Vault Into Infinite Athletic Possibilities

Youth Gymnastics Propels Members to Heights of Potential Pursuits

By Jake Ten Pas

Many a parent has dreamt of somehow tapping into the seemingly inexhaustible well of their own children’s energy. While modern science hasn’t yet provided such a method of energy transference — meaning moms and dads still have to find their own renewable resources — the sport of gymnastics seems to have the kinetic overabundance of youth properly channeled.

Beyond making sure that kids are adequately fatigued enough for parents to find a little rest and relaxation themselves, gymnastics sets up young people for a lifetime of fitness and competitive possibilities. Because exercise has been proven to provide energy, improve sleep, and enhance mood, that just might mean that children who hit the mats, beams, and bars are more likely to grow into parents capable of keeping up with their kids.

Maybe gymnastics has all the answers, after all.

Member America Hopson got her start in the sport around the age of 6 in Houston, Texas, where she grew up. As a current and future tennis lover, she now prefers avoiding faults to performing vaults, but her love of pushing her physical limits while perfecting the moves of an endlessly fascinating pastime persists.

John Ladd Steele, who goes by his middle name so he can recognize when someone calls out to him in any crowd, is only 17, but gymnastics already has facilitated a mostly smooth transition to his new sport of pole vaulting. College freshman Alia Cohn stepped out on gymnastics with dance and reports similarly transferable physical and mental strength. With so much anecdotal evidence about the power of early gymnastics, the research team at The Winged M felt compelled to investigate further. These are its findings.

Might As Well Jump

The hypothesis that everything is bigger in Texas has yet to be proven, and Alaska makes a compelling argument to the contrary, but it’s certainly true that the Lonestar state has ample land on which to build structures the size of gymnastics arenas.

“Gymnastics in Texas is a whole ‘nother thing,” Hopson says. “There’s a lot of sprawl there, so they have room for a lot of big gyms, and just by nature of the Károlyis moving to Houston, they were so iconic as coaches. They drew a lot of people there.”

But Béla and Márta Károlyis — the famous husband-wife training duo who helped to elevate the talents of Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, and so many other great gymnasts — weren’t what drew Hopson to the sport.

“I loved my teammates, number one. We were a bunch of 7- to 12-year-olds moving up the ranks of gymnastics together, and you form a really, really strong bond. You’re with them more than you’re with your family during the week, and it’s a more intimate bond than your school friends,” she recalls. “I’m hyper-competitive, so that really checked that box, and also the physicality of it. It’s a huge adrenaline rush!”

Hopson might not have gotten her start in gymnastics at MAC, but she was on the program’s boosters team, volunteered at meets, and observed its workings as her daughter Paloma participated in the sport here. “It’s a kinder, gentler sport than what I experienced in the ’70s and ’80s in Houston. I also think the MAC does a better job at looking at the whole person, the whole athlete, and the whole child in terms of, you’ve got to have good grades and some kind of a social life. I don’t think that that was at a premium when I grew up,” she says. She also found her second athletic act at MAC. “Now I’m a crazy tennis player!” she proclaims. “You get the same release, you’re whacking a ball really hard, if you want. You can practice for hours and hours on your own. It’s an individual sport, but you can also be part of a team. And the competitive nature of tennis, I think that resonated with me personally when I finally got the bug.”

Hopson points out that her years in gymnastics prepared her to play tennis in a number of ways. “I love jumping! Even on the tennis court now, because I’m 5'4", people are always like, ‘How can you reach those balls?’ And I say, ‘I have a lot of vertical because that’s what I did my entire life.’” She also reports learning valuable goal-setting skills, the kind of discipline necessary to follow through, and even a modicum of patience, all of which continue to serve her well. Playing five days a week and in three leagues a year has similarly provided social connections, and she regularly travels to compete and spectate.

“It’s much of my social sphere now because our whole group has been doing it for so long. They really become part of your extended family. When we go on tennis trips, I’m always the one out of my 50-something friends who’s climbing over the fence to get in because somebody forgot their key. I’ll climb onto a roof if I need to. Everybody’s like, ‘America, go do it.’ Because it’s just part of who I am now.”

High Vaultage

Ladd Steele doesn’t just like to be able to recognize his own name. His handle derives not just from his middle name but also his grandfather’s first. It’s a throwback to another time, much like Ladd himself, whose self-awareness suggests an older soul, and whose dedication to pole vaulting follows in the previously established flying formation of his father.

“My dad pole vaulted in high school and college,” he explains but says his dad was reticent to talk about it because he didn’t want to pressure Ladd to follow in his footsteps. “My parents wanted me to participate in a school sport. That’s a really great way to build community. Even if you’re not going to take it super seriously. It’s good to have people around you who are working hard and have a mindset that you may not be familiar with.”

