Blog

By Sarah Batdorf, Managing Director I have had the pleasure of working at Top Flight Gymnastics for more than 13 years. I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long! There is so much gratitude in my heart for the lessons I have learned during this time, the ways these young gymnasts have inspired me, and for the incredible professionals around me who have taught me so much. That’s really the inspiration for starting this blog–a platform to share the ways this sport (and this place) has made me a better person. It seems only right that I would begin with a failure, which is the place where growth can begin. The first season I was head coach of our recreational team, I was so excited. I had been given the opportunity to coach a group of talented kids who loved gymnastics and were extremely competitive. My goal was to help the athletes be as successful in competition as possible. Winning feels good! I figured if it kept the athletes and parents happy, what could possibly be wrong with that? My skill selection for competition routines allowed the athletes to be highly successful in competition against teams that practiced twice as much! Fast-forward a few years, and a lot of these kids really stalled in their progress while developing higher-level skills, particularly on beam. They struggled with confidence, consistency and fear, particularly with acro series and flight skills. I realized that in prioritizing the skills they were naturally good at as lower-level athletes, I never encouraged them to step outside of their areas of comfort. They’d enjoyed success, but I’d unintentionally done them a disservice—and years later, they had to work twice as hard to catch up. Since then, my goal has been to find balance–as a coach and a person–between creating opportunities for short-term success while planning for long-term growth. There isn’t a formula for this. To me, gymnastics feels like this living, breathing thing–it’s physically challenging and extremely technical, but also deeply intuitive and emotional in a way that’s hard to explain, and I’m still evolving because of it. That season taught me one of the most important lessons of my career: growth takes time, courage, and patience from all of us. I’m grateful for the athletes who helped me learn it—and I’m excited to share more of the moments that shaped me in the posts to come.