Ella's First Gymnastics Lesson

Ella attended a birthday party at one of the gymnastics centers in our city a few weeks ago, and I was reminded that they had a summer program.  It looked like so much fun and such good exercise, and I wanted Ella to have a regular time each week in a group environment with other kids.  Ella feels a little apprehensive about new experiences, but I convinced her signing up for gymnastics was a good idea.  It didn't take too long to win her over, and she became really excited about doing it.  We went to her first lesson last week, and it was so much fun.

 Waiting for the lesson to begin

Another advantage gymnastics had for me was that the set-up is such that I can be in the room watching, but I'm way far away up in a balcony looking down on the gym.  I'm there, and I get to see, but I'm not so close I'm a distraction to Ella.

They started out by running a few laps around the mat, and then they did some stretching.  It brought me so much joy to watch Ella run and be so happy.

Ella concentrates just like her daddy does...

with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.

 There she goes!

Next they did some work on the bars and some jumping on the mats.

Next they practiced backwards and forward rolls, jumping on the trampoline, and climbing on the rope.  Ella did a great job at everything, but she may just need to join the track team, because that girl can sprint.

Fearlessly into the pit

The only thing that made her nervous was being up on the beam, but I think her confidence will grow.  A couple of the girls fell off last week with no harm done.

 

We had a really fun girls' day out that day.  My car was still in the shop (for about the 4th week in a row), so we made the most of KJ's day home from work.  We had lunch out and did some shopping.  I'm looking forward to this week's lesson.