While baseball was Steele’s first passion, as the years went on, he realized that he was only really in love with the fun parts of the game and not the hard work and repetition a serious competitor has to commit to in order to progress. Fortunately, he’d also gotten into gymnastics through MAC summer camps, and it proved to be the perfect activity to lay the foundation for the sport that would eventually make him go full-on head over heels.

“Once I expressed interest in pole vaulting, my dad found the Willamette Striders. Track Club, and he got me a private lesson with one of the coaches there. I tried it and was terrible at it, but I loved it,” he recalls. “As I saw the progress and how my body awareness was helping me in the sport, I think that really helped to inspire me to keep going, even though it was really difficult.”

He also managed to break his arm and dislocate his elbow pole-vaulting, but not even that could deter him. He lays that resilience, as well as his well-developed physicality, on the mats of gymnastics’ foundation.

“The drills for pole vault are definitely pretty weird, but I think what helped me a lot was my background in gymnastics.” Between the kinesthesia and core strength, he says it made the transition to another acrobatic sport far easier.

Describing his younger self as a “crazy kid, just kind of throwing my body off of stuff and sometimes not in the safest way,” Ladd explains that gymnastics helped him direct his energy in a positive, constructive direction, and that the camaraderie he shared with his teammates, his affinity for coaches, and the sense of sanctuary he felt while unwinding in MAC’s Gymnastics Arena all were incredibly helpful in his maturation process.

If you’re going to bounce off the walls anyway, why not learn to flip?

“You just have to remember that progress isn’t a linear curve. Especially with gymnastics, that can be seen very clearly because the breakthroughs that you have are huge. You’ll be working on a skill for a month or two, and then all of a sudden one day you’ll show up to practice, you won’t think you’re going to do it, but then you do because all that hard work and training finally pays off.”

Now, the Lincoln High School junior — soon to be a senior — is finding the same rewards through his dedication to pole vaulting. At the Oregon Relays, he cleared 13 feet 11 inches and some change, a big personal record for him. He tied for third at the event and got fifth at state, earning him his first ranking.

As he continues to train and refine his technique, Steele says his dad has even suggested that it might be worth going back to MAC Gymnastics’ coaching staff for pointers. “In the pole vault, the goal is to swing upside down, which is similar to a gymnastics move called the free hip, where you swing around the bar to a handstand. I think it’d be interesting to see what my old coach, Rob Saliski, has to say about that. Some of the best pole vaulters have gymnastics backgrounds because it translates so well.”

Let’s Dance

“Dancers have incredibly strong legs,” Alia Cohn asserts. “But gymnasts have a different kind of strength because you’re absorbing a lot of shock. You get conditioning at a younger age, which you don’t really get in dance. So, my jumps were always very high because my quads as a child were insane due to gymnastics. I always found my endurance for holding a relevé was great because on beam you have to stay up on your toes the whole time.”

It’s not exactly shocking that gymnastics provides the perfect setup for dance, but the confidence that Cohn gained through the sport extends beyond the obvious. She throws around words like proprioception — which she defines as “knowing where you are in your environment without sight necessarily” — while expressing awe at her body’s functionality and seemingly limitless potential.

“In gymnastics, you’re taught that if you take the time and put in the effort, you can do almost anything,” she says. “There are so many steps that build up your confidence and spatial awareness.”

Given that body image continues to be problematic for a lot of young women, it’s reassuring to hear Cohn talk about the messages she received about her vessel through MAC Gymnastics. She appreciates how she looks and what she can do because coaches like Brin Cavallero and Molly Gill cared about their athletes holistically. They teach that food is fuel, and there’s zero shame in giving the body what it needs to help the individual accomplish whatever they want.

“I look slightly different than my other female friends who work out because my muscle structure was built from gymnastics. If I wanted to, I could try acrobatic skiing or boxing. My body can do incredible things for me, even if it’s just taking a walk, running, or going on a hike. Also, I can still do backflips at age 19 after not training for years.”

Currently at Skidmore College in upstate New York, Cohn says she’s not quite ready to declare a major, but that she knows in her heart she wants to pursue two, biology and dance. She has three different diving certifications and wants to get her fourth, safety diver, in the not-too-distant future so she can start training to become a divemaster and certify others. A master’s degree in marine biology and underwater photography also call to her, among myriad possibilities on her horizon.

Even after a hard fall while taking circus classes during her study abroad in London last semester — followed by two months of self-enforced rest to heal a twisted vertebra — Cohn remains unfazed. This is largely due to the commitment to safety and longterm fitness she learned through MAC Gymnastics.

“As cheesy as it sounds, you can literally do whatever you put your mind to. If I can throw myself through the air basically at terminal velocity, I can do anything.”