Garden Gators celebrate National Gymnastics Day

SPARTA — On Saturday, Sept. 21 gymnasts around the country celebrated National Gymnastics Day. Locally, Giant Gymnastics of Sparta’s Garden Gator team celebrated during their practice on Saturday.

Coach Susan Bysshe paused during their warm up and encouraged them to work with a partner or in small groups to get creative with their handstands to honor the day. The USAIGC girl’s team came up with some handstands and poses.

Giant’s new location and expansion provides more room for Gators to practice, including a new runway for vaulting, a new additional balance beam and a new set of uneven bars.

The team has grown leaps and bounds over the last two years — they now have 21 gymnasts on their team and have introduced a fourth coach to their ranks. Coach Jimmy Pasquale joined the Giant Gymnastics family this past July. As an additional Garden Gators team coach, he specializes in bars.

“I have spent about 75 percent of my time as a coach teaching tumbling and men’s gymnastics so my expertise lies mostly with competitive USAG men's gymnastics. My favorite to teach is bars,” said Pasquale. “Whether it's the girls’ uneven bars, men's high bar and even parallel bars, they are a great deal of fun and I've brought quite a few kids to state and regional championships in those events.”

Coach Pasquale has been coaching boys’ gymnastics for 10 years, and comes from a gymnastics family.

“My family has run a gym for about 20 years so once I had my fill of doing gymnastics, I decided to start coaching," he said. "I did it to make extra money when I was younger but I seem to have a strong knack for this business as well as a love for the sport.”

Pasquale now teaches boys gymnastics class on Mondays from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. with Giant.

“We have two boys’ classes. The one we currently have on Tuesday’s with Coach Bob Schutz focuses on fitness and gymnastics, and this one we now offer with Coach Jimmy focuses on teaching the skills needed for the seven events in competitive men’s gymnastics — Parallel Bars, Floor, Rings, Vault, High Bar and Pommel Horse,” explained co-owner Jennifer Packard.

Any age and skill level are welcome in this class.

“All you need is a good attitude and have the urge to be there," said Pasquale. "Age and experience mean nothing when you have to capacity and drive to learn.”

In the future, Giant hopes to offer a competitive boys team at their Sparta location. Packard and partner John Skorski already have a boy’s team at their Hackettstown location.

For more information about these and other classes at Giant Gymnastics, visit www.giantgymnstics.com or call 973-579-9400.