Why Should Your Son Be Taking Gymnastics??

There are many articles that cover the internet as to the values of children being in a gymnastics class. But we want to talk specifically about boys today. Why? Because families of boys tend to overlook gymnastics for their sons in our area, and turn more towards soccer, baseball, basketball, football, martial arts, and the shooting and hunting sports.

Why would gymnastics be overlooked? Well, probably because the television networks spend more time showing girls at gymnastic meets and only a small amount of time on the male gymnasts. Stop and think about it. How much coverage did you see on the men's Olympic team this past year? Don't remember? Probably because it was not during prime time network coverage.  

Why should your son be taking gymnastics? Well, we have a lot of ideas that is documented truth and will share about that later. But first let's talk about some of the things that we hear parents say to us about their son being in gymnastics. Some things such as, "We thought is was a sport only for girls." Or, "My boy is not going to wear one of those stretchy leotard things!" Or how about, "Boys can't bend and do splits like girls can!". And, "Gymnastics is a girls sport, not a boys sport!"  We encourage you to read on......

Gymnastics originates from the Greek and Roman games. Some articles even say is was used as a form of physical training for the military in ancient Spain. Here is one version of origin we found on the Scholastics.com site for teachers
(https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/history-gymnastics-ancient-greece-modern-times/) . It reads:

"Gymnastics was introduced in early Greek civilization to facilitate bodily development through a series of exercises that included running, jumping, swimming, throwing, wrestling, and weight lifting. Many basic gymnastic events were practiced in some form before the introduction by the Greeks of gymnazein, literally, "to exercise naked." Physical fitness was a highly valued attribute in ancient Greece, and both men and women participated in vigorous gymnastic exercises. The Romans, after conquering Greece, developed the activities into a more formal sport, and they used the gymnasiums to physically prepare their legions for warfare. With the decline of Rome, however, interest in gymnastics dwindled, with tumbling remaining as a form of entertainment."

So, back to why your son should be in gymnastics class. First of all, gymnastics is a great way for your child to develop better physical fitness. It is challenging and never boring, well, maybe a bit boring when they get stuck on a particular skill and feel like they are not going anywhere with the sport. But that is with every sport. Correct?

But a great coach knows how to distract your son from the complaint of boredom with different variations of the drills in learning a new skill. They can make it into a fitness challenge game that you son will enjoy and eventually see improvement from. The coach will track your child's skills and probably even post them on a check off poster for a visual enhancement towards working more to achieve other skill levels! 

Besides increasing your child's fitness level, they will also learn other great skills such as balance, spatial awareness, body control, strength of mind and personal commitment. 

Gymnastics also teaches all students that a particular skill starts at "X" and ends at "Y", thus also teaching a young child to follow through until they reach the end of the skill situation. Which transfers to being able to complete school assignments and projects! School teachers love having gymnastic students in their classes because of the strict self discipline the student acquires in the training of the body and mind.   

Gymnastics as we know it today, is a competitive sport and there are opportunities of being asked to be on teams. One of the major values learned in a gymnastic class or on a team is always working towards your personal best. That when a skill does not work on a particular day, you just keep trying and continue to work towards your goals. If you fall, gymnastics teaches you how to get back up quickly and try again. Once again, a personal skill training that transfers over into school and later in life into the work force. Being able to keep moving forward in life, no mater how many obstacles is a great way to get on a team.

Camaraderie in a gymnastic class seems to be like no other. Instead of your classmates sitting on a bench, maybe checking their cell phones, when you miss a tumbling element, or grab of a bar, in gymnastics the classmates are on the mats working out as well. They encourage with high fives and constant sayings of encouragement to get back up and try again, and again.

Speaking of a bench. There is none! Well, maybe a bench to sit on to take your shoes off or put your warm ups back on, but NO BENCH to sit on when you are training! Even if others in the training have made the team, and your son is still training to make the team, there is NO BENCH and NO SIDELINE in gymnastics class. No waiting and wanting to be able to get on the floor. No wondering if someone gets hurt, will you be chosen to be the one that gets on the floor next. AMAZING! No waiting for something to happen to the better athletes so that your child can go in and continue his training.
 

Gymnastics, like Cheerleading, historically has been dominated by males. It was a male that brought gymnastics from Europe to the United States.

"The sport was introduced to the United States by Dr. Dudley Allen Sargent, who taught gymnastics in several U.S. universities about the time of the Civil War, and who is credited with inventing more than 30 pieces of apparatus. Most of the growth of gymnastics in the United States centered on the activities of European immigrants, who introduced the sport in their new cities in the 1880s. Clubs were formed as Turnverein and Sokol groups, and gymnasts were often referred to as "turners." Modern gymnastics excluded some traditional events, such as weight lifting and wrestling, and emphasized form rather than personal rivalry." (Scholastic.com)

Some of the top coaches in the US and the work have been male coaches. And gymnastics for males was in the Olympics forty years before women's gymnastics.

