SPORTS BUILDS CHARACTER!

I hope you are all looking forward to the school holidays and spending lots of family time together in the sunshine.

There’s lots going on this month at your club with everyone welcome to come and enjoy our Celebrations classes. This is where we celebrate your child’s achievements over the last term and you get to see what amazing new skills they have learnt along the way. If your child has passed an award level and therefore moved up a grade this term you will receive a Congratulations email so do keep an eye on your inbox. Award badges and certificates will be presented at Celebrations class.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to support your children on their exciting gymnastics journeys. We also cannot wait to support our British gymnasts as they take part in the Olympic Games at Rio next month.

I fancied going on an adventure to the tropics the other night so I went to the cinema to see ‘The Jungle Book.’ Have you seen it yet?
Such a great film for all the family and it got me thinking about what we can all learn from this film. It teaches you about ‘The Law of the Jungle’ which you could also take to mean the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ and this is something our young British Olympic gymnasts will have to learn to be, both mentally and physically if they want to bring home the medals and beat off the competition at Rio.
There are many morals to be learnt from ‘The Jungle Book’ and most of these I realised are things we teach your children at your Flair club. It’s all character building stuff and at Flair we believe that ‘Sport Builds Character.’

Take these 5 examples.

1. Face your fears ­ “To each his own fear” says Hathi (The Elephant.)
   Learning to face your fears may seem hard but it will be worth it in the end. The satisfaction that follows courage is great. Your child may feel scared at first at the thought of doing a somersault but if they face their fear with the encouragement and support of their coaches they will get there in the end.

2. Help others ­ “I am more likely to give help than to ask for it” says Bagheera (The Panther.)
   Imagine where Mowgli would have been if he hadn’t had that amazing pack of
   wolves looking after and helping him. There are always ways that your child can help others at their club, be it supporting their friend doing a handstand or helping them memorise a routine.

3. Don’t be jealous ­ “There’s no jealousy in the grave” says Kaa (The Python.)
   Jealousy gets you nowhere and it definitely does no good to anyone else. Your child should not be jealous of their friend if they get a higher score than them in a competition.
   Instead they should be pleased for them and they should realise that they need to push themselves a bit harder so that they can reap the rewards themselves next time around.

4. Think smart ­ “And don’t spend your time lookin’ around for something you want that can’t be found” says Baloo (The Bear.) Thinking smart does a lot of good for you and for those around you. Don’t waste your time on pointless activities that aren’t necessary. Start with the most important job on your list and work your way down or the most tricky move on your award syllabus and once you have mastered that, everything else will seem simple and fall into place.

5. Don’t think too much ­ “When you find out you can live without it, go along not thinking about it” says Baloo (The Bear.)
   Fretting over something that can’t be helped won’t help anyone. Sometimes your young gymnast can think too much about certain moves or routines when they would be better off to just throw themselves in at the deep and see what happens, with the help of their coaches, of course.

As you can see, there is a lot more to the story of ‘The Jungle Book’ than you might imagine and I think we can all learn lessons from this movie.

We see the jungle through the eyes of Mowgli the man­cub and the film shows what an adventure life can be.

Another Disney film to look out for this summer is ‘Finding Dory’ and as I am a big fan of ‘Finding Nemo’ I can’t wait to see this one!

 As we come towards the end of the term I’d like to wish you all a very happy summer break.

Enjoy your holidays if you are going away (please do share your holiday stories with me when you see me at your club ­ I’d love to hear about them) and if you are staying at home I hope you have a magical time full of adventure!

To join a Flair Gym club and start your gymnastics adventure book online here > www.ukflair.com/clubs

Or just call us on 01483 654440

Best Wishes

Richard
Founder and CEO of the Flair Gymnastics Group