What Your Child Can Get Out of Competitive Teams

When your child wants to join a sports team you’ll have lots of questions. How much time is required? Will we still be able to have family time? What about homework? What about school altogether? For many teams, such as soccer or softball, the time commitments are not so large as to significantly affect your family’s lifestyle. For gymnastics, the commitment is much larger, but before you say no, think about the benefits for your child of participating with competitive gymnastics teams.

Basic Benefits

Just as with recreational gymnastics classes, children’s overall fitness continues to improve when committing to a team. Strength, flexibility, and endurance all increase as your child spends more time working on gymnastics skills and routines. At the same time, as her abilities move to new levels she’ll also become more confident not only in the gym but in all areas of her life. Most children who are involved in a competitive sport that they love also do well in school, despite the time required for workouts and competitions.

Growth of Mental and Emotional Skills

Joining a competitive gymnastics team also boosts a child's mental and emotional growth. Goal setting becomes more important, giving her a solid foundation for this life skill. Learning how to cope with the boredom of repetition, as a child practices the same routine over and over again, contributes to a mental toughness that lets her see beyond the moment to the ultimate goal. And as hard as it may be to accept, turning in a less-than-stellar performance at a competition teaches resilience so your child can get up and try again.

Social Rewards

Although you may be concerned that the commitment required by competitive teams may take away from your child’s social life, many former gymnasts agree that the friendships formed with team members are among the most solid and long-lasting of their relationships throughout their lives. Your child will learn to cheer on her teammates and rejoice for the one who achieves the highest score. Children on competitive teams also learn about commitment; they don’t want to let their coach and teammates down, so they go to practice even when they don’t want to.


Overall, whether your child competes with a series of teams as she grows older or finds that a couple of years of competition is all she wants, she’ll achieve a sense of accomplishment she can find nowhere else.

How Rock Climbing is the Best Team Building (contact Tumblebees for your next corporate event!)

Over the past couple of decades, team building programs have helped thousands of businesses reach their goals. You may have heard or read about corporations that send groups of employees off to specialized training programs in the wilderness, but did you know that you can still achieve the same results right here at home? You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars in team building. As a local business based in Greensboro, the Ultimate Climbing Gym is available to help.

Taking Risks

The premise of team building is to encourage risk taking in an environment where team members have each others’ backs. Solving the problems set for the team requires working together, often in a physical way, where everyone must pitch in to reach a solution. This responsibility towards other team members encourages bonding and team reliance, which should continue once the team is back at work.

Climbing Teamwork

In a climbing gym, the teams are small. In fact, they consist of just two people: the climber and the belayer. The job of the climber is self-explanatory, but belaying is the job of keeping the climber from falling. The two must work together as a team to minimize risks in order to achieve a successful climb. As the climber ascends the wall, he must relay instructions to the person on the ground doing the belaying. Meanwhile, the belayer must pay attention to the climber and be alert for any problems that may arise. By the end of the session, belayer and climber will be proud of their teamwork and accomplishments.

Facilities

The Ultimate Climbing Gym is suitable for corporate groups and small businesses. We treat everyone alike. With advance notice our climbing space, which includes a 40-foot-tall lead climbing area and 16 top ropes, is available seven days a week. We set routes for all abilities and skill levels. In addition, we have a private room where your team can meet before or after the climbing experience to address concerns and discuss results while they’re still fresh in everyone’s minds.

Let us know what you want from your team building exercise and we’ll do our best to help you achieve it.

How Our Tiniest Gymnasts are Growing

How do you keep a toddler busy? He’s just learned to walk and the next thing you know he’s climbing onto the table! You’re exhausted, but he’s still going strong. You know you have to find an outlet for all this energy!

The problem is that there just aren’t a lot of organized activities for these under-twos. They are too young for most recreational classes or a regular preschool program, where two is the usual minimum age. Toddlers are even too small for many park playgrounds.

Gymnastics for Toddlers

Tumblebees can help with our Busy Bees program. We get it. That’s why we call this group Busy Bees. There are two classes available every week designed just for this age group of 12 to 24 months. As a parent or caregiver you guide your child for 45 minutes through core gymnastics skills, coordination activities, and group games. All activities in our Busy Bees classes are age appropriate, designed for these very young but active and growing bodies and minds.

Never too Young

If you’re thinking that this age group is too young for structured classes, we hope to prove you wrong. Our goals for the Busy Bees classes are the same as for all our classes. Our students learn such skills as listening, following directions, and goal setting. Yes, we know. Goal setting for a 13-month-old sounds ridiculous, but for a child who has just learned to walk, that goal might be as simple as walking across the room. The children also learn the basics of safety, respect for others, and taking turns, all reinforced by you as you help your child through the class.

Physical Benefits

Besides the social and cognitive aspects of a gymnastics class, our youngest students gain physical skills as well. You’ll see improvement in coordination and balance, meaning your little one is steadier on her feet. An increase in spatial awareness and rudimentary safety concepts combine with climbing skills to give her more control over her movements. And with every class your child will be growing stronger and stronger.

Fun, Fun, Fun

We don’t mean to make it sound like this class is all serious work. The greatest benefit for both you and your child is that Busy Bees is fun! You’ll both make new friends in our no-pressure environment, but the best part will be that big grin on your little one’s face.