Frequently Asked Questions
What season is Girls Gymnastics? And when does the season start?
Girls Gymnastics is a Winter sport. It starts in early to mid-November, depending on the year. Keep an eye on our Schedule page for the specific date!
How does the season work? What's the schedule like?
We have practices Mon-Fri, unless there's a meet on a given day. Meets typically begin in the 4th week of the season, and are generally on Thursday evenings. Regular Season consists of 6 to 7 meets against local teams. Post Season starts after the last Regular Season meet, and is best described as the 'Road to State.' Post Season meets are on weekends, and consist of KingCo, Districts, and State. Some years the KingCo and Districts meets are combined.
What should I wear for practices?
Leotards, either alone or with tights or spandex shorts, are required. If you don't have a leotard, workout leotards are fairly cheap and well worth the investment. Tight fitting T-shirts and shorts are acceptable during warmups only if you have a leotard underneath. Sweaters and sweatpants are okay only during our warm up. Loose clothing is otherwise completely unacceptable; it is likely to get caught on equipment, or to come off/get tangled during spotting, greatly increasing your risk of injury.
What do we wear for meets?
We have a school issued 'uniform' for meets. It consists of a leotard and warm-up jacket in school colors. You do not get to keep them after the season is over.
What is a typical meet like?
A typical meet has a warm up period starting at 5:30pm. It consists of 15 minutes of open warm ups and stretching on the floor, and then a rotation of 15 minutes on each event. After warm ups, there's a 'march in' and then the meet start at 7pm. Each team competes each event in a rotation, and the competition period ends at around 9pm. At the end, there's a brief awards ceremony, where the top 10-15 gymnasts on each event and all around are recognized.
How does the scoring work?
In high school gymnastics, we use the 10.0 start value system. On each event (except vault, where the vault skill you choose has a start value) there is a list of requirements worth certain point values, and the more you can do the higher your start value, and therefore your score. There's an even larger list of possible ways to get deducted, from general breaks in form, to more vague 'did it look easy.'
To get a team score, each team takes the 5 best scores from each event and adds them up. This means the theoretical maximum score is a 200.0. In example, if you had an extremely good team that scored 9.0 across everything, your team score would end up as 180.0 (5 gymnasts, each with a 9.0 score on one event equals 45, add in 45 for each of the other 3 events, you get 180).
Can parents/family/friends come watch a meet?
Absolutely! Most meets have a small entry fee, but all are welcome to attend and cheer on the gymnasts. Just keep on your best behavior, and don't use flash photography.