Having fun in the gym

The gymnastics business is crazy stuff. Fun but crazy. Where else can you go to work and get paid to jump around on trampolines, tell young gymnasts that if they climb to the top of the rope, a little monkey may come out from the ceiling and ask for a peanut; and find yourself racing around the spring floor like a bear, bug, snake and whatever else you can think of to capture the attention and imagination of your charges. So much fun to be had!

Most people that own a gym or coach professionally have a tremendous passion for two things:

• Kids
• Gymnastics

The fun and games of early lessons need to continue through the competitive years for longevity. The sport becomes difficult, and few gymnasts make it past level seven. Sad. To change this, successful coaches and programs manage to keep it fun. Kids need to be allowed to debrief from the intense skill building competitive gymnastics requires. Built in games disguise speed, strength, and agility training.

I learned this lesson early from my husband. He has a way of making each lesson a game, a mini competition, a challenge, a dare, even a bribe! "I'll give you a quarter if you can cast to a handstand" -you cannot imagine what kids will do for a quarter! Once, he bet a competitive team gymnast: "I will kiss a pig if you can do that move." Guess what? He kissed a pig, in the gym with much fanfare. Compliments of a pig owner who happily supplied the poor victim for the kiss. We have pictures. The kids loved this!  Guess what again? His teams always placed in the top three at State championships. Fun, did not take away from skill.

If you have a child in gym, and they are interested in competition, look for signs the kids on team are happy and having fun. Training is hard work, however, a skilled coach will use drills and games in their training techniques. The kids should look like they enjoy being in the gym. If you do not see this, find a new gym. Save the survival of the fittest routine for the military, or reality TV. Childhood is brief; I say let the kids have fun!

Gymnastics: An investment, who knew?

Gymnastics: your child’s health, fitness and life skills foundation.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. Really Julie? Life skills? Let’s spend a few moments breaking it down.

First, I believe sports of any kind are critical for child development. Gymnastics however is special. Gymnastics engages both sides of the brain in crossover activity. No wonder many pediatricians recommend gymnastics to the parents of ADHD, ADD and Autistic children. Gymnastic coaches will tell you these children make noticeable improvements in attention span, interest, and social skills, with continued gymnastics training. Parents over the years have reported an association of improved grades when their child is involved with gym.

Health and Fitness: This one’s easy; gymnastics uses major muscle groups simultaneously. Even at the early levels children are balancing, strengthening and stretching at the same time. Curriculum is designed for constant motion. Weight bearing through the upper extremities is rare in other sports. Core strengthening is built in to the normal gymnastic movements such as: handstand progression, cartwheel, and somersaults. This foundational fitness develops muscles in a way few other sports can.

Life Skills: Okay here we go. We live in a society that promotes instant gratification. I want, I get. Gymnastics requires an amazing amount a repetition. This training in repetition teaches the concept of "earned by effort". Trust me when I say this is foreign concept to a large population of our society. I have experienced many, many, parents who pull their child from the sport because they were not progressing fast enough. One parent stands out having pulled his 5 year old, because she wasn’t demonstrating “any tricks” after three months of lessons. Another parent of a high school cheerleader asked me: “How much does it cost to give my daughter a back-handspring?” The cheerleader could not even do a handstand. When I explained the process of progressions needed for strength, and safety, the parent replied: “that sounds like it takes too long, she needs it by next week.” Work ethic. Gymnastics promotes a healthy respect for working at something (sometimes, over and over and over). Valuable life skill.

Total body development: Show me a competitive gymnast and I will show you an all around athlete. It is not uncommon to have a child leave gym at 14 or 15, and walk onto varsity level ball sports, track (pole vault especially) diving, cheer-leading and dance; having never participated in these sports before.

Gymnastics is an investment that will pay off for your child in many ways. Where else can you get superior physical development, brain development and life skills in a one hour class?

See you in the gym!

Winners Never Quit

First let me start out by assuring those who read this I asked permission from my son to use his story as an example for this blog topic. I want to discuss the quality of perseverance.

My son Jamie is a tennis player at his high school. He started playing just a few years ago, literally. He loves the sport, and dreams of playing at a very high level. He's good. He wants to be better. No, that's not strong enough, he wants to be the best. He played in a tournament this weekend and was beaten, twice. He was very frustrated with his own performance.

