Twice every week, freshman Layla Smith, goes to Zero Gravity for her gymnastics class. Smith joined gymnastics at the beginning of the school year to improve her flexibility.

“I joined because I used to do martial arts,” Smith said. “I wanted to get back into more of that field.”

Some people think gymnastics is easy, Smith said. She added that it’s easy to point out mistakes but much harder to perform.

“People think it’s easy and they think oh I can do that,” Smith said. “It’s not it’s actually a lot of hard work.”

Gymnastics has over 52 skills that the students can learn and those are the main skills most people are familiar with. And without a doubt anybody who has mastered at least one skill can always practice on improvements.

“I can’t do a pull over because I’m not strong enough to them, I’m working hard to fix that…especially at home for extra practice,” Smith said. “What you do when you’re on the bar you have to get your legs over so you can land on top of it.”

Joining gymnastics isn’t just about getting flexible and doing flips, it’s about getting the chance to have fun and learn new skills that come with the flexibility. It takes a lot of patients and effort, she said.

“Make sure you actually stretch and do outside things like push-ups and maybe lift some weights,” Smith said. “you definitely do need upper body strength.”