Wildcard Gymnastics Team News

This week we have Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 girls competing at Altius.  Last week, almost all of the gymnasts had their mental training homework done.  We would like the Level 2s to also complete that homework too.  The posters were really awesome to see and the kids really put a lot of effort in to create them.

We are continuing with the theme of hitting routines and being mentally prepared for our competitions.  We really want the gymnasts to understand that it takes a lot of mental practice to get to a meet and hit routines or have the perfect meet.   This week’s homework addresses that Perfect Routine or Perfect Meet and enables the gymnasts to focus on how that feels, what kind of self-talk they use, and what their mind and body does during that time. It combines imagery and visualization with a positive perspective which is just as important as practicing gymnastics routines thousands of times.

Please encourage your child to do this week’s mental training homework, as well as last week’s homework so that she/he can achieve success! Click the link below for the .pdf worksheet.

Sticking It- Altius Meet Homework

Wild Wild West Meet — The volunteer schedule for the 2014 Wild Wild West Classic is up and live. We will be doing it online. Please sign up. We know we always have a lot of help, but this is a big meet, so we need all the help we can get. At this point, we have all four meet captains spaces reserved. We appreciate your help. Here is the link to the meet volunteer list:

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F0C4DAEA82AA7FE3-2014

Wild Wild West Meet Date Clarification — The Wild Wild West Classic is Oct. 18-19, not Oct. 17-18 as originally posted. The blog has been updated.

It’s Meet a Meet Week! — Gymnasts should wear their shiny new exhibition leotards to practice tonight and tomorrow.

Schedule Changes for Next Week — With the Level 2s competing on Saturday, Oct. 5 at Altius, their practice will be moved from 4:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 4. Any gymnast competing Level 2 should practice on Friday. Any gymnast competing Level 3 will practice on Saturday as scheduled. TOPs will be determined later.

Boys’ Sheboygan Meet/Regional Clinic — The boys’ regional clinic and Sheboygan meet will overlap, we have official confirmation. The regional clinic is all-day Saturday and Sunday morning. The Sheboygan Meet, which will serve as the boys’ mock meet, is on Sunday. So, our suggestion is that the boys participate in both the clinic and the mock meet.

The Sunday portion of the clinic is more open work out style and the attention will be paid more to those in Future Stars (which none of our boys are eligible for). It is only a three-hour work out. They will benefit more from the Sheboygan meet in preparation for the regular competition. Please let us know by Oct. 1 your intentions to participate in the Regional Clinic. All boys are being entered in the Sheboygan meet as part of the meet fees.

Reed is expected to attend the Regional Clinic.

Girls’ Level 3s/Saturday TOPs — Due to the Girls’ Level 3s participation in the Swiss Cup on Saturday, Sept. 27, the Girls’ Level 3s should come to practice on Friday, Sept. 26 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Those in Level 3/2 and are not competing in this meet should come to the regular Saturday practice.

Any Girls’ Level 3s in TOPs should not come to TOPs practice on Saturday as they will be competing later that day. Those not competing until Sunday should come at the regularly scheduled Saturday time.

Fund-raising — All fund-raising has been distributed. If your child hasn’t received the fund-raising packets, please see a coach.

Non-Practicing Children and Gymnasts Waiting for Practice — As a safety measurement for your child and those in the gym, we again ask that all gymnasts waiting for practice not be on any equipment except for floor stretching. The chance of injury greatly increases when a gymnast is unsupervised on equipment.

Additionally, if your child is here during a time in which they are not scheduled to practice, it is important that they are not on any equipment as well for the same reason. Children here during sibling’s practices should be with a parent or in the playroom. There have been times in which several children have been playing in the front running through the lobby nearly knocking over adults who are coming in the building. Thank you for your understanding.

Wild Wild West Classic Meet Schedule, Volunteer Opportunities and Donations — Parents, this is our largest home meet ever (even larger than optional state). There are 467 gymnasts registered for this meet (to give an idea, last year’s Wild Wild West Classic had 162 entries). We will have 5 sessions on Saturday, Oct. 18, and 4 on Sunday, Oct. 19. The full meet schedule will be out Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

We are confident the great show we put on for Optional State is the reason why gyms chose our meet. We need to put that same kind of good show on so gyms will continue to come to our meets. We want to be known for running great competitions.