As a child he competed in gymnastics. He was beyond naturally gifted. Gymnastics was easy, he was a hard worker, and somewhat of a perfectionist. He holds seven consecutive Oregon State All Around first place titles, and five Regional titles. He had amazing lines for the sport. When he reached level 10 (collegiate) as an eleven year old he had a bad experience throwing a double back somersault off the high bar. Hit his shins and fell like a brick to the floor. He decided that was not an experience he cared to repeat, and in the sport at that level, well, repeating is not just likely its business as usual. He never really had a passion for the sport. So he moved on. Tried a few things and then found tennis.

He is not the best out there. He is, considering his short tenure in the sport, really good. So he has to be patient and develop the skills that the kids he is playing have honed for years. He has to learn to lose. With the losses come learning. Not everything will come easy. He does have some experience really valuable to guide him to his goals; he knows what it feels like to win, to be on top, and this drives him to work harder. He has a healthy respect for the phrase effort equals output. He's not a quitter. I have no doubt he will achieve.

Although I am happy he had the experience of winning early in life, I am even more grateful for the opportunity he is having to lose. Sounds crazy? This experience will shape him in a way a thousand gold medals could not.

Responsibility

I received a very disturbing phone call tonight about a couple of gym kids that have been with us since childhood. These kids have for the lack of a better term "royally screwed up" and were caught. Disappointing, yes. The thing is it could be anyone of our teens, let's face it they make some really bad choices sometimes. These choices are going to come at a price. Innocence lost, a job lost, and reputations tarnished. As a parent of four teens the moment is not lost on me that this can happen to the best of kids, the best of families. What separates the families that deal with these "moments in time" as "great families" will be the way they handle the consequences. The ones that hold their children accountable and allow natural consequences to occur are my hero. Not too much is more difficult than watching an almost adult momentarily self destruct and then stepping back and resisting the urge to rescue, downplay, and cover for the action.

Allow the fallout.

I have no doubt I will face this moment in some way, shape, or form (although I will pray for something minor). When I do, I can only hope I will make the right choice to allow my child to utterly fail, if only for a short time.  Because those are the lessons we remember the most.

Competitive Craziness

     I'm not sure what happens to some parents when they enroll their children into competitive sports. You see, it all starts out innocently enough, "We don't care if little Suzy wins or loses, we just want her to have fun." Oh sure, some parents are able to keep this attitude and core belief throughout the life of their child's athletic endeavors, but not all. What happened today is case in point. Soccer. Need I say more? The parents from the opposing team were awful today at my 12 year old son's game. Yelling obscenities at their kids, screaming "they didn't earn that!" when our team scored- ugly, ugly stuff. We tied, our boys celebrated by getting into a circle holding hands, falling and then rolling backward, kicking their feet into the air and squealing. Their boys- also in a circle receiving a verbal beating from coaches and parents alike. Sad.

Of course as a professional coach I have seen this behavior all to often in the gymnastics world. Admittedly a bit more dignified. Same thing, parents becoming livid when their child fails to perform or "deliver" the win. While it is easy to become caught up in competition, if parents can not separate the win or loss from the child, almost always the child will eventually stop the sport altogether.

  In 20 years of coaching and owning a club, a parent has left my gym from time to time because we didn't push the child hard enough. I get that. I also know the chances of seeing that child long term in the sport with a coach that pushes "as hard as the parent wants" are slim. Great athletes- champions are less developed than they are nurtured. The degree of greatness that separates amazing athletes isn't something coached, it's naturally occurring and it has little to do with talent (although this helps). It's drive. If they don't have it, you are not going to see those blue ribbons no matter how amazing the coach says they are, or how hard the child is  pushed. Ah! you say, you've seen this work, it is working right now for your child. Okay, come talk to me in five years and we will see what sport or activity your kid is in.This method of intense pressure, must win and even punitive atmosphere almost always fail to produce long term. Why? Kids get tired of the negativity and quit.


You want a champion? Make sure your child enjoys the sport, find a club or coach that is positive, sit back and relax, and remember this sentence: "Great job honey- you looked good out there- did you have fun, great! are you hungry? 

Kids and sports, it's a long road from childhood to college. It's a marathon not a sprint. Take it easy and enjoy the journey.