Pre-Competitive

Program description

The step between the recreational floor and the squad. Two or three evenings a week, the same apparatus taken more slowly and more precisely, and a first look at routines.

Entry is by assessment — ask at the desk and we will find an evening for your gymnast to come and be watched.

Two hours is long enough to train properly. A session starts with a full warm-up and conditioning block — flexibility, core, and the ankle and shoulder work that protects a body doing this much repetition — and only then moves onto apparatus. Gymnasts spend real time on one or two pieces rather than rotating through all five, because precision at this stage comes from doing the same thing many times with a coach correcting it.

The other change is routines. Up to now gymnasts have learned skills. Here they start learning to link them, to music, in an order they have to remember — which is a different kind of difficulty, and the one that separates a gymnast who can do a skill from one who can perform it.

Pre-Competitive at Astro is not yet the competitive squad, and gymnasts in it are not committed to competing. Some move up to the Competitive Stream. Some train here for a year or two and go back to recreational without any fuss. It is a place to find out whether the extra hours are something your child actually wants, before anyone asks the family for nine hours a week.

What it does ask for is consistency. Two evenings a week is the minimum that makes sense, and gymnasts who miss regularly fall behind the group rather than themselves. Three suits those who want the pace.

We keep the group small deliberately. Spaces open when a gymnast moves up, which is why entry is by assessment rather than by booking.

What to expect as a parent

Evenings from 5 to 7, so plan around homework and dinner. Gymnasts need indoor training wear, their own hoop and ball by this stage, hair secured properly, and a full water bottle. Coaches will tell you honestly where your child sits and what they're working towards — ask, and you'll get a straight answer.