There hasn’t been a formal artistic gymnastics training facility in the Orange area in over 40 years. We’re in the center of NJ’s most diverse areas. Neighboring towns are West Orange, South Orange, Montclair, Newark, East Orange, Irvington, Livingston, and Bloomfield. Essex County has some of New Jersey’s most affluent and well-educated residents. We’ve trained students from a variety of backgrou
nds. We have parents who are doctors, lawyers, maintenance workers, business owners, secretaries, students, police officers, teachers, bankers, administrators, artists, PHDs, all levels of retail, etc. Some live in sprawling mansions and some come from down the street. Some are transplants from New York and the Southern States. Our locale has it all. And, the Athletic Arts Academy has serviced them all. The common thread is that our parents seek out good, developmental things for their children to do and they want to support positive programs in their area. People haven’t lost faith in our urban areas. And, those that have moved on, have history here. We were at an International competition and a parent from another team made it his business to come over to us and share how his father still lived in Orange, ‘Little Italy’ specifically. He expressed how he and his wife were so glad to see how fantastic we were and that we were representing something good coming from Orange. That is not a rare occurrence. People come up to me, our gymnasts, and their parents all the time. We are not funded by any agency. My family invested everything into this school. Our daughters grew up watching and helping us do everything from carpentry to negotiating to teaching. We took a lot of hits and still struggle daily. But, our philosophy is that if we collectively want life-changing opportunities for our children, we have to manage our collective resources to ensure schools like ours are sustained. We encourage our gymnastics community to model self-sufficiency, self-management, and self-determination. The state of American life is that it is over scheduled. But, our kids imitate what they see. If they see adults working hard and making choices that move their families in a positive direction over time, they will become heads-of-households who work hard and make good choices. They might suffer setbacks, but have the experience, the recollection to get back up and try even harder. Gymnastics is the umbrella under which the Athletic Arts Academy imparts these important life lessons. Our kids are energetic and need active-learning outlets. Gymnastics, albeit an Olympic sport, is just a game. The Athletic Arts Academy exists to help our children learn how to play the game…the game of life.
