Friday, 8 January 2010

How much Difficulty is Too Much Difficulty?

In gymnastics today high difficulty in routines is emphasized over form and execution and this has led to junior gymnasts routines to become more and more difficult. Junior competitions to me are often more interesting than Senior competitions with the top juniors often becoming injured before they become seniors. My question is how do we determine how much difficulty is too much especially at younger ages and for those juniors who have a great amount of talent? Where is the line of not holding gymnasts back and preventing them for doing too much too soon so they make it to senior?

A few examples on youtube highlight this: One is Rose Kalam Woo who is 9 years old and trains in Canada at Gym Richelieu. She has a wide range of difficult skills in her routines including: double pike on floor, double front dismount on bars and double back dismount off beam. Below is her beam routine from this year:

I'm not saying I don't like to watch these routines becasue I do and am amazed at how many skills she can perform with reasonably good form but does a 9 year old need to be performing a side somi, free cartwheel, free walkover+back flip and a double back dismount? Perhaps this was too much as highlighted by the 2 falls. What do you guys think?

Another example is Tyesha Mattis who is a ten year old from East London Gymnastics Club in England. Her skills include shoot half and geinger on bars, dbl pike on floor and. On facebook there is also a video of her performing a full in which she has done on the hard floor! again she is an amazing talent but in the UK she will not even be able to perform these skills until she is 12-13 years old. Training montage below:

I'm not criticizing anyone for this it happens everywhere these are just 2 examples but I just don't want talented juniors talent to be wasted if they burn out or are injured before they get to senior level. Let me know your opinions.

3 comments:

  1. maybe they should put a cap on the level of difficulty the juniors can have.

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  2. What is the highest level gymnast you have coached and how old are you? Not wishing too put you down but critisism is easy. in a sport like gymnastics where boundaries are constantly being challenged there needs to be people who are going too push the envelope inevitably there will be misjudgements but in the main without bravery and courage the sport will wither and die

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