Wildcard Gymnastics Team News

Happy Halloween — This is a reminder that there is no team practice tonight. Trick or treat at Alison, Blain, Hallie, Bradyn and West’s neighborhood. Meet at the Fowler house at 5:15 p.m. Trick or treat begins at 5:30 p.m. Please pick up your child by 8:30 p.m. The address is 520 N. Park Blvd. (near Bluemound and Sunnyslope, one mile east of Brookfield Square).

Level 2 Winter/Spring Season Meet Fees — For those gymnasts in our Gold Bugs II competing group, the following is our meet schedule. Meet fees are $155 and includes four meets and membership in AAU. The meet fees are due Nov. 20:

Feb. 8-9 at Midwest Twisters Invitational (Wisconsin Center, Downtown)
Mar. 2 Wildcard Cruise Classic (Wildcard Gymnastics)
Mar. 15-16 at Shamrock Invitational (Gymtastics, Watertown)
April 5 at Carousel Invitational (Carousel Gymnastics, Plover)

Current compulsory level gymnasts will have the opportunity to do these meets as well, most likely, at the next level, starting with the Wildcard home meet in March. Information on fees will come out after the conclusion of the compulsory season.

Xcel Winter/Spring Season Meet Fees — For those gymnasts in our Xcel program, the following is our meet schedule. Meet fees are $220 and includes four meets and membership in USA Gymnastics. Half of these meet fees are due Nov. 20 and the other half are due Jan. 20:

Jan. 25-26 at Altius Pink Ribbon Invitational (Altius, Franklin)
March 2 Wildcard Cruise Classic (Wildcard Gymnastics, Brookfield)
April 12-13 at Midwest Twisters Hartland Invitational (Midwest Twisters, Heartland)
May 3-4 at Xcel State Championships (Scamps, Kenosha)

Xcel gymnasts may pick up an additional meet for an extra $45, competing at the Carousel Invitational in Plover. This is not mandatory.

Xcel gymnasts will also need to purchase the competition leotard for $50. Those orders need to be placed by December 1, so we need your payment for those prior to December 1. Xcel gymnasts may also order the same warm-ups that our other team gymnasts have. Those are $175 and we will let you know the ordering process once we have that re-established through our vendor. The warm-ups are not mandatory.

One Final Thank You — We’d like to re-iterate a giant thank you to all parents and gymnasts who helped with the Wild Wild West Classic. We had 11 teams and visitors from Iowa and Minnesota. We have received nothing but positive reviews and we have all of you to thank for that. Whether you helped tear down the gym or build it back up, helped with scoring, helped with concessions or provided food for our coaches and  judges, we owe you a hearty thank you!

Success at Wild Wild West Classic — We nearly doubled our success wall photos at the Wildcard Cruise Classic. The following gymnasts were added to the success wall (apologies if we miss anyone here). To qualify for the wall, girls’  gymnasts need a first-place finish or a 9.0 (9.5 on Level 2 or 3 vault) or boys’ gymnasts need a 10.0 or higher or a first-place finish:

Boys’ Level 4 — West F. (10.5 on floor, 1st; 10.0 on rings; first on vault; 10.3 on p-bars, 1st; 10.5 on h-bar, 1st; 1st AA)

Boys’ Level 5 — Max Br. (1st on floor, 1st on pommels, 1st on vault, 1st AA); Diego G. (1st p-bars)

Boys’ Level 6 — Myles M. (1st on pommels, 1st on rings, 1st AA)

Boys’ Level 7 — Reed B. (1st on all six events, 12.1 on vault, 1st AA)

Girls; Level 2 — Angela B. (9.0 on beam, 9.1 on floor); Chasity D. (9.1 on beam, 1st); Morgan H. (9.0 on beam, 9.0 on floor); Maggie M. (9.1 on beam); Joey N. (1st on vault, 9.0 on bars, 9.05 on beam, 9.2 on floor, 1st AA)

Girls’ Level 3 — Becky Dee D. (1st on beam); Nadia J. (1st on vault, 1st on bars, 1st on beam, 1st AA); Aaliyah K. (1st bars, 9.025 on floor); Nora L. (1st on vault); Kamryn W. (1st on vault, 1st on bars, 1st on beam, 1st AA)

Girls’ Level 4 — Sofia B. (9.0 on vault); Hattie B. (9.025 on bars, 1st); Madeline C. (9.1 on beam); Bradyn F. (9.05 on floor, 1st; 1st AA); Delaney H. (9.15 on vault, 1st; 9.2 on beam, 1st; 9.35 on floor, 1st; 1st AA); Level 4 Team (1st AA)

Girls’ Level 5 — Izzie L. (1st on beam, 1st on floor, 1st AA); Elie L. (1st on vault); Miley L. (1st on bars, 1st on beam, 1st on floor, 1st AA); Jordan M. (1st on bars); Maddie W. (1st on vault)

Girls’ Level 5 AAU — Hattie B. (1st on bars, 1st on beam, 1st on floor, 1st AA), Sofia B. (9.0 on vault, 1st; 1st on floor, 1st AA)

Girls’ Level 8 AAU — Glenna P. (1st on vault); Anastasia R. (1st on floor); Emma S. (1st on bars, 1st AA); Khalizstall V. (1st on beam)

Cancun Trip — We have plans finalized for the Cancun trip. There still is be space available if anyone is still interested. Here are the details:

Flight out — Frontier charter from O’hare at 8 a.m., Wed., Jan. 15, arriving around 11 a.m.
Hotel — Royal Mayan (hotel next to competition site)
Return flight — Frontier charter to O’Hare at 4:30 p.m., Monday, Jan. 20 arriving around 8:15 p.m.

