Competition Guide

Competitions can be a dawning prospect - this guide should help competitiors, supporters, helpers and officials get to grips with the basics

BG Award Levels vs Grades

When training the BG awards scheme is used for most people as a way of tracking progression and rewarding, for those folks that want to, that achievement with a badge and/or certificate.

The BG awards run from 1 (lowest) to 15 (highest)

However, at competitions, grades are used. These start at K and work their way up to A. There is no direct correlation between awards and grades unfortunately.

If you check out our website all the grades and awards are on there so you can compare the two. We'll be improving that soon to have all the award information on it as well as a suggested competition level for that award.

For competition grades K, J, I, H and G it's basically just down to the club and coach how someone progresses through these - you can compete at these grades as soon as you are ready in the eyes of your coach. There is no need to get a "grading" score.

To progress from G then you have to hit the grading score at a grading competition - of which there are four a year. Then you progress to F and so on.

What is the difference between a Grading and an Open Competition?

In terms of the actual competition, very little - all competitions are run the same way with trophies for the top three in each grade.

A grading competition - run four times a year - must run a certain number of age groups and the sexes are always split. A grading is the only time you can progress from grade G and above and, in the Eastern region, grades H through D can compete at a grading.

At open's there can be any grades from A through K - it totally depends on the hosting club how they want to restrict things. They may decide to combine sexes in some groups. Also they may run synchro groups as well.

Before the competition

You will receive an email at least a week before the competition stating which group you are in and when your group starts on the day (competitions normally run on a Sunday). Check your competition time and the panel you are on. Note that the time on the programme is the time that warm-ups for your group start.

Make sure you can remember your routine(s), if you're not sure see your coach or check out the routines page on the Cangaroos website.

What to expect at a Competition

For some people this might be your first entry into a competition. Don't be daunted by the number of people and the quality of the higher level performers. You will be competing in a group of same sex, same grade and similar age.

Age groups can vary a little, depending on numbers, but there may be U9, U11, U13, U15, U17, 17+ age groups in each of the grades. Sometimes, especially with boys, if the group numbers are low, then a couple of age groups may be combined - for example there may only be a U11, U15 and 15+ group in grade H.

Remember that competition in trampolining is there to measure your own level against your peers and to hopefully find inspiration from those who have been competing for a while and have already attained a high level of performance.

Dress

Check you have the correct attire :-

• If you are competing at grade H, this can be shorts and a T-shirt, preferably a club one, plus plain white socks without any logos or colour.
• Girls, G grade and above, must wear a club leotard and plain white socks. Shorts are allowed, but they must match the leotard.
• Boys, G grade and above, must wear a club leotard and white stirrups, with plain white socks.

Just to re-iterate, the one thing common across all the sexes and grades is plain white socks, no markings, no writing, no colours. PLAIN WHITE. :) (It's amazing how many people need reminding of this!)

The competition day

Make sure that you arrive at the venue at least 30 minutes before your advertised time as sometimes the competition can run ahead of schedule.

If your group has lots of competitors, you may have been divided into flights. Check which flight you are in and be ready to compete then. If there are very few competitors then two or three groups might bounce together. Flights/combined groups are kept between 8 and 15 competitors. All details will be in the timetable you will have been sent before the competition.

The region has adopted the warm-up activity used at Galas and Nationals. This means that there won't be any warm-up cards. There will be an announcement when your competition warm-up starts, please make sure you are ready to start. Choose the bed you would like to compete on, you can try both beds to see which one you prefer. There will be a set amount of time, approximately 20 minutes to warm-up. Don't have so many go's that you wear yourself out, limit yourself to no more than 4 or 5 attempts. When the warm-up finishes you will have a 'one-touch warm-up'. This is a final chance to practice your routine before you compete.

For competing your first routine will be your set and the second routine will be the vol. Everyone in the group does their set first, then everyone does their voluntary routine.

Competitors in grades A through D only, who attain the top 8, will have a further competitive round called the final. This will be preceded by a single one-touch warm-up.

Work hard and enjoy the day

There is further good competition information at the Brentwood TC website

Trophies and Medals

Trophies are awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each individual group.

If there are three or four members of the same club in the same group then they form a team automatically. There are medals for the winning team - the team score is made up from the 3 highest individual scores in each round.

Volunteering at a Cangaroos Hosted Competition (Sawston or SWCH)

It takes lots of people to run a competition, so if you or your parents, family, friends are available to help out, please contact competitions@cangaroos.org. We need people on the day to run stalls and refreshments, we also need people to help load the trampolines on the lorry at Sawston (17:30 on Friday), set-up on Saturday afternoon (13:00) and to take down on Sunday afternoon (17:00) and load back onto the lorry .

Officials (all competitions)

If you are willing to train as an official that would be even better! We can help out with this - see the separate document on competition official jobs.

Officials Roles at Trampolining Competitions

There are a number of volunteer official roles required at a competition, without which the competitions cannot run. Note that there is really no difference between an Open competition and a Grading - they are run the same way and the same officials are needed.

On each panel, and there are typically three or four panels, the following officials are needed. Without these people, all volunteers, the competitions cannot run. With four panels that makes approximately 40 volunteer officials.

Per Panel Officials

Chair of Judges
• 5 x Execution (Form) Judges
• 1 x Tariff Judge (if a panel is doing grade F or above)
• 1 x Computer Recorder
• 1 x Manual Recorder
• 1 x Marshall

Who provides the officials? The clubs that enter the competition have to. The more entries that a club makes the more officials they have to provide.

A brief description of the various roles and responsibilities is listed below.

Manual Recorder

You're provided with a list of all competitors per group and space to write in their scores.

Each competitor in the group does their set routine, then each competitor does their voluntary routine.

After each competitor bounces, write down their five scores (between 0.1 and 10.0) as read out by the chair of judges. Discard the highest and lowest numbers. Add up the middle three (use a calculator if you like) and write down the total.

If you miss a score or have any issues ask the chair to repeat / for help.

Check with the computer recorder that the totals match.

Once they have done their voluntary routine add together the two totals and check again with the computer recorder that you have the same total.

(Before computers were added there were two manual recorders and at the end you'd need to work out the order people came in. No need now, the computer does it all, the manual recorder is there as a check and balance/audit)

Computer Recorder

This is the same as a manual recorder except all you need to do is type in the five numbers. No need to work out top/bottom, the computer programme does it all.

Competition Marshal

This is organising up to about 15 performers per group to warm-up by rotation, then sit on a bench and get them up in the right order to perform their routines. No more difficult than organising pass the parcel at a kids party!

You're provided with a list of all the performer names per group.

There is a little more to it than that, and therefore a full Competition Marshal guide is available separately.

Judges

Judges basically watch the performer do their routine, make a note of deductions per move, then add up the scores. Deductions are 0.5 to 0.0 from a score of 1.0 per move for a 10 bounce routine. So, if they get a "3" deduction from every move they will score 7.0.

The chair of judges will tell you if there are any further deductions, whether to mark the routine out of less than 10 moves etc.