Welcome to Croydon Acro. The Club was originally founded in 1985, and is currently based at Woodcote High School. The Club, which recently celebrated it's 21st birthday, caters for gymnasts of all abilities, from recreational classes to competitive squads. Gymnasts from 2 - 21 plus, train in age tailored classes which take place on Saturdays and on 4 separate evenings in the week at Woodcote High School. The Club includes a Display Team and also runs special pre-school classes. Our classes and squads prepare mostly for the common floor work, but we also include coaching in vault, dance, and trampolining. Our squad members also compete individually in tumbling events.
The British Gymnastics Association has awarded Croydon Acro, Gym Mark status. John Ramsey of the BGA visited the club on Friday, 15th September 2006, to present the award to the Club. The Gym Mark is the gymnastic equivalent of the Kite Mark, and it assures that quality systems are in place, and proves that the club is safe, efficient and child friendly. Rigorous standards have to be met and currently Croydon Acro is one of only 150 gymnastic clubs out of about 1400 nationwide to have met those standards. Only about 20 of those clubs are in the London area, so gaining status is an achievement the club can be very proud of.
LOTTERY FUNDING The Club has managed to secure Lottery Funding to help with the costs of new mats. The club’s old mats have been repeatedly patched up after years of enthusiastic wear and tear and were extremely difficult for gymnasts to move in and out of storage every session. The mats are the most vital piece of equipment for the club where the youngsters have to train hard to perform high energy tumbling and complex balances. Awards for All distributes grants of between £300 and £10,000 of Lottery 'good causes' money to coluntary and community groups across the country. The scheme is administered by the Big Lottery Fund on behalf of Lottery good causes funders; the Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England. They awarded us £2900 towards the total costs of approx £7,000 for the new mats
Acro Gymnastics has many advantages over the more familiar forms of gymnastics. It can offer success to all sizes of gymnast at all ages and is less demanding at lower levels that 4 and 6 piece events. One particularly enjoyable aspect is preparing floor routines for pairs and groups consisting of balances and elements at the appropriate level.
Acro-gymnastics is a floor based discipline, without apparatus, carried out in pairs, womens trios or mens fours. the team use their partners as aparatus and a base from which to perform some amazing acrobatic moves. The sport requires strength, agility, flexibility and no small amount of bravery, wether you're the man at the bottom of a tower supporting three others, or the one somersaulting from the top of that tower!
Thought to soon become an olympic sport with China lobbying for its inclusion in the 2008 Beijing games, acro-gymnatsics is fun, challenging and a great sport to watch.
The club is divided into four main training groups:
- Gymfants (pre-school)
- Classes
- Display Team
- Squads
Gymfants and Gymjuniors is our pre-school section, which works to a structured programme from the 'persil funfit' scheme. They take part in the Club display days
The Classes offer a more recreational form of gymnastics, working towards the B.G.A (British Gymnastic Association) awards, and our Annual Club Competition and Display Days.
Display Team - Try-outs to join our popular Display team are held every year in November. The team consists of both male and female gymnasts. From these trials a team will be selected and gymnasts train every Wednesday evening to prepare for the coming years events.
Mini squad, Development squad and Boys squad prepare the gymnasts for promotion into the competitive squads. Time is spent working on core body strength and flexibility to enable gymanstst to perform key moves. They take part in the Annual Club Competition and Display Days.
Senior Squad train 2 or 3 times per week to obtain a high level of fitness, strength and ability. they are our gymnasts who compete from Novice level progressing to National Development Plan and above.
