Doing the Same Skills/Drills Over and Over?

When you are sitting in the parents area watching your child's gymnastics class, have you ever thought or said, "I wonder why they always do the same things week after week?"  Maybe you have heard others saying it and gave it some consideration as well. 

Whether in recreational gymnastics or competitive gymnastics it is vital to their future in gymnastics (no matter what that future holds for your child) to perfect the basics before moving on to a more difficult skill set.  Let's look at a forward roll as an example.  By the time your child reaches Level 3 they will have likely performed thousands of forward rolls and a child will find forward rolls a bit boring.  When you reach Level 3 though, the first skill in their routine is a handstand-forward roll.  If your child has not perfected the forward roll, how will they fair doing a forward roll from handstand?  Then in Level 5 this forward roll becomes a dive forward roll and in Level 6 a punch front. 

So while it may seem like your child is not learning anything by doing the same skill week after week, it is building the foundation that is going to be necessary to achieve higher levels of gymnastics.  If you are concerned that your child has been doing the same skill for an extraordinary amount of time, talk to the instructor to see how close your child is from evaluation for the next level and/or what things are holding him or her back.