Walking into the gymnastics club can be as intimidating as the boxing club. The gym is made to be welcoming to five year-olds, but when you walk in there and see people flying and flipping about, it can seem impossible.
If your vision of gymnastics is twirling ribbons on the floor, or twelve year-olds doing cartwheels, look up videos of parkour on youtube. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Most of the students at the drop in class are from the gym’s parkour classes and that means most of the students are male.
Brian Hampton was looking for a place to meet people because he was new to town.
When he found out Quesnel had a gymnastics club he signed up.
“I always wanted to learn how to do flips,” he said.
Mimi Lessard has been doing gymnastics for two years and absolutely loves gymnastics.
“It’s not like a gym – going there and ploughing through a workout – it’s fun.”
Fun seems to be the order of the two-hour class, with students moving from trampoline to cartwheels to running up the wall and doing a back flip off it – Matrix-style.
With the self directed style, the classes are as flexible as a gymnast.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a good workout, my aching shoulders attest to the efficacy of the session.
Adult drop in classes run every Monday, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. Gym membership cost $50, which includes insurance and administrative fees. Monthly registration costs $63 a month, or a drop in card cost $120 and allows the user 10 hours in the gym.
– Jonas Gagnon is an Observer writer
