Hi guys! Coach K here with a little background: I am a current coach, youth mental health advocate and ex-competitive gymnast. I am also a sociology student minoring in social entrepreneurship. One of my biggest passions and boldest hopes is to create safe spaces within gymnastics programs where every athlete feel seen, heard, supported and celebrated. Gymnastics is an incredible sport but though my experience as both an ex competitive gymnast and present coach and the research I have been conducting, I am finding that the gymnastic culture is missing the bar when it comes to the voices of gymnasts being heard and believed in. I want to delve deeper into what we can do as coaches and as a community to create gymnastics cultures of safety and as a result, BIG GYMNAST JOY.
Conversations around this topic REALLY matter and from these conversations I hope to cultivate spaces where gymnasts matter not only as a gymnast but as the incredible and unique individuals each of them are.
I plan on launching my venture by fall 2022 and could use all of your experience/advice/input and experiences.
Throughout this venture I have gone through multiple pivots with products/services I want to innovate to meet these unmet needs within the gymnastics community and culture.
This quarter was tough because of the many directions I could see myself going with this venture. These three are still at the top of the list:
LUNGE by, Coach K: a platform dedicated to gymnastics coaches with resources, podcasts and blog posts to promote gymnast joy.
Gymnast Joy Card Deck: a deck inspired by We’re Not Really Stranger’s to be used by coaches and athletes to form connections and trust
Self-Love Club Workshops With Coach K: These have already been launched and very successful. I want to use the workshops to promote both the card decks and the Lunge platform to talk about why Gymnast Joy matters.
For the purposes of this quarter, I decided to focus on the Gymnast Joy card decks. This is very much an ongoing venture and I am so excited to evolve the venture’s journey with the more I learn about the community and my customers.
Thank you, Coach K
https://www.instagram.com/gymnasticsstrength/
