Big kids tumble too!

Published 6:00 pm Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Class begins with everyone in a row. Socks are off, that’s the rule. Better stretch good, don’t want to get hurt.

In between reaching for toes and completing various other bends and twists, the students chat but it all remains pretty serious. But that’s about when serious stops.

“OK, ready for some summersaults? Forward first,” announces instructor Debbie Wilkie.

“Oh, I’m still working on these,” a student says. Then it’s the backwards tumbles. “I can never get around just right,” said Jodi Schmidt.

But this class isn’t about being an all-star. It isn’t about who can do three double flips in a row. It’s about the simple stuff and about having a smile

on your face the entire time.

At the moment, only an elite few fill their ranks. Or, at least, only a handful thus far have registered and shown up. The few, the flexible? They’re found in an adult gymnastics class at Island Dance in Clinton.

Since the beginning of September, Wilkie has led a group of adults through floor routine exercises and the finer points of beam, vault and bars.

“This is definitely one of the funnest classes I teach,” Wilkie said.

Wilkie herself began taking gymnastics classes at the age of 4, but she had to take a break from competing due to an injury in high school. At the age of 17, though, Wilkie soon found that she could remain involved in the sport by coaching other gymnasts. She began coaching at the high school and local YMCA in her native Longview.

Today, at age 31, she’s a USA Gymnastics licensed coach who teaches almost 20 different gymnastics classes at Island Dance, where she’s been for the last two years.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love teaching gymnastics,” Wilkie said. “The benefits for kids are amazing.”

Wilkie said that gymnastics is not only a great sport by itself, but people who practice gymnastics also tend to do well in other sports and everyday activities.

“It helps improve strength and flexibility and uses parts of your body that are often unused,” she said. “It’s definitely a different way of coordinating your body.”

And the skills learned, such as how to fall, directly have an impact on other life activities, Wilkie’s students have found.

“One of my students fell off a bike, but they knew how to roll out of it because they learned in class,” she said. “They still got a little hurt from the fall, but not nearly as bad as they would have if they hadn’t known what to do.”

Shouts of “You can do it!” and “Way to go!” are sprinkled throughout every adult gymnastics session. The parents act as a team, all rooting for each other to succeed.

There’s plenty of applause, and after people dismount the apparatus, hands and heads fly in the air, almost searching for those Olympic judges to tally

the score.

Jodi Schmidt never wants to leave class. If any of the students whine at eight o’clock that class is over too soon, Schmidt will likely be the loudest.

“This is my midlife crisis,” she said. “Most people go out and party, I join adult gymnastics and hip-hop classes.”

Schmidt, 46, attended South Whidbey schools, and can still remember those three weeks each year that Langley High School physical education classes studied gymnastics.

“I loved it. And remembering how much I loved it I wanted to do this class. I didn’t care how much older I was,” she said.

Now, Schmidt can share her love for gymnastics with her 9-year-old daughter Lillian KaiserSchmidt.

Admittedly, she said that her daughter is the star gymnast in the family. “She’s at a much higher level and can do aerials, flips, a whole lot more,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said the class does double duty; stretching her mental agility and her body after long days working as a housecleaner. Schmidt has lost 20 pounds between helping the gymnastics classes and also taking the adult gymnastics classes.

When she started she couldn’t do push ups or sit ups. Now Schmidt regularly joins her daughter in gymnastics’ sit-up and push-up sessions.

“I have to do this,” Schmidt said. “This is my mojo.”

In class, the students begin cartwheels and round offs. Tongues stick out in concentration. Then it’s a combination: round off to a back summersault to a half split. Voila! Easy, right? Easier said than done. But at least they get to have fun all the way.

Kajsa Martin, 40, a mother of three from Clinton, joined the class looking for a challenge. She’s up for it with the combo: round off — pause — to back summersault, and a quick arms up half split.

Martin giggles the entire time. “This is just so much fun,” she said. She heads back to the line and it’s all high fives and secret handshakes. “That’s not to leave the gym. It’s only for the cool kids,” said student Nathan Wilkie.

Taking the class was inevitable for Wilkie. He’s Debbie’s husband and also happens to assist many of the gymnastics classes at Island Dance. “I have to know what to do so I can teach the kids. Plus it’s just fun,” he said.

Next up, it’s the vault. Moans and groans pour out but they still all run the track, pounce on the springboard and squat on the vault.

“If you don’t run into it at least once you’re not a gymnast,” Wilkie said. “We all run into it, whether we want to or not.”

Making the rounds on the apparatus rotation, they head to the beam. At only four feet off the ground, it can still make grown-ups weep. Or at least get a little nervous and talk of all the sweat accumulating on their palms.

They find walking easy. Jumping on the beam a bit intimidating. And a summersault? Upon this request, the students look at their instructor like she’s crazy.

“It takes a lot of trust to work up to something like a summersault on the beam. People walk through the door who haven’t been upside down in 20 years,” Wilkie said. “I always tell them to be prepared to become dizzy, we all do at some point.”

Whew. Now that that’s over, it’s time for the bars.

“You know how to get better on the bars?” Wilkie asks.

“Abs and arms” the class pipes back.

Nathan Wilkie can’t help but chuckle a little,.

“I tell my class that all the time and they say it back almost the same way,” he said.

And at some point the children report back to Wilkie when mom, dad or grandparent wasn’t doing their gymnastics homework.

“Having the strength to take this class brings out the child in everyone,” she said.