have chosen not to be directed toward this level. We have consistently developed gymnasts through level 10. We have done this while training
at least one day a week less and 4 - 8 hours less than most of our competitors at the higher levels. We take great pride in this aspect of our program. We also provide a
wonderful environment for our gymnasts to grow. We pride ourselves on treating our gymnasts as individuals, giving them the attention they need to progress. We would like our girls to be involved in gymnastics for a long time. No one can sustain an activity in an overly intense, anxious atmosphere. We give our athletes the information, opportunity and encouragement to succeed. We will not promise you a champion. (We have produced champions at each level we compete in.) However we will work hard to help your child reach their gymnastics potential.

The compulsory program is set up to take the athletes through carefully elevated, progressively harder, gymnastics skills. We can tell how well a gymnast is doing by how well they do at a meet. The girls must compete on all four events, the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. The elements are put together in short routines. Each routine is judged and ascore (the highest possible score being a 10.0.) representing how well she did is assessed. After the meet, sometimes immediately or later at practice, the coach and athlete discuss the performance at the meet and make plans on how to improve.

I mentioned that the girls will be “judged". Even though this is the basis for their ribbons it is not the only factor we use to evaluate their performance. First of all many things are happening during the competition. The girls have to:

1. Get themselves ready to compete, by warming up their skills and acclimating themselves to a different gym and different equipment.

2. Learn how a meet is run.

3. Handle how well they liked their performance, dealing with success and
possible disappointment.

We are continually training the girls to understand how to function at a meet.

As stated the girls are judged the score is the judges opinion of the athlete's routine. The score should rank the routine as to whether it was the best or the worst routine or somewhere in between. We have noticed that different judges have different opinions on similar routines. This is a constant in gymnastics. The Judges work hard to keep up on their ratings and do their job earnestly. That does not mean we always agree with them. Frequently we cannot make sense of them.