Gymnastics

We enrolled the boys in gymnastics in January. Just something fun to do. We actually thought we'd enroll Luke in soccer but that was out of season. Gymnastics was great because Brody could do it too.

They loved it! Each week they were a little tempermental to start the class. But once they got going they were really into it.

Our first class had so many kids in it, it was hard to ask them to wait their turn so long. The teacher only got through a few activities with each child getting 2 turns. But most kids must have dropped out because every class after that only had 5 kids or less.

Teacher Noelle would begin class by having the kids run across the room, do bear walks, and stretches, then they'd get to play with the parachute. This was usually the time when Brody would be clingy, and Luke would be sitting on the side lines refusing to participate. I never figured out why. That part of the class they just would not do. Even if they were sitting in the circle, they would just stare at everyone doing stretches, they WOULD NOT do them. These photos are from the last session, I'm glad they at least participated for a photo op!


Each time she'd start with sommersaults, then started teaching backward sommersaults. They learned to do "aligator mouths" on the bars, where they hang on the bars, lift their legs out in front and open/close. They learned to "wall walk," putting their hands on the floor and walk backward up the wall. They leared the balance beam which was Brody's favorite. Everything she did was so simple but was so obviously a building block to what they'd learn if they kept at gymnastics through out their life.

I don't have a lot of photos because I took video instead. And as I look back at the video I am reminded that Brody was such a mama's boy! I had to stop my video each time it was his turn because he wanted me to help him, not the teacher! And Luke, he was so much bigger than all the kids with much more control of his body. The first few classes, the teacher expected to help him with his sommersaults and was surprised he just went for it. He physically dominated that class, it wasn't very physically challenging for him. So we worked on following directions down to the details. For instance, the kids were supposed to walk up the steps, jump off and land on their feet, all with their arms in the air. Luke could do it, but just loved to jump as high and far as he could he would not focus on landing on his feet.

They had so much fun. Its a bummer its only 6 weeks. They'd come home and show Dad all their new moves. We'd get out our mattresses and practice gymnastics if we needed something to do. And just the other day Brody saw a public bike rack, hung on it and did aligator mouths! Ha!

Definitely something we would do again.