Many teachers, coaches, instructors often say the same thing...I'm not really teaching (dance, gymnastics, music, biology.....etc) I'm teaching life skills, work ethic, and teaching 'good-people'. I feel this way too, and looking at life through the lens of gymnastics, the obstacles young people face start to look less daunting after they've had to overcome the fears, injury, risks that they've worked through in the gym. Gymnastics is a humbling sport. You are never perfect and never perfect enough, there is no such thing as high enough, split enough, success is often measured in very small parts that get stitched together to form a whole.. well isn't that life? 
 
This weekend is our Year End show! a crazy folly of a day that hearkens back to my time in the gym (the glorious 70's and 80's when gymnastics was BIG) - I insinuate my theme every year from the banal music-based decades, we've done 60's & 80's, Movie soundtracks then on to celebrating all things CANADA and this year looking outward GLOBAL GYMFEST - each class choosing a country and a piece of music, learning something cultural about a different country and having to make a flag... is this gymnastics? well, it is in my gym. I love it! Gymnastics has and always will be about way more than cartwheels. 
Congratulations athletes all of you, the tall and small whether you do 45 minutes a week or 18 hours. I laud all of you, you will always and forever remember that your are something, you are a gymnast and to me that means you are tough, hard-working, well-rounded, determined...wow being a gymnast means you're a pretty awesome person.