Gymnastics for Life — Lived in Kensington

As a child, I was diagnosed with Perthes disease, a condition affecting the hip. At that stage of my life, the medical advice I received was not simply to avoid demanding sport. I was told not to practise physical activity and was prevented from participating in PE classes at school. I was also told that I might need one or more surgical interventions ^[1].

Years later, when gymnastics entered my life, another barrier appeared.

I was 15.I started gymnastics on 1 October 2002.

In gymnastics terms, that was very late to begin. By that age, many competitive gymnasts have already spent most of their childhood in the sport. Some people saw little point in me trying to progress seriously so late.

Yet something about being told that these doors were closed seemed to make me want to open them even more.

What followed was not a rapid journey towards elite success. It became something much more important to me:

I fell in love with the sport.

Training changed what I was physically capable of doing. I became stronger and more flexible. Movements that initially seemed impossible gradually became possible.

My life ultimately took a very different direction. As gymnastics became part of it, I experienced enormous changes in my strength, flexibility and physical capability.

Gymnastics gave me something to work towards. Then something to study. Then something to teach. Eventually, it became the foundation for much of my professional and academic life.

Many gymnasts I knew were considerably better than me. Some reached national teams and levels I never reached. Over the decades, many people I once trained or competed alongside eventually stopped.

I have often seen competitive gymnastics treated as a chapter with a clear end: work towards a result, then move on when the goal has been reached, or when ageing, recovery demands and the risks of high-level training make the same path harder to justify. Some people continue general fitness in another form, but many leave gymnastics itself behind.

My own relationship with the sport developed differently. The longer I stayed, the more interesting gymnastics became. Other interests have sometimes faded, but the passion I felt when I started gymnastics has not. It remains the strongest and most enduring passion of my life.

That is not a refusal to acknowledge ageing, recovery or risk. It is a different understanding of lifelong gymnastics: the sport can be adapted so that it continues to belong in my life.

I continued.

Not because every year produced a medal. Not because my body always cooperated. And certainly not because gymnastics became easier.

I continued because the passion became stronger than the original goal.

Children enter gymnastics for many reasons.

Some will compete. A very small number will progress towards elite sport. Many will enjoy gymnastics for part of childhood and eventually move towards something else.

There is nothing wrong with any of those paths.

But there is another possibility that deserves more attention.

Gymnastics can change shape without disappearing.

A competitive gymnast may eventually become a recreational gymnast. A coach can remain an athlete. Apparatus training can coexist with running, strength work and outdoor movement. Competition can continue at Masters level. Goals can become larger, smaller or simply different.

The body changes too.

What feels easy at one age may require deliberate work at another. Recovery changes. Time becomes more complicated. Careers and responsibilities compete with training. Injuries and interruptions happen.

None of that automatically means the relationship with gymnastics has ended.

For me, this has become perhaps the most interesting experiment of all.

I do not know what my gymnastics will look like ten years from now. I certainly do not know what it will look like twenty years from now.

That uncertainty is one reason I want to document it.

There will hopefully be more competitions. There may be more medals. There will almost certainly be difficult periods, interrupted training and plans that change.

None of those things, on their own, will determine whether this experiment in lifelong gymnastics succeeds.

The more important question is whether I can keep moving, keep learning and keep finding a place for gymnastics as life changes around it.

When I think back to the child who could not participate in PE, there is something extraordinary about being able to ask that question at all.

I did not become the gymnast with the greatest results. Many people I trained and competed alongside achieved levels I never reached.

But more than twenty years after I started late, I am still here.

And perhaps most importantly, I love gymnastics now more than I did before.

That is the journey I want The Kensington Gymnast to document.

For now, part of it is being lived here — between the gymnastics centres of London, the outdoor training ground in Holland Park and the paths of Kensington Gardens.