Gymnastics Issues

Boylee rocks at gymnastics. It's amazing. He's super, duper coordinated.

(Not Boylee. Yet.)

For about a year and a half (minus the broken-arm time) he has taken a weekly class at Gymnastics Place #1. It's one hour long, and his teacher is a wonderful, genius woman. She's a fabulous gymnast herself, and she knows precisely how to teach boys: she is fun and silly and super energetic. When Boylee started the class we were given a motivational poster to keep at home that showed the 30 or so skills he would need to master before moving up to the next level. As the months progressed, he got "stars" for almost all those skills, meaning he'd mastered them.

But then things seemed to stagnate a bit. Boylee's quite a bit better than pretty much everyone else in the class. The teacher does give him extra and different drills to do, but she's limited because she also has to teach the kids who have the least skills. (Mainly I'm thinking of the ultra-sweet, yet hopelessly un-coordinated kid who has not mastered a somersault in months of practicing. But he always has a smile on his face!)

So we enrolled in a second weekly class at a new gym, Gym #2. It's not the local super-hardcore gym (the one with "olympics" in its name), but it's definitely more training-oriented than Gym #1. The weekly class is 90 minutes, and from the first week I saw that Boylee could really learn a lot at this place. But...three weeks in and I'm starting to get a little frustrated. Though we enrolled him in their Boys Advanced class, there are clear beginners in the group, so the teacher is stuck teaching starter skills just like at the other gym. One teacher is wonderful (and I like that he's a man, so good role modeling for Boylee), but the other teacher is kind of lazy. That second teacher is also the co-owner of the place so no use complaining about him. Basically, Boylee hasn't progressed as quickly as I'd hoped, but I felt we were stuck. I'd heard a lot about the third option, the uber-gym, but I was basically told that unless you were ready to commit your kid for a minimum of four hours a week, it wasn't worth it.

I was still pondering the issue when we were at the class at Gym #1 today. And then the teacher told us she wanted to speak with us after class. I told Dad, "I hope she's going to tell us they're opening up a more advanced class," and I wasn't far off. First, they are going to try to do the advanced class, and Boylee would be in it. But second, and more important -- she told us that they're "watching" Boylee and are almost ready to invite him to join the Demonstration Team! That means... a second class at Gym #1 each week, and the chance to go out to schools and fairs and show other kids what it means to learn gymnastics. All Boylee has to do is master one skill he lacks: a bridge kick-back. That basically means he's in a yoga-style bridge pose, and then he kicks his legs over and ends up standing. We told Boylee, he's thrilled about the idea, and I'm thrilled at the idea of quitting Gym #2 and getting everything we need at Gym #1.