Member Feedback
Heathrow Gymnastics Club takes pride in striving to provide every child with a fun and rewarding gymnastics experience, whilst helping them to fulfil their potential and ambitions.
We're delighted to be able to share with you some feedback we've received from members both past and present…
We're delighted to be able to share with you some feedback we've received from members both past and present…
I’m so proud to have been at Heathrow Gymnastics, others across the sport are always a bit jealous when I say I’m from Heathrow. Moving on as a coach, I felt very much the same way, the environment was happy, healthy and really a positive place for children, one that I was happy to put my child in.
As I progressed through the club and loved it so much I and my peers were desperate to learn how to coach as soon as we were allowed. The club supported us throughout our training, both as junior coaches, to fully qualified Senior Coaches that we are today. There were many great role models and I also credit going to university with the support they gave me. They have inspired hundreds, if not thousands of children.
Elite Sport is tough, but without the support of Heathrow and its staff I would never have developed the positive relationship I have with gymnastics, allowing my passion to be turned into my career, for that I will be forever grateful, I know many people who can also say the same.
Heathrow Gymnastics Club is my safe place, my happy place. I never want to leave after a training session. I want to be there even on days when I am not training. I go into gym just to be with my coaches and team mates, for support and encouragement and I cannot ever imagine not being there.
Heathrow Gymnastics Club always felt like one big family with such amazing team spirit and support, I still proudly call myself a Heathrow Hunnie!
We started at Heathrow Gymnastics Club in 2007 when my daughter was 2 ½ years old and joined the Gymlets class, joined a couple of years later by her sister, and then a year later by her brother. My daughters have worked their way up to the top elite squads in their respective disciplines and they now each train around 20 hours per week. Our main reflection of their time at Heathrow has been one of supportive and encouraging coaching. They feel nurtured, pushed to their full ability, supported and embraced. Their coaches are role models who will have a long-lasting positive impact on their lives.
I cannot express enough the support and kindness we have received from the coaches. My daughter has ADHD and ASD and struggles to concentrate but she has been supported and her coaches have gone above and beyond to help her progress and settle in by giving extra support when needed. She has come on leaps and bounds both in her skills, emotionally and her ability to focus and that’s all thanks to the staff at Heathrow gymnastics. Heathrow gymnastics has a wonderful, friendly environment and we have been made to feel nothing but welcome and happy.
HGC taught me that I had the ability to compete for my country. They taught me that I can be the best in the whole world if I wanted to be. They taught me how to be confident. These are things that only a great coach can teach you, and that have enabled me to be where I am today. My gymnastics years were the best years of my life and I would do it all over again.
The club emphasised a balance between life and gymnastics. It is the nature of elite gymnastics that the demands of training inevitably compromise other childhood activities but we loved our sport and we were happy to make that sacrifice. Throughout, the Heathrow coaches were careful to ensure that gymnastics was not our entire focus, so that if a career threatening injury came our way we would have our education to fall back on. This approach created a culture in which education happily co-existed alongside intensive training.
From my point of view, the relationship I had with my coaches was the perfect balance. They knew how to get the best out of me whilst also creating a culture where I could speak up, be heard and have a laugh with them. I feel honoured to have had such a positive experience in the sport and the opportunity to learn from such inspiring people! They motivated me to be a better athlete but also as an individual and for that I am forever grateful. The discipline, respect and drive for success that I gained from training at Heathrow has allowed me to thrive in my adult life and I can’t thank them enough for this.
Heathrow provided education in another sense; in my time at the club we were fortunate as a group to go on gymnastics based trips to South Africa, to Malta, to Los Angeles, Toronto and to Israel. On each visit we stayed with local host families, expanding our cultural knowledge and giving many of the gymnasts opportunities that they otherwise could only have dreamt of. On one such trip I made a life-long friend whose wedding in Canada I attended last year. These were life enhancing experiences providing many happy memories.
The training environment at Heathrow was always safe, stimulating and enjoyable, as I made friendships that would last all of my life. The coaches at Heathrow always supported me in my education and I’m proud to say they always put this first above the sport. The trust and relationship I built and gained with all of my coaches throughout my years training is extremely strong and I would be able to confide in them and ask for help to this day.
I feel so privileged and lucky to have had such a positive experience with the sport and I cannot thank Heathrow Gymnastics club and the coaches enough for creating a safe environment for us as gymnasts.
Heathrow has been the greatest steppingstone for my life and I would not change it for the world!
They say: ‘Home is where the heart is’ and there is definitely heart at Heathrow.
I’ve grown up in Gymnastics across a few clubs, in other regions also, I’ve experienced a lot of working gyms, and honestly, Heathrow is special. They pride themselves on competing at the highest standards without the ‘not so positive’ experiences that you sometimes hear about in other places, it’s why they acquire many older gymnasts in their later years, you come to Heathrow to be happy, everyone in the industry knows it. Producing some of the best Gymnastics in the country but equaled with fun and team spirit.
At all times I found this club to be exemplary in all aspects of Health and Safety. When my child went to this club, I knew that they were going to one that had the strongest procedures in place in every way. That their equipment was all well and safety checked regularly, their hygiene procedures were excellent, and the coaches were appropriately and properly trained and qualified and all held DBS and Safeguarding Certificates. I also knew that coaching was appropriate and suitable at all levels, from pre-school, through recreational, and on to competitive at all levels. The ethos at the club was of hard work (coaches and gymnasts) and enjoyment. An excellent club in every aspect, was always proud to be a part of it.
During my 7 years at HGC I felt that they had my best interests at heart, both as an athlete but also as a person. I look back at my time at Heathrow with only fond memories and feel incredibly fortunate to have had an experience as well-rounded as I did. Our coaches were particularly good at finding the perfect balance because while there are days that you definitely needed an extra push, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how much the coach wanted us to succeed, if we didn’t want it ourselves we would only get so far. Not only did they support me as a gymnast but they instilled values in me that I feel have become invaluable in my everyday life as an adult. They taught me how to overcome fear, stay calm under pressure and rise to the occasion. They taught me the power of teamwork, and how you can accomplish so much more when you work together towards a common goal. They taught me how to pick myself back up again time after time and not get discouraged. But most importantly they also taught me that there is so much more to life than gymnastics. We were encouraged to have balance in our lives, to attend school full time, to have friends outside of the gym, and this really helped us develop into well-rounded individuals. Our squad was like a family, always looking out for each other, and this extended beyond the gym walls. Some of my teammates are still my best friends to this day and I attribute that to the environment that our coaches created for us.