‘Strength, flexibility, courage'

Children of different ages, sizes, races and genders tumbled across the mats of the Emma Webb Recreation Center on Tuesday demonstrating their gymnastic prowess.

"That was pretty," Stephanie Martin, gymnastics instructor, occasionally called out to the students.

Then, Mike Chastain, gymnastic program supervisor for the Kinston Recreation Department, divided the dozen or so students into groups; a few practiced on the uneven bars while others learned how to do back handsprings or soared high into the air doing flips off the mini-trampoline.

Michaela Ezzel, 8, was working on the uneven bars with help from Chastain.

"Remember: Step, kick, jump, pull," he told her as she tried to get up on the lower bar.

He spotted her as she did flips around the wooden pole, critiquing her form as she did.

Michaela, Chastain said, is one of the success stories.

She started in the junior class, but skipped a level to give her a bit of a challenge.

"She has a lot of potential, but she has no self-confidence," he said. "She was doing things that were twice as difficult as the kids in her class last year."

Michaela, whom Chastain called extremely shy, would only give one-word answers to questions, except to say that she loved the uneven bars.

Self-confidence is something Chastain hopes his students - including Michaela - will pick up from doing gymnastics.

"(I hope they gain) self-confidence because there's quite a bit of having to overcome fear," he said.

He cited walking across a 4-inch-wide balance beam or swinging around the uneven bars as things that help the students overcome a fear of heights, for example.

Still, it's not the only characteristic Chastain said he hopes the sport teaches the children and teenagers.

"The physical attributes that they gain will help them in any other type of physical activity," he said. "Strength, flexibility, courage: That's the things that we talk to the kids about."

Haleigh Moody, 11, has used the perseverance she's learned from gymnastics to deal with something big, something most kids don't even have to think about.

"She had major surgery (last July) in Virginia and had to sit out," Chastain said. "When she came back, she's made a tremendous amount of improvement over the summer.

"She's really just blossomed."

Haleigh, who got into gymnastics because some of her friends were into it, said she hopes more people get into the sport.

"I like gymnastics," she said, "and I think other people should do it so they can have fun, too."

Thirteen-year-old Kody Wiggins has been coming to Emma Webb for 5 years to chase a dream.

"I wanted to be in the Olympics," he said.

Wiggins ran across the mat, sprang onto the mini-trampoline and flipped. He said it took him 3-4 years to learn how to tumble through the air.

"I like it," he said of gymnastics. "It teaches you how to be fit and not to be lazy all the time because you can do the stuff when you're fit."

Chastain, who has been a gymnastics coach for 20 years, said the summer Olympics tend to give enrollment a boost - a least for a couple of sessions.

"Then, the kids, I guess, figure out they're not going to be able to do what they see on TV in a couple of weeks," he said.

The Beijing Olympics, however, don't seem to have had that effect. Chastain said there are a couple of reasons for that.

"I think it's a combination of the increase in competition that we have here in Kinston and I think we've not done a good job of getting the word out," he said.

Though there are no other gymnastics centers in the city, Chastain said there are a few dance studios and cheerleading classes that offer acrobatics and tumbling.

Still, there are plenty of regulars that keep coming back, like 9-year-old J'Lesa Sauls, of La Grange.

Sauls has participated in gymnastics for five years and said she loves to watch the Olympics, though she doesn't have a favorite athlete.

She said she started gymnastics because her friends were involved in the sport, but that's not why she stuck with it.

"You get to flip and it's fun," she said. "I like doing it."

Vanessa C. Shortley can be reached at (252) 559-1076 or vshortley@freedomenc.com. Check out Vanessa's blog at http://vshortley.encblogs.com.