Flipping Into a New Year

We decided to sign Ella up for gymnastics starting last Saturday. While I don’t want to over-schedule her, we figured it would be a great supplement to her current physical therapy regimen. We signed her up for the level just below her age, the 18mo – 3 year class called Flips and Folks. Yes, we get to take gymnastics with Ella…I was nominated to take the first class with her. Loran took gymnastics as a young boy and cheered through high school and college. He said he didn’t want to intimidate the other participants with his sheer talent. This may surprise some of you, but I did not take any gymnastics classes and only took tap/jazz/ballet where it was discovered that I had a severe, almost chronic lack of coordination and therefore did not continue on the dance track. I stuck to such feats as tree climbing, back yard baseball, bike riding/jumping and golf.

We thought she might spend the majority of her first classes observing others and not participating. Were we ever wrong. Ella loved it! She definitely has some skills to work on, but she’s really excited to be there. She immediately tried out the balance beam, loved the rings and was completely enthused by the tumble track – which is a long track that’s like a trampoline. They were able to run or jump down the track. She couldn’t get enough.

Ella wants nothing to do with flips, summersaults or hanging upside down. I’m sure that’s just a matter of time.

It was really fun to watch the more advanced classes. It gave my heart a start every time I watched a girl do a flip on the high beams. And they aren’t even my children! If Ella or Lillian ever gets to a level like that, I may have to bring my own defibrillator.

    

Ella is so excited to go back to gymnastics. It’s all we’ve heard about. In fact, she got a color sheet and another sheet for the parents at the end of her session. I hung the parent sheet in our message area and now Ella keeps referring to it, to point out that it’s from gymnastics. While I’m so tempted to go out and buy her a cute leotard, I’m glad I didn’t. The children are supposed to wear a leotard or shorts and tee shirt. It is approximately 3 degrees in the gym (slight exaggeration). But, next time she’s wearing long pants. I was freezing and I had two shirts and pants on! Granted, I wasn’t running my little heart out down the tumble track, but still…you can buy dog food in weights larger than her. She hasn’t a lot of fat to insulate her!