Where are we now?
Where are we now?
.. To celebrate launching our new website we decided to take a look back at 2017 so far and see how much progress has been made.
I am always really amazed at how much progress we have made since I began. In four years I have gone from essentially training on my own in the parks to now having the largest Calisthenics club in Ireland. We now have over 180 members and cater for a variety of age groups all at different levels.
From after-school programmes to evening classes, demonstrations for sports events and workshops across the country and organising Ireland's National Calisthenics Competitions it is amazing for us to see how much progress has been made with Calisthenics in Ireland in those four years.
In 2017 we have had our biggest year to date. We held Ireland's National Calisthenics Competition at the Bar Monkey Festival and we held the first ever Junior Calisthenics Competition at Under 10 and Under 12 category.
Since we began we have met so many others across the country that share the same passion for Calisthenics and it is amazing to see the growth of other groups starting to spread across the country.
Our focus has been on developing Calisthenics as a sport. Some people use it for fitness gains, others to implement into their current sport as an aid, and all of those reasons are fine. Our biggest aim was to see it recognised as a sport and we are delighted to be recognised by dlr Sports-Partnership as the only officially recognised Calisthenics Sports Club in the country. As well as that we are also members of the Irish Primary Physical Education Association.
What I love most about what I do is that every day is an opportunity to progress. That is what makes any sport exciting and that is what makes me excited. I am able to look at the future with excitement at what the possibilities are. We are working with kids now from as young as four and to think what they can potentially go on and achieve is what excites me and gives me motivation to continue on this path we have started on.
Our team has the first ever Junior Calisthenics Competitors, who all represented themselves brilliantly at the Bar Monkey Festival with their own displays that showcased perfectly their different styles. This is something I really love about Calisthenics. It offers people to display and express themselves through movement in their own way. They get an opportunity to express their own individuality through their own movements. Our aim is not to press down on them specific movements, but - using philosophy from Bruce Lee, to help them develop their own style. Individuality is more important than a system. Freedom of expression is more important than following a strict regime. Our aim with our programmes is to encourage that freedom of expression.
What we want to do is encourage people as much as possible to be able to express themselves, and we do that through teaching movement. There is a huge mental aspect of our training, as we are trying to teach people that they can achieve something through consistency and hard work. We do this through teaching movements and kids learn that by achieving movements. I think this is a hugely important lesson to learn and the confidence it brings hopefully helps them in all other aspects of their lives.
Our classes have experienced huge growth this year, and I hope that we can continue on this path that we have started on. We are always planning for the future and as I have said this is what excites me and makes me feel lucky every day that I can plan ahead. Working with the groups we have means that we have an extremely exciting future ahead.
In December four of our coaches - myself, Aaron, Jamie and Stephen of Bar Monkey Galway - will be heading to Eindhoven to compete in the Calisthenics Cup. We will be the first people from Ireland to compete in an International Competition. Whatever the outcome from this, it will lead to us gaining great experience and be able to bring that back to our classes afterwards.
As I have said, all our programmes and building on them leads to us becoming extremely excited at what the future brings, and that is what Calisthenics is all about!
I hope you can check out our new website and see why we are happy with our progress so far and excited for the future!
Thanks,
Jamie
P.S
We are giving away a free place at our halloween camp! All you have to do to enter is fill out our survey below so we can get a better idea about what our website is primarily used for and how we can improve our service to you. Please check the link out below:
As always, if you need any further information on any of our programmes you can email jamie@barmonkeycalisthenics.com