Tears of Joy at The Little Gym

I wasn't planning on writing a blog post today, but after our morning classes, Teacher Angela mentioned how she almost started tearing up in her Beasts class (age 19-30 months) today.  Sadie has been reluctant to walk on the high beam by herself. She typically holds on tight to Angela or her Nanny Sara.  Today, Sara suggested that Sadie try taking one step by herself.  Angela was by Sadie's right side and Sara by her left.  Sadie took one tentative step by herself... then another... then another... until she made it to the end of the beam by herself.  Sadie was bouncing with excitement.  And Angela's eyes started to well up as well. 

Of course, whenever we share a story like this with each other, our other favorite stories need to be shared.  Teacher Adam brought up a student (3 year old Funny Bug in our Saturday class) from a semester or 2 ago.  Gabby had been terrified of the high beam and would walk across with her jaws-of-life grip on the teacher.  At one point in the semester, she was ready to try it by herself.  Like Sadie, she took a tentative step, and then another, until she made it to the end of the beam.  Adam looked up and caught the eye of Gabby's mom in our multipurpose room (with windows right next to the beam).  It was Gabby's mom who had showers of tears of joy raining down. 

If you've experienced tears of joy at The Little Gym, please let us know!

What are your family's Halloween traditions?

Halloween is in a few days.  Most of us will take our kids out trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, or perhaps to our town's "downtown" area for some trick-or-treating at the local stores.   Then we'll gorge on our kids candy after they go to sleep. 

My children are 5 and 8 years old.  They don't easily forget about the candy they've collected from our neighbors.  So what we do is... we allow our children to eat pretty much as much candy as they'd like before going to bed on Halloween.  They share their candy with Mom & Dad. (I've got quite the sweet tooth.)  And then when we're sick to our stomachs, we throw the rest of the candy in the trash.  Marie makes sure I don't sneak some away for myself for later.

That's kindof our only Halloween tradition.  What are your favorite traditions?   I've heard of the Candy Witch or Faries coming after Halloween to take away all of your children's leftover candy.  I've heard of families who donate their candy to children's hospitals.  I know of neighborhoods that throw big Halloween parties.  What do you do?  (And are you ok if I adopt some for my family? )

In any case, we'll either see you at our annual Member's Halloween Party, or next week for our Progress Party Sleepover week at The Little Gym!

Happy Halloween!

Who is your child's favorite The Little Gym Instructor?

Yesterday, young Maddie came to do a makeup class in Teacher Adam's Thursday Funny Bugs class. She went right on in, no issues, no hesitation.  A few weeks ago, when Maddie came to do a makeup class in my class, she needed Dad to come in with her, and she hung out by the gymnastics stations, hesitant to join in.  When I asked Mom about it yesterday, she said, "Maddie has a crush on Teacher Adam."  I tried not to take in personally even though I am working towards becoming a certified "child whisperer."  

Although all of our instructors are fantastic, I'm curious... who is your child's favorite instructor at The Little Gym and why?

Sneak Peak at our Winter/Spring schedule

It's almost time to reserve your space for the Winter/Spring semester at The Little Gym of Lake Oswego/Tualatin.  If you'd like a sneak peak at our schedule, it is now online on our website on the Class Schedules page.

All members (as of October 6th) will be receiving a copy of our Winter/Spring schedule in the mail around Monday October 26th. It includes details of our two-week Priority Enrollment period in which only members may enroll.  We'll have schedules at the gym around Monday the 26th as well. 

During the 2-week period when only members may enroll (Nov 9 - 21), we'll have refreshments at the Gym plus daily raffle prizes.  I'm finalizing the raffles.  We've got some nice ones for you!  I'll reveal those over the next week or so as they become more solid.

Happy Handstands! -Ron 

Cool article about Teacher Kelly

Here is an article originally from The Virginian-Pilot newspaper (covering southeast Virginia where Teacher Kelly is from).  It's a suspenseful article describing the challenges of the beam in gymnastics and how Kelly saved the day for her high school during a gymnastics meet.

