Melody’s Gymnastics Class

Melody is taking a break from dance for the summer. She wanted to try gymnastics for the longest time. I was a little unsure of this because I think gymnastics involves some kind of tumbling….and let’s just say the girl can’t tumble. Well, evidently, she can.

Her dance class was Ballet and Acrobatics, so there was some beginning handstand and beginning cartwheel learning for the 3 sessions that she took. The teacher told me that Melody never wanted to do the tumble. It’s quite simple – feet apart, hands down, head down, push forward, roll. If I helped her at home, she could do it, but she would not do it in class.

Anyhow, fast forward to last Tuesday when she started her gymnastics class. It’s sort of like a preview class during the summer because there are only 4 classes instead of the usual 8. Parents and siblings have to wait outside, so I’m not sure exactly what went on inside. I was also having to watch Emily who wanted to join the dance class that was taking place across the hall. I peeked in at various time and here’s what I saw….

*The 4 kids in the class in a circle with the teacher leading some stretches, head-shoulders-knees-toes type things…
*Holding a hula hoop over her head as she walked the balance beam
*Swinging on the rings
*And *gasp*, what was this? My girl Melody was doing tumbles!! Not only that, but those forward rolls were not even on a flat surface. She was doing a roll going down on ONE OF THESE PADDED RAMP THINGIES. Hurray!

I didn’t get any photos from the class, but I will try to next time if Emily would stay where I asked her to instead of trying to join that dance class. =p Oh, right after the gymnastics class was dismissed, and all the kids came out, Emily went up to the teacher and said, “My turn.” hehe

– Joyce