Sometimes we forget why we come to practice – to have fun, to improve, to spend time with the people we care about. Gymnastics is tough for coaches and athletes and it’s easy to lose track of all the great things happening. Spread some love and appreciation through the team with these two quick activities.

Good Things:

• Have the team get into groups of 2
• Ask each athlete to respond to their neighbor using one of these sentence prompts: “One good thing in my life is…,” or “Something good that happened is…”
• Their good thing can be big or small. For example, “Last night I had pizza for dinner,” or “My aunt came into town for a visit.”
• Once they have shared with their partner, ask for volunteers to share their own or their neighbor’s good thing.

Catching Kindness

• Get athletes into groups of six to eight and have them stand in a circle.
• Ask the gymnast who started with the ball to throw the ball to another member.  
• When they throw the ball, they are to say something kind about the person they throw it to.  
• The ball continues around the circle until it has gone to everyone
• Play several rounds, and encourage athletes to go faster every time.
• Next, tell the group you are going to play again, but this time the rules are a little different.  
• They are to throw the ball to another member in their group, but this time when they throw, they are to say something nice about themselves, or something they are thankful for.