Gymnastics Classes for the Disabled : School’s Goal Is to Help Children Build Self-Confidence
When Michael Cates first opened his gymnastic school in Santa Monica seven years ago, he broke several marketing rules.
Most gyms attract students with their competitive team programs. So if a student doesn’t have at least a reasonable chance of excelling in competition, and possibly being the next Nadia Comaneci or Mary Lou Retton, there may not be a place for that child in the school.
Cates did start a competitive team program, and gymnastic classes for students 3 years and older at the Broadway Gymnastic School. But right from the beginning, Cates also started an after-school Enrichment Plus Program for for autistic, mentally retarded and learning disabled children, ages 6 through 12.
“I had observed, while teaching (for seven years) at the Marianne Frostig Center of Educational Therapy, that there was no place for these kids to go after school, which was really a problem for working parents,” Cates said.
Psychological Difficulties, Too
“These are the children most programs don’t like to deal with. It’s hard to work out the psychological aspects as well as the physical difficulties they have,” said Cates, who hires credentialed teachers to work with the children in the school’s enrichment program.
Cates, 40, was a member of the gymnastic team at California State University, Northridge, where he majored in theater and speech and got a California secondary school teaching credential. After graduating in 1971, Cates taught in private schools for eight years before founding his gymnastic programs.
Gymnastics is the foundation of the Enrichment Plus Program, but Cates also incorporates music and art therapy in the curriculum, which is designed to help children improve their self-image and explore their creativity. The 2 1/2-hour sessions are held Monday through Friday, but only two days are spent inside the gym. The other three days are spent playing group sports at public parks and the Venice High School swimming pool, and on field trips.
“I’m interested in the person as a whole,” Cates said. “Gymnastics is the ultimate exercise because it increases endurance, strength, flexibility, agility, grace, poise, quickness of mind and body coordination and develops the muscles.
“But it’s not a competitive situation, which is important for slower children,” he added. “By working with the apparatus, like the trampoline, bars or balance beam, they also get in tune with their bodies in relationship to other objects.
“Someone who walks into the room and trips all the time cannot be very self-confident. Many times with these children, they just don’t have the self-confidence to believe in themselves. We work slowly and progressively with these children, yet set reasonable goals for them to periodically reach.”
‘She Was Terror-Stricken’
Deborah Bogen said her daughter, Lizzy, 10, who has Down’s syndrome, was clearly lagging behind in her motor skills and had difficulty with perception before she started the gymnastic program.
“She’s doing things now that were unheard of before,” Bogen said. “She was terror-stricken to leave the ground before, but the work on the trampoline and balance beam have changed that. She has more sense of her body and what it can do. She feels confidence in herself now and has some real successes, which makes her feel very successful as a person.”
But, to be more successful in our society, developmentally disabled children must learn other things besides gymnastics, Cates said.
“You don’t go to the park and play gymnastics with your friends,” he observed. “Consequently, a lot of time is spent teaching the children group sports skills, such as how to throw, catch and kick a ball. I want these kids to be able to go to the park or YMCA some day and be able to enter in the basketball game or soccer game that’s going on.”
To teach group skills, Cates also organizes field trips, such as visits to the beach, local businesses or museums, as well as horseback riding, hiking, rollerskating and even overnight camping trips.
“These trips are cultural and educational,” he explained. “The children interact with others out in the community, learn to behave in public places and become aware of what their community has to offer them.”
Classes for children age 3 and older are grouped according to skill, not age. The 20 children in the Enrichment Plus Program work alongside other students in the gym, and sometimes advance to more skilled groups.
Last year Cates added twice-weekly enrichment program classes for boys through the age of 17. Peter Blumenthal, 14, who also has Down’s syndrome, was one of the first students in the original program. He has graduated to the new program, which focuses more on sports and weight training.
‘He Wants to Succeed’
“Mike is a catalyst,” said Peter’s mother, Pat Blumenthal. “He keeps these kids highly motivated and gets them to achieve. I’m amazed at what Pete’s acquired, but he wants to succeed because he wants to make Mike happy. Mike has a real interest in the gifted, as evidenced by the Broadway Gymnastic School’s very successful competitive teams, but he hasn’t forgotten about others who don’t have that capacity.”
Programs for developmentally disabled children can get expensive. Tuition runs from $336 for eight weeks of classes two days a week to $525 for eight weeks of clases five days a week. Broadway Gymnastic School faces the costs of maintaining a low student-teacher ratio of between 3-to-1 and 6-to-1, and of keeping up with rapidly escalating insurance rates.
Some who can’t afford the Enrichment Plus Program become clients of the Westside Regional Center in Inglewood, which then pays tuition for the program. The center is a private, nonprofit agency for developmentally disabled persons that is funded by the state Department of Developmental Services.
Since there is never enough state money to go around, Cates said, two years ago he formed the nonprofit Broadway Gymnastic Foundation to provide scholarships for financially disadvantaged gymnastics students. Donations come from individuals and corporations, Cates said.