"Men's gymnastics was on the schedule of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, and it has been on the Olympic agenda continually since 1924. Olympic gymnastic competition for women began in 1936 with an all-around competition, and in 1952 competition for the separate events was added. In the early Olympic competitions the dominant male gymnasts were from Germany, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland, the countries where the sport first developed. But by the 1950's, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the Eastern European countries began to produce the leading male and female gymnasts." (Scholastics.com)

What can your son expect when he enters one of our gymnastic classes? The first thing he will notice is a lack of boredom! The next thing he can expect is a lot of movement and activity. New skills are always talked through and demonstrated. There is a warm up, a stretch session to develop better flexibility and then drills that help to build skills and strength. There is time for individual work on the skills each person is trying to achieve. And then there is a cool down and stretch out before the class is dismissed. 

Why should your son be taking gymnastics class? Gymnastics is training your son will achieve self discipline, a stronger body and mind positioning, time management, follow through on projects, camaraderie with other classmates, and an understanding that a sport can be part of your life, but is not life. Life is learning that no matter how many times you fall down, you can get yourself up again and again. And gymnastics can help them to learn, see and be that. A person that just does not give up on achieving their lifetime goals. 

* Mary Myers is the owner of Academy of Fine Arts in Woodward Oklahoma. She has been coaching gymnastics for 40 years. 

Is Your Dance Teacher A Genius?

Most dance teachers would probably say no, they are not a genius. But when you consider all the continual training and the areas of training they have studied over the years, your dance teacher may be one of the most educated persons you will meet in your life. Especially if your teacher is also part of the administration, or the business owner, of the dance school you take classes at.

For instance, your teacher has spent many years on their own training and learning from the very beginning, just as you have. They have suffered through the sore tight muscles, blisters, muscle fatigue, etc, such as you have. They have worked on memory skills and retention, again and again, just as you have. But their training has never stopped at a certain level or after a particular master class.

If there is any one reason to admire your dance teacher, that for sure is that they are a "lifetime learner". With dance being an ever changing element in performing arts, with many trends and the classics to stay abreast of , a dance teacher is always studying, always working and always trying to be the best that they can be for their students.

With new trends, especially the more athletic styles of dance, has came more opportunity for student injuries in class. This means that your dance teacher not only needs to know the moves, steps, style, etc, but also the correct technique that helps his or her students to learn injury free for a lifetime. He or she has most likely trained in assessing injuries to a certain level  and has taken first aide and CPR classes.

Your dance teacher also understands history and the progressions of dance and how to use that history to build creative choreography for the future. Dance is not new. It is just evolving all the time. By knowing dance history, your teacher knows how to connect to the world and help a dancer to grow.

To understand technique, your teacher has spent hours upon hours of study and practice in  dance and stretch techniques, anatomy, physiology, kinetics, and general science. They know how the body should operate free of injury and understand the different elements that makes up one movement at a time. If they did not, they would not be able to break down the dance movements and teach it in different steps or levels for their students.  They would not understand how to defy gravity for turns, leaps and jumps.

All dance teachers have studied nutrition. Either in a class situation or on their own. Nutrition is essential for a properly working body, and so they study to be able to continue to to dance for hours and multiple days a week. Great dance teachers also are a role model exhibiting proper hydration and preparation before, between and after classes by what they choose to eat and drink.

Time management is an important skill that teachers spend hours in developing. After all, every class that she has you in, there is a designated amount of time allowed for what is to be worked on in class. Time management skills is also used in developing lesson plans, selecting costumes, choreographing dances and administrative duties. Time management skills are always being improved upon by self study or attending training's.

Costume and set design sounds like fun, but a skilled dance teacher knows just how to make every student on stage look beautiful in their performance! Besides getting the right fit, color and style of costume, your teacher also has to match it to the show theme. And then there is the set/stage design and the lighting and sound to be considered. Dance teachers spend weeks and hours on getting it just right, so that the dancers look beautiful and the audience is entertained.

Human development and coaching is also an area your dance teacher may of studied as well. Ever noticed that when you have a problem, your dance teacher may be someone that you feel comfortable enough with to go to? For some reason your teacher is a person that is easy to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, a voice to encourage and a person to quickly give you information as to where to go to to get help, how to handle a situation, how to find your personal courage, etc.

Problem solving is a number one skill your dance teacher has had to learn to do. Ever notice how quickly they can change a part of the choreography that is not working? Pull a costume back together that decided to come apart just as you are about to step out on the stage? Find a way to mend a hurtful moment in class between you and another student? Help you tape a hurt ankle to go right back onto stage? Dance teachers have high level problem solving skills that tend to be over looked by many.

So, is your dance teacher a genius? They would probably say no. But ask as many adults today what skills they learned most from their dance teachers. Probably they will not remember the dance steps or technique. But they more than likely will tell you about all the life skills they learned in dance classes from their genius dance teachers.


*Written by Mary Myers, owner and director of Academy of Fine Arts in Woodward OK.