Off Topic Why Gymnastics?

[Aussie_coach]

All of us are drawn to gymnastics for one reason or another either as an athlete, parent of an athlete, coach, fan etc. So why gymnastics?

What is it that initially drew you to this sport, or your child to this sport, or you to choose this sport for your child?

And once you entered those gym doors, what is it that drew you or your child to stay?

 

[skschlag]

All of us are drawn to gymnastics for one reason or another either as an athlete, parent of an athlete, coach, fan etc. So why gymnastics?

What is it that initially drew you to this sport, or your child to this sport, or you to choose this sport for your child?

And once you entered those gym doors, what is it that drew you or your child to stay?

Great questions!

What first brought us to gymnastics was convenience. D was a climber, and was on top of the fridge at like 14 months. HIs sister went to preschool at a local gymnastics academy. We had tried gymnastics with her in parent tot classes, and it was a disaster, but there was a parent tot class during her preschool that I could do with D. So we did.

Honestly, we had him try ever single other sport during elementary and early middle school. He did soccer, basketball, swimming, wrestling, baseball, ice skating, and probably some I am missing. But gymnastics stuck. And that is what he ended up sticking with the longest.

 

[rlm's mom]

Well I guess I'm mainly into the sport because of my daughters! After all the money I've put into their training and all the time they've put in I guess we all became attached to the sport!
If you're wondering how my kids got into the sport I did 3 years of rec in elementary school and really enjoyed it, so when my oldest daughter needed a creative outlet after a long day in first grade I decided to enroll her in a gymnastics class. Next DD was jealous and I enrolled her a few months later at 4.5. I had no plans to enroll 3rd DD but she learnt a lot of skills at home from her sisters and then begged so hard that I just gave way!

 

[ProudGymnast]

I wanted to do ballet when I was younger, I had all sorts of tutus and bows. Then the Olympics came around and I happened to watch a gymnast vaulting. (Unfortunately, no clue who.) And after that point it was gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics. That was pretty much all my parents heard about until I was 6-ish and started gym. Well, scratch that. Its pretty much all they ever hear about, even till this day Anyways I think its the wonder of seeing someone do something so incredible, something I had never seen, something I though I would never do that drew me in.

To this day, while I may not be as good as the gymnast I saw, and may never be a champion, gymnastics just makes me happy. I go into the gym and work my butt off and never regret one second of it. I keep going back because I cannot get enough of the flipping, and right now I am enjoying every moment of my possibly last season.

 

[Eleven sol]

Oldest DD played soccer first. Had zero interest in the soccer but mimicked the other girls on her team who did cartwheels after every goal. She never got better than her teammates at scoring goals but by the end of the soccer season her cartwheels were way prettier. After gasping at the price compared to rec soccer, I put her in a gymnastics class at age 7 and she’s always loved it, even when she has struggled to get skills, even when she went without medals. I remember the preteam coach said that gymnastics is a hard sport and loving it isn’t always enough, but it’s kept her going 8 years so far.

 

[JessSyd]

My daughter was a climber, and quite wild as a tot. She seemed to have quite high sensory stimulation needs and always needed to be upside down or swinging or up high. I decided to take her into an environment where she could do all of that safely and without disapproving looks, so she started kindergym.

She loved it so much. It was really the first thing we ever tried to do with her that she was highly motivated by. After several terms of kindergym (just as I was about to move her on to new activities as I thought it was getting repetitive) the gym transferred her into a development program which she loved even more. Her progress since then has been slow - injury and illness have paid a role in that. But she loves it still.

She has tried other things - dance, AFL, art classes. But gymnastics is still her first love.

It actually did not occur to me to enrol her in it as a sport. I thought of it only as a preschool activity to keep her busy and burn off a bit of energy on days when she did not have kindergarten. If not for the gym approaching me about offering her a different type of training, she would probably now be a netball player like most of her school friends.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

My parents put me in it because I was climbing on everything and vaulting over the sofa and they wanted me to have a safer and more structured place run out all that energy. I stuck with it as a kid because I was an adrenaline junky. As I got old enough to coach, I developed more and more of a love for the underlying mechanics that make the skills work.

 

[raenndrops]

I was a mostly self-taught gymnast. The only person who ever "coached" me was an older cousin who had been on her high school gymnastics team AND the Special Olympics team in our state. She tried to teach me an aerial ... on a concrete ledge (close to 4 feet off the ground) of a planter bed in front of their porch. At that point in time, I still didn't have a 1 handed cartwheel ... I got that on my own 4 months later. I told her there was no way I was going to attempt an aerial on concrete. I told her I didn't need another concussion, lol. Their yard was on a hill, so I couldn't try there either. I just did regular cartwheels and roundoffs on the sidewalk.
Then, there was always watching gymnastics on tv. I loved it.
Fast forward to December 2005. The girls had been invited to a birthday party at the YMCA. We found out they offered scholarships to cover part of membership fees AND part of classes. We applied in January and were offered a 90% discount. We still didn't know that gymnastics was a possibility though. We were regularly going to the Y to go swimming. OG was literally climbing door jambs at home and hanging from her fingertips and doing tuck ups. YG couldn't climb it because her little legs weren't long enough, but if someone lifted her up, she would hang and do tuck ups too. We were right there in case she wanted down.
In March, there was a "demonstration" day going on in the Y lobby when we arrived. So now we knew they had some sort of gymnastics program. The girls wanted to do it, but YG was technically not quite old enough for the baby class. The Head coach said she could still join since the class was for a toddler and an adult and she would be old enough at the end of the month (3 days after her last class for that month).
The girls were hooked from the beginning. They did both also try other sports, but they always went back to gymnastics. They have also both taken time off ... sometimes they were both out and sometimes, it was one or the other. OG is a sophomore in college now and she wishes she had stuck with gymnastics. YG is struggling with life at the moment (junior year of high school, having to babysit her SM's babysitting kids if she doesn't have school, can't miss as much school as she normally does because she is at the local JVS and they are very strict on attendance, a girl who she has had issues with for the last 5 years is in more than half of her classes, she is trying to find time to finish her online driver's ed class before her time is up - the course will reset if she takes too long, and she has always struggled with school due to ADD - no hyperactivity and zoning out).

 

[FlippinLimon11]

I put my daughter in since she cilmed so much. She used to (and still does) climb the door frames so her grandma sugested we put her in gymnastics classes and then it just stuck.