Welcome, GD Nation ya boy Gymnastics Dad is finally back. As with the rest of the world, the last year and a half have been a roller coaster ride.  In the daytime, I masquerade as a software architect, and COVID had increased my workload by something serious.  Fortunately, the work is starting to slow down, so I can get back to being my alter ego, “Gymnastics Dad” (as I rip my shirt open, revealing the GD on my overly tight compression shirt).  This topic was DM’d to me by a parent who wanted my opinion on how to handle her daughter wanting to quit gymnastics after doing it for ..read more

College Recruiting (Myths and Assumptions) Good day readers welcome back to another installment of Gymnastics Dad blog. I haven’t posted in a while because I have been down in the lab developing a new platform called chalkyhandsprofiles.com, where gymnasts can set up and maintain their athletic profiles. I was searching for a profile site to load my daughter’s profile since she is moving to Level 9. After doing some research, I realized that none of the companies I researched offered quite what I was looking for. Having built a similar platform when I was a booster club president, I know the f ..read more

Good day GDN readers. I decided to write this blog from a parent standpoint. A couple of weeks ago, my daughter’s gym opened up, and my wife and I decided to send her back to practice. I posted on Facebook a pic of her going back to practice like it was the first day of school(don’t act like I was the only one). As soon as the picture posted, I received a flood of text messages asking me why I was sending my daughter back and if I thought it was too early. In short, the answers to those questions were “we felt it was time” andddddd “don’t know,” but the real question and the topic of this blog ..read more

  Do Zoom Practice Sessions Really Work? Welcome back parents to another installment of Gymnastics Dad. In this blog, I am going to answer the question do Zoom(virtual) practices really work, and should you pay for them? For those that don’t know what Zoom is. Zoom is a software used for video conferencing. Since this pandemic has taken off, Zoom has become the premier software for teachers. Zoom is the reason why most parents are going to end up in summer school with their child. Zoom must be the luckiest of the lucky as far as companies go. I mean damn, January 30th Zoom was just anothe ..read more

Stay Ready So You Don’t Have To Get Ready.  Hey, Gymnastics Dad Nation, and welcome back to another blog. First and foremost, I want to give a big shoutout to all our frontline workers. You guys are the most amazing people on the planet, bar none! GD Nation and I genuinely appreciate everything you have done and are continuing to do for us. Since the world seems currently on house arrest due to the Coronavirus, I figured I’d write a quick blog to give GD Nation something to do besides vegging out on Netflix’s. As a blogger, you realize how much your daily interactions in life impact your ..read more

Growth vs. Image What Do Parents Value More Welcome back to another installment of the Gymnastics Dad blog. Since I last blogged, my daughter has now completed four competitions at Level 8 and let me say, “gymnastics is hard as a mofo.” The judges in Level 8 are heartless. When I say the judges are heartless, I mean like Ice King, White Walker cruel. I saw them give someone a score of 4.6, now that is just cold-blooded. Here is a photo I took of our last competition judges walking into the meet.   So far, this season has been tough, and there are several factors that go into that, bu ..read more

Finding The Perfect Gym   Hey people, welcome back from the holidays, and I hope everyone enjoyed their time with friends and family. For me, food is always the best part of the season. Below is actual footage someone caught of me eating at Thanksgiving dinner.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?enablejsapi=1&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&modestbranding=0&rel=1&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&" title="YouTube player" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen d ..read more

Surviving the first meet. Welcome back parents, it’s me, “dat dude,” Gymnastics Dad. Here we are the start of another gymnastics season.   A new season brings with it a roller coaster of emotions.  The highs and lows of a competition season can be difficult to manage, so I figured now would be a good time to give you some of the coping mechanisms that I use for dealing with competitions early in the season. Around this time is where parents start showing up to practice more, start asking questions about the status of the floor routine, and wondering/hoping/praying/begging that their ..read more

Addressing Issues With The Coach Fellow readers, I am happy to announce that after months of hard work, we are ready to release our new clothing brand GDN Apparel(Link). GDN stands for Gymnastics Dad Nation.  Our goal at GDN Apparel is to offer new and unique gymnastics swag to parents and gymnasts. Dads, we made sure not to forget you in our designs. I grew tired of the dad shirts that show the old cliches like “she flips I pay” and “my gymnast’s ATM.” I wanted something different that didn’t revolve around me sacrificing an arm and a leg for gymnastics. Moms and Dads, I guarantee you th ..read more

Coach’s Opinion And Recruiting Before I get started with this blog, let me say what I am about to write about is not related to specific skills college coaches look for in an athlete.  I am not going to talk about scores or anything else that pertains directly to the technical aspects of the sport of gymnastics. For all that info my hope is your club coach has insight on that, plus you probably would not want my advice anyway.  What I am going to dive into is the part of the recruiting process that parents often overlook but is often critically important to the overall success of an ..read more