We will likely take a bus to and from the airport. This itinerary gives us four full days in Cancun and the better part of two others.

Travel cost (estimate is based on four people per room) is $560 and does not include ground transportation.

Meet fees are $120 and are due by Nov. 5. Otherwise, all that is needed is a $50 deposit per person. Girls’ optional gymnasts, coaches will chaperone if you can’t travel with a parent and we will have an adult in each room or connecting rooms.  The meet looks like it will be Saturday only.

For all of Wildcard Gymnastics team information, sign up for e-mail reports at Wildcard’s team blog, wildcard-team.com. For more information, including team information, like Wildcard Gymnastics on Facebook or follow Wildcard Gymnastics on Twitter @wildcardnews. For all the meet results, including previous meet results, season highs, awards, 9.0s and all meet statistics, go to the Wildcard Gymnastics web site, wildcard-gymnastics.com, and click on the team tab.

Wild Wild West Classic Volunteer Opportunities — With Wildcard’s annual fall meet just two-and-a-half weeks away, we are well in the planning stages to host what we hope will be our best meet ever. We have close to 200 gymnasts attending. We are holding all sessions on Saturday, Oct. 26 (if you haven’t seen the meet schedule, it is available on the blog). Boys will be competing in their “mock meet” at this in the first session, as will the optional-level gymnasts in the final session, so virtually all Wildcard’s Team Gymnasts will be competing.

As a result, we will need plenty of help to run the meet. Gymnasts can help where appropriate. We will have the list posted on the wall in the office by the end of Thursday. While we usually have plenty of help, people don’t always indicate what session and duty they are volunteering for so we are left scrambling to get people in the right places. Please sign up so we don’t have that confusion and hectic time prior to the meet. You should volunteer for one session that isn’t your child’s session, so you can see them compete. There are very few volunteer opportunities where you will get to see your child compete the whole time.

Also, not all volunteer opportunities are on Saturday. We will need individuals to build goody bags on Thursday and to help arrange the gym on Thursday night as well as re-arrange the gym on Saturday night.

We are also in need of some area “captains,” someone in charge of a specific area for the whole of the meet. This can be split among people for the course of the day. Areas we need captains for are: concessions, admissions, front desk (phone answering and leotard sales), coaches/judges rooms. We will also need these captains for the Level 2 state meet in December. These captains will be the ones “training” the set of volunteers for each session and will have some general supervisory and decision making duties.

We also encourage everyone to attend multiple sessions, especially the gymnasts. Teams usually do their best at their home meets and that can be accomplished with lots of support.

Success Wall Additions — With the girls’ third meet of the season in the books and the first meet of the season completed for Level 2, we are again acknowledging those gymnasts who scored a 9.0 (9.5 or above for Level 2 and 3 vault). We aren’t sure if this is going to be a weekly thing but we’re taking advantage of the blog post to do it again. As a result, we are going to also acknowledge the first meet successes. Take a look at the wall and encourage your child to earn a spot on it:

Midwest Twisters Meet:
Level 3: Ella J. (vault winner), Aaliyah K. (9.25 on bars, winner on bars), Emily G. (winner on beam)
Level 4: Madeline C. (9.1 on beam), Sofia B. (vault winner)

M&M Meet:
Level 2: Angela B. (9.000 on beam, 9.050 on floor), Ayanna L. (9.050 on floor), Mariyah L. (9.000 on beam), Anya M. (9.050 on floor)
Level 3: Aaliyah K. (9.150 on bars, bars winner, all-around winner), Taylor T. (9.150 on floor, floor winner), Kamryn W. (beam winner)
Level 4: Delaney H. (9.000 on vault, vault winner, floor winner, all-around winner)
Level 5: Elie L. (vault winner)

Bring Competition Leotards on Friday/Saturday — As our usual tradition when we host an invitational meet, we have an introduction video for our team. We need to spend a few minutes on Friday and Saturday filming the gymnasts for the video. If all girls’ gymnasts could bring their competition leotard on Friday (or Saturday for Level 2s) we can accomplish this. It will only take a few minutes and will probably occur during each groups’ conditioning.

And Finally — We want to thank all of you for all that you do for us. We know that the commitment to gymnastics is greater than most youth sports. We appreciate all the time and effort that go into everything we do. Our teams are off to a great start this season. We hope to keep up this momentum for the rest of the season and into the spring boys, optional girls and Xcel seasons.

Team Gymnasts and Parents –

For the next couple weeks we will be talking about building resilience in gymnastics and how to push yourself to be even better at the next competition/practice.  We won’t be printing hard copies this week (since I found so many of them still in mailboxes the past two times), but we highly encourage you to print this page at home and discuss with your gymnasts how to set goals that will include pushing themselves to be even stronger!

Resilience homework