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Your match

The starting point for young gymnasts at Astro. One hour a week in the gym, learning the basics of rhythmic gymnastics through games, music, and plenty of repetition — balance, coordination, jumping, rolling, and a first go with the ball, hoop, and ribbon. At this age we're building the foundation: strength and flexibility, but also the habit of listening to a coach, waiting a turn, and trying something that doesn't work the first time. Astro classes stay small so every child gets attention, and nobody needs any experience to start. Most gymnasts come once a week. Twice or three times suits children who take to it quickly and want more floor time.

Your match

Short description going hereWhere the basics start turning into gymnastics. Ninety minutes gives us room to warm up properly, spend real time on each apparatus, and still finish with a game. Gymnasts work on ball, hoop, and ribbon handling, build flexibility and strength through conditioning, and start linking movements together instead of practising them one at a time. This is the age where children begin to notice their own progress — a throw that finally lands, a balance they can hold. Astro coaches push a little harder here than in Beginners, while keeping classes light enough that the gym stays somewhere kids want to be. Once a week is plenty to start. Two or three suits gymnasts who are keen and want more time on the floor.

Your match

For gymnasts who've mastered the basics and are ready for more. Level 2 builds on foundational skills with more advanced apparatus work — rope, hoop, ball, and ribbon — plus longer combinations, improved flexibility, and greater control in balance and pivot elements. Gymnasts learn short routines and develop the musicality and expression that make rhythmic gymnastics unique. Prerequisite: completion of Level 1 or coach assessment. Ages [7–12].

Your match

A first room rather than a first class. Hoops, ribbons, beanbags and a lot of running about, with a parent or a grandparent on the floor the whole time. Nobody is asked to let go of a hand before they are ready. Forty-five minutes is about as long as a two-year-old's attention lasts, and we shape the time around that. We start in a circle with a song, move through stations — balancing along a line, crawling through a tunnel, rolling a ball back and forth, waving a ribbon far too fast — and finish sitting down together. Some weeks a child joins in with everything. Some weeks they watch from your lap for half the class and then join in for the last ten minutes. Both are fine, and both count. What's actually being learned is bigger than gymnastics. Balance, co-ordination, and the confidence to try something physical. Taking a turn. Hearing a coach's voice and following it. Your job is simply to be there. No experience needed, no fitness required — you'll be sitting, crawling and clapping more than anything else. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and caregivers are all welcome; it doesn't have to be the same grown-up every week. Saturday mornings at Astro, once a week, forty-five minutes.

Your match

Program description Rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon, taught in the order a body learns them. Groups are capped at fourteen so a coach can watch every attempt. Children come once or twice a week and move up when they are ready rather than when the season ends. This is the main recreational stream at Astro, and where most of our gymnasts spend their time. An hour a week, no competitions, no early mornings, no pressure to commit to more than a family wants to. Some children stay in it for a term and move on to something else. Some stay for six years. Both are the point. A class starts with a warm-up and conditioning — the flexibility and strength work that makes everything else possible — then moves onto apparatus. Rope first, because it teaches rhythm and timing. Hoop next, then ball, then clubs and ribbon, which demand the most control and come last for good reason. Gymnasts work in small groups on drills, then put pieces together into short sequences set to music. Because the group is capped at fourteen, a coach sees every throw and every catch. That matters more in rhythmic gymnastics than almost anywhere else: the corrections are small, and a habit learned wrong early takes a long time to unlearn. Progress here isn't marked by a badge or a grading date. Coaches move a gymnast on when they're ready, and will tell you where your child is at any point — just ask at pickup. Once a week is what we recommend, and it's enough. Twice suits children who are genuinely keen and want more floor time. If your gymnast starts asking for a third, that's usually the conversation about Pre-Competitive. What to bring Indoor clothes they can move in, bare feet or gymnastics slippers, hair tied back, and a water bottle. No apparatus needed to start — we provide it. Gymnasts who want their own can buy a ball, hoop or ribbon from the Astro shop.

Your match

Program description The step between the recreational floor and the squad. Two or three evenings a week, the same apparatus taken more slowly and more precisely, and a first look at routines. Entry is by assessment — ask at the desk and we will find an evening for your gymnast to come and be watched. Two hours is long enough to train properly. A session starts with a full warm-up and conditioning block — flexibility, core, and the ankle and shoulder work that protects a body doing this much repetition — and only then moves onto apparatus. Gymnasts spend real time on one or two pieces rather than rotating through all five, because precision at this stage comes from doing the same thing many times with a coach correcting it. The other change is routines. Up to now gymnasts have learned skills. Here they start learning to link them, to music, in an order they have to remember — which is a different kind of difficulty, and the one that separates a gymnast who can do a skill from one who can perform it. Pre-Competitive at Astro is not yet the competitive squad, and gymnasts in it are not committed to competing. Some move up to the Competitive Stream. Some train here for a year or two and go back to recreational without any fuss. It is a place to find out whether the extra hours are something your child actually wants, before anyone asks the family for nine hours a week. What it does ask for is consistency. Two evenings a week is the minimum that makes sense, and gymnasts who miss regularly fall behind the group rather than themselves. Three suits those who want the pace. We keep the group small deliberately. Spaces open when a gymnast moves up, which is why entry is by assessment rather than by booking. What to expect as a parent Evenings from 5 to 7, so plan around homework and dinner. Gymnasts need indoor training wear, their own hoop and ball by this stage, hair secured properly, and a full water bottle. Coaches will tell you honestly where your child sits and what they're working towards — ask, and you'll get a straight answer.

Your match

Program description The squad. Training is priced in hours a week rather than lessons, because that is how the athletes and their parents talk about it — nine hours, twelve hours, sixteen. Competition entries, travel and leotards are billed separately as they fall due. Sessions run four hours, Monday through Friday afternoons into the evening. A session is built the same way each time: warm-up, then a long conditioning and flexibility block, then apparatus. Athletes work one or two pieces properly rather than touching all five, and finish on routines — full run-throughs, sections repeated, the same eight counts until they hold under fatigue. At this level the work is mostly repetition, and the difference between athletes is usually how they handle it. Coaches at Astro correct constantly and expect corrections to be taken and applied, not just heard. That is the actual skill being trained here, more than any single element. What the commitment looks like. Eight hours is two sessions a week and is where most athletes start. Twelve is three. Sixteen is four, and suits athletes competing at a level where the routine load demands it. Athletes do not move up the hours because they want to but because their body and their schoolwork can carry it — we would rather a gymnast trained eight hours well for two years than sixteen badly for one. Families should know what they're taking on. Competition season means weekends away, early call times, and entry fees, travel and leotards on top of the monthly training fee. Schoolwork gets done in the car more often than anyone would like. It is a real commitment from the whole household, not just the athlete, and we would rather you knew that before you started than found out in March. What we're not. We don't train through injury, and we don't weigh athletes. A gymnast who needs a week off gets a week off. Rhythmic gymnastics has a poor history on both counts and we have no interest in repeating it. Entry is by assessment. Most athletes come up through Pre-Competitive at Astro, but gymnasts from other clubs are welcome — get in touch and we'll arrange a session for our head coach to watch them train.

No match

Nothing on the timetable fits that age yet.

Ask us anyway — groups get added when there is demand for them, and we would rather know.