Shout Out To Little Man’s Blog! – Flipping Fun Gymnastics

As a mom I wouldn’t feel right about myself if I did not take a moment to send a shout out to this little man.  This happens to be my oldest boy.  He is 9 years-old, and he decided that just like his mama, he wanted to start a blog.  I guess he sees me work on mine and thinks it looks neat.  He threw some ideas at me and we agreed upon a gymnastics blog.  After all, of all the child bloggers in the world (I don’t know of any, but I’m sure there are a few), how many of them do you think are boys, blogging about their gymnastics? I’m pretty sure it’s not very common.  So, it seemed like something that could be especially his.  I gave him a tour of WordPress, and he created his blog.  He even uses spell checker.  It’s really his own blog.  He’s loving it, so far.  I definitely recommend checking it out, as each post is a quick, short, easy read, https://flippingfungymnastics.wordpress.com/

A little background on Benjamin and his gymnastics.  He got into the sport at 4 years-old.  His brother was 2, and not old enough to do anything but gymnastics.  When Benjamin saw him doing it, he thought it looked fun.  Being that it was a small gymnastics setting (a small gym located on post at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri), the coach invited Ben to join the class.  Ben loved it, and it became clear that he was a natural, and this was his sport.  The coach advised us to  find a gym with a boys team at our next duty station.

We did.  Once we got orders to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, we found a much bigger gym, with a competitive boys team.  Ben started there as a level 1 with Coach Frank, who was at one time, a drill sergeant.  Ben was terrified of him at first, and almost quit gymnastics because of it.  You’d never guess it just a few months into training with him.  All of the boys end up loving him and trusting him so much.  Ben was moved to level 2, a couple months later, level 3 (4 hours/week), and eventually level 4, which is the first competitive level for boys (training 10 hours/week) at the age of 6.  He went on to take 2nd place at state as a level 4 gymnast.

Unfortunately, being military, we never stay anywhere very long.  After his great year as a level 4 gymnast, we were sent to Ft. Bliss, Texas.  We did our research, and no gym in El Paso had an active, competitive boys team.   We found one gym, Infinity Gymnastics Club, which has had a competitive boys team in the past.  They had all of the equipment for boys, and they had boys training at competitive levels there.  Apparently, they just don’t get enough boys of competitive levels to actually compete.  Benjamin trains with a few high school boys.  The youngest boy on their non-competitive team is 14.  Ben is by far the smallest, but he is well-loved by all of them.  These boys are all passionate about gymnastics.  A few actually live in Mexico and ride a bus to get to the gym.  Last year, one of them was out of training for a while because he’d lost his passport, and he couldn’t get into El Paso.

We don’t know what the gym situation will be wherever we go next.  Hopefully, we can get Benjamin back into competing.  In the meantime, he continues to train hard and learn new skills.

Check out his blog, https://flippingfungymnastics.wordpress.com/ as the posts are short, easy reads.  He loves seeing comments and new followers.  Give him a shout out for all of his hard work!