"Balance is everything"

The Little Gym is on TV....

... The Little Gym of Fitchburg, WI, that is.  On October 1st, they were visited by the Madison, WI television station WKOW and featured on a "Parent Project" segment.  

From the article:  Research shows classes such as these help parents learn more about their children than they would through everyday interaction. According to the journal 'Child Development,' "curriculum-based parent-child classes can help parents develop sensitive, appropriate responses to the individual needs of their child. Knowing how to respond best to your child helps them develop a secure attachment to you and in turn, provides a strong base for future relationships."

The link below has a brief article and a link to their 2-minute TV segment.  Enjoy!

WKOW TV Parenting Project: Benefits of Parent-Child classes  (article)  (video)

The most amazing The Little gym instructors

I am so lucky to have such a great group of instructors here at The Little Gym.  We have a 2-hour team meeting each week to review the following week's curriculum, practice skills & spotting, and train on various aspects of the gym, including customer service, class management, cleaning and any new initiatives that we are implementing.

Last night we took a break and took pictures of the team for our new Facebook page.   I'll include a couple of them here. Please visit our Facebook page for more photos.

In our meetings, I talk about how, in this challenging economy, I need everyone to be comfortable handling all aspects of the business, from answering questions correctly, to being able to schedule preview visits and enrolling new members, to doing the most important thing --- teaching the absolute best classes and growing skills and self-confidence in our students.  Each instructor takes their role here at The Little Gym seriously and are continually learning and growing their own skills, either as an instructor or in contributing to this small business.  By doing so, they free me up to focus on how to keep The Little Gym moving forward. 

In the past year, we've included new equipment, we've added a member rewards program, we've expanded our Pro Shop, added a scholarship program for struggling families, and renewed our focus on improving our customer service.  Our current initiatives include cross-training instructors on our various curriculum, and growing our instructors via The Little Gym certification process.  Several instructors are on their way towards being Gold-level certified by The Little Gym International.

I hope you have a chance to meet our great instructors.  I'll post more about them in the future.  If there are any The Little Gym topics you're interested in, feel free to send me an email!

Welcome to The Little Gym of Lake Oswego blog

Yes, it's time for a The Little Gym of Lake Oswego/Tualatin blog.  Time to get into the '00's.  Why blog?  Good question.  I hope to figure that out in the next several months or so.  As we say in our Super Beasts classes when we introduce structure via modified games, or have parents step back and have the children follow the teachers -- It's an experiment!  I'll start writing and see where it goes.

My wife Marie, and I have been the owners of The Little Gym of Lake Oswego/Tualatin for almost 4 years.  It's been quite the roller-coaster ride.  But *every* day, something happens at the Gym that provides the fuel to keep going, working our tails off to ensure we're always teaching the absolute best classes and providing the best customer service.  I'll be writing about some of those events here in this blog.  Feel free to post your comments too!

Today was no exception.  Each September, when we re-start our Bugs class (for 4-10 month-olds), it's a challenge.  Most parents automatically join Gymboree with their littlest ones.  (I know, I've got to get The Little Gym information into the hospitals, pregnancy classes, nursing/La Leche programs, etc...)   So when we get Bugs started it takes a little bit.  This semester we tried the class at a different time (9:15am Mondays), and decided to build up a wait list for several weeks before starting it.  So today, we had four little Bugs start along with their parents.  I love practicing my "Bugs whispering."  It usually takes several weeks for the infants to get comfortable with Teacher Ron.  Today,  I got a nice smile from even our youngest in class. 

Parents typically come to class not knowing what to expect.  There's a lot of learning going on, but just being able to spend 45 minutes with your child, focusing on their growth, focusing on them, bonding, and enjoying them, is tremendously valuable and worthwhile.  I love being a part of that.