With the meet being so large, we are definitely needing the help on Thursday with tear down and organization, Friday with decoration, Saturday and Sunday with meet administration and Sunday evening with tear down. We will need every family to help out in some way (boys’ given your commitment for that weekend, we understand if you can’t commit to the competition, but there will be opportunities on Wednesday and Thursday of meet week). With the number of families we have on our competitive and soon-to-be competing teams (including Fast Track and Gold Bugs II), we should be able to have  families just participate in one or two sessions to cover all our needs. If that isn’t the case, some families will be here more than that and that isn’t fair.

We will have our four captains as usual and those volunteers will get a month’s tuition for one child, but bear in mind that attendance on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is mandatory to receive this discount.

The general meet schedule is as follows:

Saturday, 8 a.m. — Non Wildcard Level 2s
Saturday, 10:05 a.m. — Level 3s (age 8 and 11)
Saturday, 12:45 p.m. — Level 3s (ages 6, 7 and 10)
Saturday, 3:20 p.m. — Level 3s (age 9, 12-up)
Saturday, 6 p.m. — Level 5s (no Wildcard gymnasts)

Sunday, 8 a.m. — Level 4s (ages 9-under, 11)
Sunday, 10:45 a.m. — Level 4s (age 10, 12-up)
Sunday, 1:20 p.m. — Level 2s
Sunday, 3:45 p.m. — Xcel Silver, Xcel Gold, Level 6s, Level 8s

With another meet coming up this weekend, here is a great way to get your gymnast to have their perfect performance.  Please encourage your gymnast to do the 12 Steps for Hitting in preparation for each meet and complete the attached homework assignment.  This will give your gymnast that competitive edge.  Mental training is just as important as the physical training.  Click the “Hitting Routines” link below for a .pdf version that you can print out and use.

Hitting Routines

Ask any gymnast what piece of equipment that they would like to have at Wildcard and they will almost unanimously tell you they’d like a foam training pit. (For those of you not familiar with this, “a foam pit” is a an in-ground hole filled with soft foam pieces where gymnasts can try higher level skills with confidence and safety.  We feel it is about time that Wildcard fundraises for a foam pit. We think a pit would be a fantastic training aid for our gymnasts and would enable them to achieve even greater success.

So once again, Wildcard’s competitive team will be selling pasta, fudge, coffee, and cookies. We have raised quite a bit of funds with Fun Pasta and Java Joes Fundraising in the past and feel it will help us work toward our foam pit!  (All Gold Bugs, Fast Track, Girls’ Level 2-8, Boys’ Team and Xcel are expected to help fundraise as the pit will be for everyone!)

Our goal is that every gymnast sells 20 items or more. Wildcard earns about 50% off all total sales. Obviously, the more items sold, the sooner we can put in a foam pit! Pasta orders may be placed online at:

https://www.funpastafundraising.com/shop/wildcard-gymnastics.

Cookie dough, fudge, and coffee will also be available for purchase online at:

www.javajoesfundraising.com.

Orders will be due by November 15^th. Please double check your order forms and be sure that your orders are correct. Checks should be made payable to Wildcard Gymnastics. (We know that some gymnasts have fundraising commitments for other sports, scouts, and school.  If you would prefer to not participate, we do have a buy-out option.  Please inquire about the buy-out option, if you want to do that instead. Remember, that we are trying to raise money for something that everyone at the gym will use so we need everyone’s help to get us to our fundraising goal.)

Selling Tips:

• Please encourage your child to wear their leotard/warmups/Wildcard t-shirt when they sell. Or have your gymnast create a poster showing themselves doing gymnastics and detailing that they are trying to raise money for new equipment. Parents, we definitely appreciate any help with the fundraiser but have your child help with it. After all, the pit will be for their use.
• The fundraising packets have order forms for pasta, coffee, cookies, and fudge, as well as a current Wildcard brochure and a business card. Feel free to ask for more of any of these if you need them.
• Please feel free to share on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Vine!
• Please don’t wait until the last minute. Remember, orders are due Nov. 20.

