Little Town, Big Gym

It is a light tan-colored building that stationed in the center of the small city of Petaluma. A series of maroon stripes are painted around the edges of the building and the smell of old aluminum poises the air. This 14,000 square foot facility would have been home to numerous business offices or food companies if the wealthy owners and dedicated coaches had allowed it to. Instead, ever since it was first founded and opened nearly thirty years ago, it has been a proud home for the wonderful and hard-working coaches and gymnasts who dedicate and spend the majority of their lives in the gym. Redwood Empire Gymnastics-a center for Men’s gymnastics and Women’s gymnastics, Rhythmic gymnastics and Cheerleading, Tumbling and Trampoline-has accumulated a great number of parents and children for a series of years.
From the outside, this building looks nothing more than an old and ordinary aluminum storage house that has been abandoned for several years. The building is surrounded by dozens of small and dirty windows that are gathered with dust on the outside and chalk on the inside. Two giant rolling doors lie on the outside of the building and create an unbearable and annoying screeching noise whenever they are rolled up and down. The skylights on the ceiling of the building are lined up in numerous rows and let only a little bit of sunlight to enter the building. The outside view of the building is like an aluminum box with no round or curved edges visible anywhere on the outside of the building. Being poorly ventilated, the building is continuously asking for leaks and puddles of water on the gym floor.
The inside of the building newly renovated: It is nothing like the outside. While everything on the outside is old and broken, everything on the inside is new and “fresh out of the plastic”. The smell of new mats and equipment lingers in the air, and clouds of chalk surround the heads of gymnasts and coaches. During business hours, the gym is full of coaches and gymnasts ranging anywhere from toddlers to teenagers to adults. Many of the gymnasts spend the majority of their lives in this facility, and for them, it is almost like a home. Whether it is a toddler crawling around like a ladybug, a pre-team member jumping around like a grasshopper, or team member flipping and twisting around like a monkey on a branch, all these gymnasts have dedicated their lives to the sport. Inside, the celebrations of gymnasts and the corrections of coaches and the hard breathing of the gymnasts are many things visible on a daily schedule in the gym.
To me personally, this gymnastics facility has been a second home to me. I can safely say that I spend more time in the gym, than in my own house. I have grown not only as a gymnast in this gym, but as a regular everyday person. Gymnastics has helped me overcome challenges that I would have never faced before, and also taught me how to never give up on my dreams no matter what the circumstances are. Even though gymnastics has made me physically stronger, it has also made me a completely different person mentally. The fact that every day I am able to walk through the same doors of the same building has made me a completely different human being. My life without gymnastics would be plain and boring with very little to do every day. For instance, if I am having a bad day, and I go to the gym to practice, I quickly forget about all my troubles and immediately feel better about myself. I love hearing the cries of success, watching the look on a gymnast’s face when they are focused, and the facial expression of a coach when they are excited about something.
The outside of the Redwood Empire Gymnastics facility was old and dirty, and the inside was clean and fresh; the outside was a light tan color, while the inside was a combination of three colors all in stripes; the outside appearance was not very attractive and eyeball catching, while the inside had unbelievable organization and freshness. Children of all ages were in need of an exciting activity such as gymnastics, and the gymnastics facility was in need of many children. Not only was Redwood Empire Gymnastics a home to many of the coaches and gymnasts, but the coaches and gymnasts were a home to Redwood Empire Gymnastics.
--Yordan A