Gymnastics Floor Routine - Point Levels

Michelle Carhart: My name is Michelle Carhart and I am here to teach how to choreograph a gymnastics floor routine. Now, we are going to talk about how to select a gymnast elements. In USA gymnastics there are different levels one through ten and then you get to a league, which are the Olympic gymnast. Starting at level seven is when you actually get to have an optional routine and that is why I get to choreograph because seven through ten, the routines are optional.

At level seven, there are specific elements that they need to do as what the other levels, but it's much simpler and they are actually forbidden from doing more difficult skills, it will void the routine. So there are -- the interesting thing is that the gymnast have to have specific skills in their routine of different level. There are levels A through E, A being the easiest, E being the most difficult and there is an entire book that tells you what the elements are worth.

So for instance, A leap like Anna's doing, it's called a ring leap is worth a B, as is her one-and-a-half turn, as is her height jump. Those are all worth B and now you will watch Killah doing a front layout, that is also worth a B. In gymnastics, acro actually means tumbling and gym means dance moves. So what's interesting is that the acro skills which are the tumbling skills as well the gymnastics skills all have specific designated levels, which the Gymnast can decide, whether they are going to a gym skill or an acro skill to meet the requirements that are given by USA Gymnastics. So now what we are going to do is we are going to start building the gymnastics floor routine.