ASI Gymnastics announced the release of The Gold Standard: Girls Recreational Gymnastics Program earlier this summer. With staff training now complete, you will see the implementation of The Gold Standard Program in your gym. Our coaches and sales team members are excited about this program because we have raised the bar on how we offer the best gymnastics instruction to every child at their level. We made our best, better.
The Gold Standard Program has a strong foundation in the use of progressions in conjunction with strengthening and conditioning skills to build a well-rounded athlete from the beginning of her gymnastics career. Progressions are the safest and most effective way to teach a child gymnastics. A progression will teach a child every aspect of the skill, build it up, and then put the pieces together to form a strong, safe skill. Progressions are not only the safest way to teach gymnastics, but also allow every child to feel success with a skill before they have it independently on the apparatus.
In the video below, Jules is doing some of our back roll progressions. For example, a back roll can be broken down into different components before a gymnast can complete it on the floor.
Back Roll Progression Video
Jules is a beginning level gymnast. 1) You can see her begin with a back safety roll on the floor. This is teaching her the rolling back and up action of the roll. 2) She then moves to a panel mat which gives her height off the floor, allowing her to learn the pushing action required from her upper body and the rolling action of the hips to create the roll. 3) She moves the back roll to the cheese mat where she puts the rolling action of the back safety roll and the pushing action from the roll off the panel mat together to perform a back roll on an incline. 4) Once she is successful at that, she moves half-way down the cheese mat where she starts from a stretch position and completes the roll on less of an incline. 5) The final step in the progression would be to try it on the floor.
Progressions also allow coaches to isolate different areas of a skill and fix any errors faster. By doing the progressions, we can see that Jules is great at lifting her hips and rolling, but lacks some upper body strength and technique of pushing with her hands to complete the roll. The coach can take her back to the drill on the panel mat to build the muscles needed and the technique so Jules can successfully perform her back roll on the floor.
In conjunction with our focus on progressions, we have built side stations into our program that build muscle and correct body shape in the skills our athletes perform. With the back roll, Jules can be doing push ups in a hollow shape to help her feel the pushing action and back safety rolls to build core muscles and feel the rolling back and up action of the back roll. Every skill in our Gold Standard program is built with this regimen. Each level increases the difficulty of the skill and continues to build on the foundation created in the previous level.
In the coming weeks, you will receive a new skill poster for your daughter to keep at home. Ask your daughter’s coach or a sales representative any questions you have about our new Gold Standard. We look forward to building a better best instruction for your child at their level.
Q: There are more skills on the skill poster, can my child go down a level?
A: No. No gymnast can demote in our program. Most of the added skills are conditioning skills that will be done during practice at an apparatus or during warm up/cool down. These are improving the shapes your gymnast can hold while doing her gymnastics.
Q: What can I do to help my daughter get to team?
A: Any conditioning skills on the skill poster can be done at home to help her gain strength and muscle endurance. She can also join a Tumbling class to progress her tumbling skills faster.
Q: Why does Gold have the least amount of skills?
A: Gold is the exact skills that are required for level 1 of our competitive program. These skills are the foundation of everything she will need to carry her through her gymnastics career. Once she completes Girls Gold, she can enter our level 1 team and immediately start learning her level 2 skills.
Q: Why is my daughter not practicing her cartwheel every week?
A: Our Gold Standard is a more focused program. Every two weeks our coaches are given lesson plans that give them a focus on each event. This focus allows coaches and gymnast to focus on a certain element and perfect it. Giving a child one thing to focus on, makes it easier to accomplish what is being asked of them.
Q: What are the most important skills my daughter will begin learning?
A: Your daughter will begin learning the three basic shapes in gymnastics: hollow, straight, and arch. She will also focus on the four basic tumbling elements used on all events: front roll, back roll, handstand, and cartwheel. These basic elements are used in every skill in gymnastics. We will use a lot of different drills and progressions to build these skills from the beginning of her gymnastics career.
Q: Are the preschool, boys gymnastics, or tumbling programs changing too?
A: They are not changing right now; however, we are constantly looking for ways to make our best better. We are looking at the changes we have made in our girls program to see how these changes affect our other programs.