The case for keeping playgrounds fun

My family was fortunate enough this last summer to spend some time in Europe. I walked with my wife, my kids and brother’s family through a park in Kiev Ukraine. We stopped to play on an old fashioned teeter-totter and my brother commented that you don’t see these around anymore. I explained that the fear…

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Lemme tell ya bout Kurt and Mel

As I see it there are 3 areas of influence on a child that forms them into the person that they will be: The family, The school and The friends.  The family is responsible for teaching the child the love, honor, respect, to be responsible,  to share and follow values. The school teaches them skills…

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Lets get ready for the Olympics

I am very excited about the upcoming Olympic games. Granted there will be no gymnastics, trampoline or swimming but I still feel that I have caught Olympic fever. Watching athletes come together in peace to battle through sport is exhilarating. Knowing that when the games are over the athletes will part as friends who shared…

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Backing it up

Recently I stated that there are many studies that indicate that physical activity enhances academic learning and I was questioned by a few people. I really appreciate comments from people because it means that, at the least, they are reading Gymfinity’s blog posts. But I digress….  Physical education may be disappearing from some schools, but…

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Effort, Dedication and Success

Our goal at Gymfinity is two-fold. We want kids to realize that they can exceed their own potential regardless of the topic and we want them to feel success. In regards to potential, we have to first identify what the child feels that they can accomplish and then we have to convince them that with…

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The energy of the crowd plays a part

We have 2 seasons at Gymfinity. The compulsory teams just finished their season and the higher level gymnastics as well as the trampoline and tumbling teams are just about to get their’s started. So this post is allowing some parents to assess if they did it right, and some parents to get the heads up…

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Goal Setting and strategy

One of the things I love best about being a gymnastics coach is how our sport teaches so much beyond skills to children. One of my favorite by-products is having kids learn goal setting. When we talk about goals with our new optional level team kids we explain that goals are like sign posts: we…

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Treat for a trick? Of course.

I remember Halloween as a kid. I went out until I was about 14 years old (I was small for 14) because, with candy as a motivation, I would do anything.  We set out at sunset and came back around 10. It was a job for us. We took it pretty seriously. It’s a bit…

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Stretch-schmetch and warm up-schmarm up

I have long said that gymnasts waste a lot of time doing stretching before practice. Traditionally coaches have felt that stretching before practice is very important because it reduces the likelihood of injury during practice. That is wrong. First off, lets clarify two very different terms; stretching and warming up. Warming up is a very…

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Hey Canada, go back to being Canadian

Think of Canada. Beautiful right. Think of Canadians… earthy, natural, warm, friendly healthy people. Usually nicer than us stress packed Americans to their south. But things are changing. Canada, as well as the rest of the world, is turning more “American-ish”. Many of the multi-national food production companies are American based. Fast food as a…

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