Confidence…One hour at a time

As a child, I always loved the Tootsie Pop commercials. You know, the ones where the little boy asks the owl, “How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop?”  This commercial popped into my head during one of our Holiday Camps yesterday while watching a girl muster up the courage to walk on the high beam. 

So the question is, “How long does it take to build confidence?” For Isabel, the answer was 3 hours.

Hour 1: She’s getting closer to the beam.  Circling around it, eyeing the stairs, watching the other kids climb right up and walk across.  She backs away and decides to take a stroll down the low beam instead.  She does just fine, but she doesn’t look all that impressed when she gets down.  She looks at the high beam again then heads over to the parallel bars with some friends.  I walk over and ask, “Isabel, would you like to do the high beam with me?” She just shakes her head no, so I offer her to come and find me when she’s ready. 

Hour 2: Oh my! She’s climbed up the stairs!  It took an hour, but she’s up the stairs! I start walking closer to her (you know, safety first) and she is frozen at the top of the stairs.  I take her hand and say, “how about we take 3 steps together?” I get a very polite, “No thank you” before she heads back down the stairs and to the other side of the gym.  She visits the stairs a few more times and each time she comes right back down.

Hour 3: She’s made it back up the stairs, but this time she doesn’t stop there.  One small step, 2 small steps…HOLY SMOKES! She’s halfway down the beam! I’m not really sure what to do at this moment.  I’m helping another child, but I want to call out and say, “Isabel! You’re doing it!” I want to so badly, but I’m afraid of distracting her and breaking her concentration.  So I wait and watch. I make my way over just as she’s jumping down from the high beam and I will never forget the look on her face.  It was joy, amazement and relief all wrapped up in one smile.  VICTORY! She had done it!

I did my best to retell the experience to Isabel’s mom when she came to pick her up, but I’m not sure I did it justice.  I’d like to say that it was a 3 hour long journey that ended in success, however, this wasn’t the end for Isabel…it was the beginning.

Emily Duncan, Gym Director

12/30/11

A New Year at The Little Gym

I don’t know how it happened, but another year has gone by.  While this year has been, well...interesting, I know that I’m exactly where I am supposed to be.

I would like to think that I am an optimist or at least a happy person.  I smile at everyone, I have been known to sing out loud from time to time and I truly look forward to going to work every day (how many of you can say the same thing?) With this mindset, I started to think about what the new year will bring me here at The Little Gym and this is what I’ve come up with…

Witness someone’s first steps, make a new friend, sing on someone’s answering machine, hear a child’s first word, laugh until I cry, hear a child say, “Emily” and butcher it completely, watch a parent do a forward roll for the first time in a long time and smile bigger than their 2 year old, have a child sing louder than me during the good bye song, pretend to be a dinosaur, pretend to be a robot, pretend to be a running hamburger bun , celebrate potty training successes, clean up potty training attempts, think I can still do big gymnastics skills and not be sore the next day, watch a child walk on the high beam all by themselves, get over a hundred high 5s and hear a child say, ”TA DA!”

The best part about all these things…I know they will happen.

Happy New Year!

Emily Duncan, Gym Director

12/26/11

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