12 ways gymnastics will help your child as they grow up

With a programme written by Britain’s most successful gymnast, Beth Tweddle, Beth Tweddle Gymnastics (formerly Total Gymnastics) ensures children have the opportunity to learn and build on the basic skills in a supportive environment – but gymnastics is so much more than cartwheels and back tucks!

Whether our gymnasts come along to lessons to learn something new and make friends, or they continue competing long after our programme, our aim is to provide them with the best learning experience possible – and that means passing on the important life lessons gymnastics offers.
Take a look at a few below:

Resilience
In gymnastics, there’s a lot of falling down and getting back up, literally and figuratively. People will reach certain skills before you and after practicing at home every day for last 3 weeks, you might completely forget your routine on competition day – but that’s life! You might have to watch a few people get that promotion before you, but gymnastics will teach you not to quit, but to work harder.

Hard work
You’ll hear a lot of people say the words “natural talent” and “good luck” but as a gymnast, you’ll know that to reach your full potential, you have to put in A LOT of hard work.

Determination
There’s no such thing as a lazy gymnast. Learning new skills doesn’t happen overnight – you often have to fail a few times first, and it’s that determination to keep going that will stand you out amongst others later in life.

Confidence 
People might assume that it’s standing in front of judges in your first competition that requires the most confidence, but by that point, you’ve already done most of the hard work. Confidence is walking into your first lesson surrounded by strangers already steps ahead of you, or trusting your coach not to let go of your spotting belt when you’re mid-air.

Patience
You’ll quickly learn that there are no short cuts to success. Gymnasts can also be quite edgy about the time things take, always trying to work a little harder to speed up the process. In short, you are patiently impatient.

Brave
By this, we don’t mean you have no fears, but that you overcome them. It could be a fear of competing, your first walkover on a beam or moving up to a class of new people – either way, gymnasts learn that success comes from throwing themselves into every challenge.     

Goal Setting
You’ll learn the importance of setting goals and you’ll find yourself setting more and more ambitious targets for yourself as you progress. Gymnastics will also teach you to how to manage these goals by breaking them down into smaller parts to allow you to re-evaluate as you go – never taking your eyes off the final destination.

Balanced 
Literally, but also metaphorically. For example, gymnasts have to learn how to balance their lives between school, work, friends and training – a skill you’ll appreciate when you’re trying to have a social life with 2 kids and a full-time job!   

Action-oriented
Gymnasts don’t succeed by talking about their goals – they succeed by making them happen. It may seem obvious, but it can often take people until adulthood to truly understand this concept.

Thick-skinned
After having your coach constantly correcting you during practice and judges scoring your efforts at competitions, gymnasts know how to take criticism. They are able to separate constructive feedback from someone personally attacking them, which means they’re not flustered when someone doesn’t simply gush about their work. They can listen and act on feedback, just as they have been doing since their first gymnastics lesson.

Reflective 
Coaches aren’t just there to give orders, they are also there to teach gymnasts how to ‘self-coach’ - In lessons, they’ll ask “How do you think that could have been better?”. Being able to take yourself away from a situation and reflect on your actions objectively is definitely a skill employers hold in high regard.

Internally motivated
Successful gymnasts didn’t get to their level by solely measuring their achievements in trophies, medals or positive feedback - If they had, they may not have kept fighting through their failures. A gymnast understands that truly valuing their work must come from within.