How to choose rhythmic gymnastics school and coach

Rhythmic gymnastics, which harmoniously combines physical and aesthetic development, attracts many girls and their parents a lot. All the positive results which the gymnasts achieve in their training process make this sport more popular. Multidimensional gymnastics education influences on the personal development. Time will show if a girl has a talent, meanwhile thoughtful parents wish to develop their child abilities, feeling the responsibility for their future. If a girl is really gifted, then in what gymnastics school should she study and develop her talent?

Even a very qualified coach can’t define a little girl as a champion at once. Neither quick and successful start nor inborn abilities guarantee the Olympic gold and other prizes. Gymnast can confidently achieve the pedestal but retire unexpectedly. Or vice versa, she can be at the medium level for a long time, but suddenly open and amaze everybody.

Coach plays an important role in the development of a rhythmic gymnast. Parents understand that and they are interested in a good rhythmic gymnastics school or club with a great coach.

Here’re several criteria parents should take into account choosing the school and the coach for their little gymnast.

Coach

What do you and your daughter want to achieve in sport career?

Before you start searching for a coach it’s important to know what a young gymnast wants to achieve, her goals in rhythmic gymnastics. Very often children’s goals differ from the parents’ ones. Wise parents do understand that there’s no need to impose their sport preferences, as it’s risky and inefficient, so they should take into account their child’s opinion. But they can presuppose anything concerning her career and bring up a future gymnast (if there’s no medical contraindications) until she starts to understand the conception of elite sport. Getting older a girl starts to realise if everyday hard and exhausting trainings satisfy her goals.

Girls often have the following goals: beautiful body, upright posture, gait, health, popularity among their classmates, aesthetic pleasure, flexibility, strength, endurance, sport career, high level mastery, awards, medals, world fame.

The more serious and long-term goals gymnast has, the better she’s ready to train hard and effectively.

How to achieve these goals and the coach can help?

Taking into account that coach’s personal qualities and experience play a fundamental role in gymnastics achievements, the following things should be in attention:

·         Personal sport experience of the coach. Competitions she took part, her prizes and awards, her coach.

·         Coach’s experience.  Know how long she’s working as a coach, what competitions her students take part in, their sport career

·         Progress in coach’s work. Gymnasts’ development in technique, their achievements during the period of several years, quantity of successful students – are the indicators of a promising and developing coach.

·         Objectivity and insistence on high standards.Coach should objectively indicate the mistakes, stimulate the desire and determination to correct them, she should notice good results and praise in time. Severity and insistence on high standards should neighbor delicacy, kindness and understanding.

·         Understanding . Gymnasts spend a lot of time with their coach, which plays a mom’s role, so to speak. It’s important to understand every gymnast, to find an individual approach, demonstrate equal and kind attitude to gymnasts. Girls should hurry for a training with joy and great desire, and go to the gym under the pressure.

To be ideal, the coach should have the experience you want to achieve, she also should be able to share this experience. If it’s health, then coach should be healthy, if it’s world and European tournaments, she should have the corresponding prizes or gymnasts who won them.

Learn more about the coach and her students. Talk to her personally on the topics you’re interested in. Take into account the opinion of other people interested in it, watch her working, her attitude to the gymnasts during the training. But the best determinant will be your daughter’s reaction on the coach. Despite the subjectivity of all these moments, they allow to see the whole picture and take a deliberate decision.

Coach and gymnast share

It’s important for parents to understand that coach and gymnast share responsibility for sport progress. Coach will always help, suggest, teach, but these will be vain attempts without gymnast’s sincere devotion and great desire. That means it’s necessary to pay attention to the factors which depend on the gymnast.

Coach’s role in the development of the qualities, necessary for gymnast’s main achievements

A girl should have the following qualities in order to reach the peaks in Rhythmic Gymnastics:

·         Intention to win, gain prime medals

·         purposefulness, perseverance, ability to work

·         coordination, attention, good memory, musicality, artistry

·         ability to concentrate, mobilize or relax in the fullness of time

However, if health perfection or harmonic many-sided development are the main goals, then  the above mentioned qualities can be not so strong.

Anyway professional coach will pay attention to mistakes and progress, select the methods for filling gaps of necessary qualities, notice and fix every little step up in the gymnast’s development. Taking into account the fact, that prospects of future gymnast will be obvious after the year of regular training, arm yourself in patience and just support your child.

Sport Club

Equipment necessary for main goals achievement

It’s important that the gym meets the special technique and sanitary requirements for good training and teaching process:

·         competition carpet size is usually 12x12m, that’s why good gym for training is 24x12m, 30х18m, 36х18m;

·         gym with a high ceiling is recommended for work with apparatus (10m)

·         gym design, ventilation, lighting, humidity, temperature conditions should comply with standards

·         flat floors covered with the carpet

·         hole full with foamed rubber mats at the place where gymnast is probable to fall doing the most complicated elements

·         falling restraints for gymnasts doing the high-injury level elements (twisting belt)

·         ballet bar, mirrors, gymnastics ladder built in the walls, they help to master the technique and take care of the right posture

Where is the appropriate sport club?

Find out where the nearest gym is situated. How do its conditions correspond with your goals? Are there any alternatives? It’s good when the gym is near your home as everyday training takes a lot of time, and it’s better to save it.

What if your coach works in the gym you don’t like?

What to choose in this case? Everybody will have their own arguments and important reasons, but we should emphasize one thing. A child will hardly learn anything without the expert coach even in the best equipped gym. But training even in ordinary conditions with the good teacher you can enjoy palpable results.

Coming to the conclusion

Those who live in a big city or a capital can easily come to the best coach at the elite club. But what should the children from the small towns do? Their exercises can be held in the club, school sport gym, sport school or sport palace with various conditions and opportunities.  Will they be able to develop their gymnastics abilities and show their pace?

Great amount of sport schools brought up and prepared more than one Olympic star. Initially, everybody is taken there, but later only the strongest and toughest remain, those who are ready for everyday hard work and serious competition. Does your daughter really want to become a champion? Or you just dream about it? Perhaps, you should lower the bar of your expectations giving the priorities to health, grace and beauty, as rhythmic gymnastics gives to teens useful knowledge and habits besides the Olympic medals.

So if you’re grimly determined to train, choose the appropriate coach and a gym. Give to your girl an opportunity to start the training and develop her natural abilities. Soon the first results will appear. If a gymnast can master complicated technical elements, she will surely go to the competitions, and the coaches from more elite schools will notice her. That means that she has a chance to win the courtesy titles of the most important tournaments. But if her abilities are not so promising, don’t be upset, because gracefulness, flexibility, posture, gait, sense of rhythm, aesthetic skills, self-confidence, ability to take control in any situation will remain and can become a support in life. Skills she gets at the trainings won’t disappear.

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