This week, Affinity celebrates its 18th birthday! We’re a whole ‘grown up’ person old. Wow.

Ah the summer holidays. That impossible balance of activities, childcare, work, family time, and ideally not tearing your hair out by week 3.

I was asked this question in the gym recently and yes, it is a super valid question to ask. You want to get value from your time and money invested in activities and to see that your child has found ‘their’ affinity with something (you see what we did there ?).

It’s obviously pretty young right?  I mean they’ll never be an Olympian if they don’t get started early? Yes, we think gymnastics (and all its

  It’s pretty undeniable American gymnast Simon Biles is the GOAT. You might have seen her perform recently at the World Championships or heard about

We know gymnastics is great fun. But why should you look to bring your pre-school child as early as possible? We share the top ten reasons why gymnastics is of great benefit for the development of your pre-school child, with the help of some science and the feedback from our current Affinity preschool parents.

From time to time, everyone gets a bit discouraged with what they do – in all areas of life! Success and progress unfortunately isn’t linear. It’s more of a wiggly, messy looking line and that messy part can be hard for anyone to deal with, let alone a child! Here’s my five-step process for you to help support your child through if they feel discouraged at class, or indeed with any activities.

It’s gotta be the number one thing you look for as a parent of a gymnast, right? You are paying the bills and want to know your child is progressing. But what does that mean, what does it look like and how do you know?

It’s true that a cartwheel is one of the most universally recognised gymnastics skills. So it is natural to base some kind of progress on this skill.

But cut your child (or yourself!) some slack. It may be one of our ‘basic’ gymnastics skills but have you ever stopped to think about what a gymnast has to do, in order to do a successful cartwheel?

Wait, but isn’t pointing your toes the whole point of gymnastics? Don’t you have to do that all the time to be a good gymnast? Well, yes it does make everything look nicer. But when it comes to effective learning, it’s actually the last thing on my mind as a coach. I’ll explain why.

We’re asked this question a lot – where does this all go? Where will my gymnast progress to within the sport or what does it all lead to? Our founder, Jennifer, explains how we do this at Affinity with squad gymnasts that enter competitions and do displays, and the progression opportunities within our class system.