Gymnastics: A Basic Class

Lately, I have been neglecting my gymnastics posts. There are various reasons, but the main one is I have been in pain and therefore my gymnastics has become sporadic and reduced to complete beginner.

The coaches for my classes lately have been Zak, Randy and Damir. Until today, mostly Damir and Zak worked with the advance beginners while Randy worked with the rank beginners. Since about August or September, I have been in Randy’s class. Staying in a mild state of fitness while giving my joints and muscles a bit of a break and time to recover.

I don’t think I have given a decent rundown of how classes progress, so this time around, allow me to illustrate my basic Adult Beginner’s gymnastics class.

The class I attend is at Chelsea Pier’s Pier 60 Field House in Manhattan. The Adult Beginner Gymnastics class officially begins at 12pm and lasts for 1.5 hours. At 12pm, one instructor(coach) starts the class with warm-ups. Sometimes, the warm-ups are actually pretty physical and other times the warm-ups are just enough to make the student sweat. It depends entirely on the coach.

After the warm-up, a large circle is formed on the mat and the stretching begins. My favorite style is more akin to yoga or pilates, but there are some coaches who do the kind of stretches I remember having in gym class, and every coach does something completely different. Although the styles and methods are different almost all the stretching ends with handstand practice before we take in some water and return to the Floor area for Conditioning and skill practice.

Typically, our Conditioning starts off with ‘rebounds’. Arms straight up, body rigid, using both legs bounding across the mat forward, returning to the original spot by rebounding backwards. After this anything can occur. Typically there are a few points consistantly hit: Forward Rolls, Backward Rolls, Handstand to forward roll, Side and Front Cartwheels and Round-offs. There are change-ups, adjustments and occasionally new things added depending on the day, the size of the class, the teachers and how much time has already passed. One coach favors th this set, which is repeated until the opposite side is reached: {forward roll, jump half-turn, backward roll, jump half-turn}

By the time Round-offs are done, it is usually time to end the Conditioning section. The group is released to drink water and to help set up the floor for the rest of the session: focused conditioning and skill practice. Our classes are usually split into ‘Never done this and needs heavy spotting’ (Rank Beginner) and ‘Can do this with light assistance and minor spots’ (Advanced Beginner). [NOTE: Rank Beginner and Advanced Beginner is how I determine these two groups in this blog so those who are reading understand. Everyone is a beginner in this class.]

This section of the class is split into two time slots: Forward and Backward. During the first half, all classes work on forward handsprings or some variation thereof, the advanced beginners have been knows to work on diverolls, handsprings, and minor continuations such as handspring to forward roll. During the second half, backflips and various other back exercises are worked.The beginners are not forced to be in one group or the other once they no longer need a spot. They are welcome to join any group, though typically the advanced beginners refrain from intruding on the rank beginners. For much of the time, I was in the advance beginners group for forward working and then I would join the rank beginners for the backward section.

A few months back, it got to a point where my muscles and joints weren’t taking the stress well, so I migrated to the rank beginners to keep fit.

The class ends at 1:30pm and the coaches move on to their next classes.

I hope this synopsis was a little informative. Perhaps next time I will tell more about myself in the class or perhaps praise the coaches. For now though, I invite you to find a gymnastics course if you are not already in one and tell me about your experiences. Perhaps you can meet me on Wednesdays at Chelsea. When the moves are executed properly it feels like flight…. won’t you please come fly with me?