Opposing the Transgender Movement

[robertc1024]

She's only been in the sport for almost a year and a half total, and up till now she's been in the 'recreational' gym instead of the more serious one? She's testing into level 4 now, but I'll admit I don't know the details of what that actually means. We're being told she should have been working with the team coaches much earlier, instead of the 'rec' gym. Makes sense, because she advances crazy fast in the occasional private lessons with the team coaches. My wife is much more clear on all this, it makes my head spin trying to keep up with all the terminology and stuff. At any rate, she advances through their levels very quickly, certainly faster than her peers. Whether or not she's olympics bound, I have no idea; guess we'll wait and see. But they're letting us know the path she's on leads to a lot more time in the gym and very likely homeschooling.

One of my boys was a competitive gymnast and was at a level 10. We traveled around and went to meets all over our region for six years. He competed in the same rotations as Olympians from several countries. His gym had a charter school in it that was scheduled around the student's workouts. He was working out close to 32 hours a week. As good as he was, and as hard as he worked at it, there was a huge gap between him and the truly elite.

Do I regret it? I have mixed emotions. On the plus side, it taught him incredible discipline and perseverance. It taught him to live with disappointment, a strong work ethic and confidence. On the minus side, it was very expensive (in the ballpark of $10k/yr), it isolated him socially from the non-gym rats, it left no time for him to do normal kid things, and finally it took so much focus from the entire family that I often felt the other kids were not getting the attention they should have.

Seriously off topic. PM me if you want more info.

 

[TxStetson]

Short version of a story I've told before -

I was a really good bassoonist. Out of high school, my instructor got me a seat with a semi-pro orchestra mainly composed of a floating assemblage of teachers, private instructors, and pros who were between jobs.

It took me just two rehearsals to understand I would never make a living as a musician.

In any technically, semi-objectively quantifiable performance discipline, being really good is exactly the same as being nowhere near good enough to ever accomplish anything.

My oldest son is a really good Bassoonist, all state in High School, but when he got to college, he figured out he wasn’t as good as others. He quickly changed his major from music performance to music business, because he didn’t want to be a “starving artist” as he put it.

 

[benenglish]

music business

The music business can be interesting.

Short story - Before my sister was offered a job as a federal civil law enforcement officer, she was offered the position of Concert Coordinator for Pace Concerts in Houston. At the time, Pace was the company that booked everybody at every venue of note. They had a near-total monopoly in the Houston market.

The Concert Coordinator job entailed running the box office during concerts, seeing that the bands got paid (some bands had weird rituals about how they got paid) and otherwise make sure the the performance contracts were adhered to and the bands were kept happy. She was not comfortable with fulfilling certain requests that the bands might make for companionship or chemical experience enhancers but that wasn't, in the end, why she turned down the job.

Ultimately, she turned down the job because the pay was too low. I asked her about the pay package and it was, indeed, suspiciously low. Something seemed off to me so I asked about perks. The only perk she had forgotten to mention was that she got 12 front row tickets to every concert, every band, at every venue.

A quick back-of-the-envelope estimate showed that 90% of her pay was in tickets for her to re-sell. Back then, things weren't so sophisticated; she could have done all those sales for cash without the income being reported. Pace was shocked she turned down the job. I was shocked.

I offered to sell the tickets and acquire whatever chemicals and companionship the bands requested but by then it was too late.

If she had just talked to me on the phone before she turned down that job, both our lives would have proceeded along very, very different paths.

 

[Brains]

One of my boys was a competitive gymnast and was at a level 10. We traveled around and went to meets all over our region for six years. He competed in the same rotations as Olympians from several countries. His gym had a charter school in it that was scheduled around the student's workouts. He was working out close to 32 hours a week. As good as he was, and as hard as he worked at it, there was a huge gap between him and the truly elite.

Do I regret it? I have mixed emotions. On the plus side, it taught him incredible discipline and perseverance. It taught him to live with disappointment, a strong work ethic and confidence. On the minus side, it was very expensive (in the ballpark of $10k/yr), it isolated him socially from the non-gym rats, it left no time for him to do normal kid things, and finally it took so much focus from the entire family that I often felt the other kids were not getting the attention they should have.

Seriously off topic. PM me if you want more info.

All of those concerns are weighing heavily on us, especially because we're not quite there yet and we're being encouraged and warned at the same time. Definitely a mixed bag of emotions all around. On one hand you definitely don't want to discourage your 8 year old daughter from something that is currently her prime focus and a pretty big life goal. On the other, you don't want to send her down a path that has many potential negatives. We pretty much feel we'll go as far as she will, give her all the support she needs, etc. I definitely may PM you from time to time for advice. Last night was the first half of her evaluations for level 4, tomorrow is the second half. She has all the skills down, she's been practicing at home quite a bit to make sure she's solid with them (our 'game room' is setup with a bar, beam, mats, etc.).

The music business can be interesting.

I grew up in the good part of the music industry. My Dad was a musician, was in the 29th Army band through the Korean war years, and then opened a music store selling mostly Wurlitzer and Hammond organs.

 

[TheDan]

You'll never know unless you try. Being top level at anything is boring, anyways. All the interesting stuff happens where 4th and 5th are trying to get to 3rd.