Life skills through Gymnastics

Gymfinity Wisconsin USA

If the sports program is right, the following landmarks will be developed by practical application in training and in competition or performance. Parents should see each of these displayed as the coach works with the athlete and the athlete participates with the team.  Year to year and season to season the athlete maturing in skill and character should be obvious.

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Being lost with a borrowed compass

fear of a virus that statistically doesn’t have them high on the risk-o-meter.  I struggled with staying masked, for how long, which kids? I also thought about how I have kids I have been coaching for 2 years and I cannot remember what their faces look like. Then again, I worried that if we take masks off, that we will see kids by the dozens calling off due to the virus. I needed to stop. I needed to find my compass.

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Gymfinity’s Secret Sauce

Gymfinity Maddy Lund Gymnastics

We have assembled the best teachers and coaches of any gym I have seen. It is quality in the head: being able to teach and educate kids, and in the heart; having a passion for teaching, learning, and impacting others that makes these very special coaches.

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Coaching Kids in Difficult Times

Coaching at Gymfinity

Not only do you instruct, but you are also there to support and develop the gymnast as a person. Understand that instead of just coaching, you will need to make positive comments about things outside of gymnastics. Remember the sandwich method: Positive comment -correction- positive summary can apply to more than just skill development.

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How did I ever get here?

J Orkowski's High School Gymnastics Team

I look at those formative years and recall some of my role models. Most of them would not even recognize me if I walked up and shook their hand. If they did, it would be as Harry’s little brother, the quiet nerdy kid who was either reading or standing on his hands.
I was thinking the other day, how so many of the people who influence us in life rarely ever realize the impact they had. I wouldn’t even know if they were aware of me let alone know that after 40+ years, I am still in the sport.

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Even Prouder to be an American

Olympic Gymnastics Team 2021

Yet the critics still cast shade. The same critics that demanded change are the ones who now criticize such vital in-meet decisions as cowardly or not worthy of American pride. Let me point out that our team left Japan with All Around and Floor Exercise Gold, a Vault Silver, Bars and Beam Bronzes and a Team Silver medal. They also left happy and uninjured. Isn’t that a victory in itself? This is exactly what we should be cheering for, and to miss that opportunity to elevate the game in that regard is a shame.

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Gymnastics & Trampoline makes kids smarter. Fact.

Gymfinity Smarts

Einstein is (mistakenly?) credited with saying “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” I think that he is really on to something. Not everyone is the same and so it makes no sense to use a standardized measure for intelligence.

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What Really Matters

Gymfinity Dairy Aire Coaching

Having just survived the holidays, some are making NY resolutions. I ask that maybe this year we could let go of the minutia, cast away the petty disagreements and squabbles; and resolve to matter. What if for one year we tried to honor yesterday and shape tomorrow?

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After The Cartwheel: Part 2 of 2

Gymfinity Dairy Aire Coaching

In gymnastics we develop skills over long periods of time. We sometimes lay the groundwork for skills by doing drills years before they may utilize what they learned for a particular skill. Complicate that with normal ups and downs of training, goals being realigned, and even sickness/injury/vacation costing training time and it can seem like learning a skill takes forever.

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