Corporate Sponsorship Opportunities are available!

Wildcard is looking for some corporate sponsors to help fund the pit. Wildcard will gladly advertise the names of any companies that help with the costs for putting in the foam pit. Wildcard would put the sponsoring company’s logos on our website, a banner and flyers at the gym, special thanks on our gyms’ media displays, and visibility with 500- 2000 people at our competitions (hosted 2-3 times per year) and 300 – 900 people weekly in the gym. Please contact us at 262-923-7418 or email us at gymnastics@wildcard-gymnastics.com for more information about sponsorship opportunities.

Anyone competing this weekend is to wear the new long sleeve leotards for the Judges’ Barnyard Bash in Kenosha.

Meet Fees — The final installment of meet fees for girls’ Level 2-4 is due on Sept. 15. This will be automatically deducted from your card on file if you have not already made payment.

The first installment for all boys, girls’ Level 6-8 and all Xcel is due on Sept. 15. This will be automatically deducted from your card on file if you have not already made payment.

As a reminder, those fees are:

Those fees are:
Girls’ Level 2: $65 (last payment)
Girls’ Level 3: $145 (last payment)
Girls’ Level 4: $150 (last payment)
Girls’ Level 6: $195 (first of four payments)
Girls’ Level 8/9: $200 (first of four payment)
Boys’ Level 4: $160 (first of four payments)
Boys’ Level 5: $200 (first of four payments)
Boys’ Level 8: $200 (first of four payments)
Girls’ Xcel Silver: $140 (first of three payments)
Girls’ Xcel Gold: $140 (first of three payments)

Gold Bugs II and Fast Track, your first installment of three of meet fees will be due November 15. Those meet fees are $195 and will be paid in three installments of $65 each.

Optional Groups — The optional groups will maintain the same for one more week. The first week, there were just two practices and no Saturday. As a result, we will hold off changing the groups for at least one more week, so the group will get an adequate amount of practice time. So far, some of the groups have really worked well together, which is what we hoped for.

Exhibition Letoards — The replacement exhibition leotards are in. But, of course, GK made CM instead of AM leotards.  They are sending the AM asap so those are still not here yet. We have 30 days to collect all the first round of exhibition leotards to send back. Please bring in your leotard and exchange it for a new leotard (if you received it… there were a few who didn’t get one the first time around).  We will not give out the new ones without receiving the old exhibition in exchange.

Also, remember that this Friday (and Saturday) is the Friday (and Saturday) of a meet week. Typically, we’ve asked the gymnasts to wear purple on those Fridays (and Saturdays). This year, we are asking gymnasts to wear these new exhibition leotards. For those gymnasts who practice this Friday, just bring the first exhibition leotard to practice to exchange it for the replacement. Level 2s should try to bring it tonight (Thursday). For the Xcel group, we will exchange it for you on Wednesday of next week.

Fund-Raising — Be on the look out for fund-raising soon. We will again be doing pasta, coffee and cookies. Those of you who have been selling for years, please know that these perform well annually despite the fact that you’ve been selling to the same people for years. Again, the goal is to raise money for a foam pit. Unfortunately, the City of Brookfield decided to invest our dollars into road improvements without asking our opinion and the foam pit was put on hold this summer.

Remember, we have no booster club. We do not want to go to that model. We don’t think it works well for parents. We have recently seen what other booster clubs are charging for meet fees and those fees are triple what we charge for fewer meets in addition to having an annual fee and being charged if you don’t volunteer at events. All we ask of you is two fund-raisers, participation in the summertime shows and some help at our two meets.

Hawaii — The Hawaii trip is definitely on! We have met the minimum families to make the trip. If you are in any way interested, please pay the meet fee by Monday, Sept. 15. This fee is fully refundable up through the end of December, so if you are unable to go, we can certainly get you a refund. The meet fee is $100. You can confirm your spot with an e-mail and we will bill your card on file on Monday.  Remember, we are willing to chaperone some gymnasts if parents are not able to make the trip to Hawaii.  (This would make a fabulous graduation, birthday, Christmas gift!!! And the team bonding is amazing!)

Also those of you who have indicated you are going (Brown, Davis, Fowler, Krause, Literski, Robinson … please advise if we’ve missed anyone), let us know your travel plans. If individuals are interested in group travel, we can certainly explore that. We’re looking at a Jan. 15-Jan. 22 dates for travel. Regardless, let us know of your planned travel dates and we can try to work a group flight discount. Only 10 is needed to secure group travel.

Open Gym — The return of Friday and Saturday night open gym starts this weekend (8:30-10 p.m. Fridays, 7-9 p.m. Saturdays). Remember, if your child is competing in the morning on a Saturday, they shouldn’t stay for Friday open gym. Cost is $8 for team members and $2 for pizza and soda on Friday nights only.

Meet Schedules — Here is a reminder of the meet schedules for the teams who will be competing in the winter/spring months. There have been a few modifications as meets have moved dates or, in some cases, locations.

Boys
Oct. 16 — Sheboygan YMCA (Sheboygan, YMCA, serves as mock meet, Levels 4-5)
Dec. 13-14 — Judges Invitational (Racine, all levels)
Jan. 3-4 — Altius Invitational (Franklin, all levels)
Jan. 10-11 — M&M Challenge (Waukesha, all levels)
Jan. 30 — Snowflake Invitational (Sheboygan, YMCA, Level 4)
Feb. 7-8 — Wildcard Cruise Classic (Brookfield, all levels)
Feb. 21-22 — Hang 10.0 Invitational (Kenosha, all levels)
Mar. 6-8 — Salto National Invitational (West Allis, Levels 5, 8)
Mar. 21-22 — State Championships (Waukesha, all levels)
Apr. 21-22 — Region 4 Championships (Brookfield, Levels 5, 8)

Girls’ Level 2 (Gold Bugs & Fast Track)
Feb. 7-8 — Wildcard Cruise Classic (Brookfield, USAG)
Feb. 21-22 — Hang 10.0 Invitational (Kenosha, USAG)
Mar. 21-22 — GymTastics Invitational (Watertown, AAU)
Apr. 11 — Carousel Invitational (Plover, AAU)

Girls’ Level 6-10
Oct. 19 — Wild Wild West Classic (Brookfield, AAU, serves as mock meet, Levels 6-8/9)
Nov. 1-2 — M&M Halloween Luau (New Berlin, Levels 6-8/9)
Dec. 19-21 — Buffalo Grove Invitational (Schaumburg, Ill, Levels 6-8/9)
Jan. 10-11 — M&M Challenge (Waukesha, Levels 6-8/9)
Jan. 31-Feb. 1 — St. Valentine Invitational (Grayslake, Ill., Levels 6-8/9)
Feb. 7-8 — Wildcard Cruise Classic (Brookfield, Levels 6-8/9)
Feb. 21-22 — Hang 10.0 Invitational (Kenosha, Levels 6-8/9)
Mar. 14-15 — LGA Lucky Invitational (Waukegan, Ill., Levels 6, 8/9)
Mar. 28-29 — State Championships (Franklin, Levels 6, 8/9)

Girls’ Xcel
Oct. 18-19 — Wild Wild West Classic (Brookfield, AAU, serves as mock meet)
Jan. 24-25 — Altius Pink Meet (Franklin)
Feb. 7-8 — Wildcard Cruise Classic (Brookfield)
Feb. 21-22 — Hang 10.0 Invitational (Kenosha)
Mar. 14-15 — LGA Lucky Invitational (Waukegan, Ill.)
Mar. 21-22 — State Championships (New Berlin)

Girls’ Off Season Compulsories (Moving Up to Next Level)
Feb. 7-8 — Wildcard Cruise Classic (Brookfield, USAG, $65, Due Dec. 1)
Feb. 21-22 — Hang 10.0 Invitational (Kenosha, USAG, $75, Due Dec. 15)
Mar. 21-22 — GymTastics Invitational (Watertown, AAU, $40, Due. Feb. 1)
Apr. 11 — Carousel Invitational (Plover, AAU, $40, Due. Feb. 1, open to Level 6s as well)