Gymsports is no longer just a minor sport practised by young girls. It has become one of Sport New Zealand's three foundation sports and plays a key role in the development of skills used in other sports.
"It is one of the Government's targeted community sports," the chief executive of Gymsports New Zealand Sarah Ashmole told the Otago Daily Times. "It develops movement skills for other sports."
Ashmole said gymsports was ranked in the top five participation sports in New Zealand.
There are 223,000 people from the ages of 3 months to 83 who participate in gymsports.
"There are 137,000 who are registered and the rest are ad hoc and come along for specific purposes," Ashmole said.
It helps people who then go into other sports.
"In swimming you have to balance in the water and that is one of the basic movement patterns that you do in gymsports," she said.
"You rotate at the end of the pool with a tumble turn and that is a rotation.
"The base patterns we build up in movement development are relevant for any sport."
Some people come into gymsports to develop aerial awareness to improve their netball and rugby skills.
"The beams can be used for that," Ashmole explained.
"The lineout in rugby can be taught on a trampoline. A player bounces up and down using their core strength and they take the ball at the top of the bounce.
That allows them to control their body in unusual situations."
Gymsports also help to develop snowboarding and skateboarding skills.
A feature of gymnasts is their strong upper body and this helps in javelin throwing where they need very strong arms.
Gymnastics was one of the founding sports of the modern Olympic Games and its origin goes back to Egyptian times when it was used for training the bodies of soldiers.
"The vaulting horse that many people have jumped over at school was a real horse in Egyptian days."
Gymsports movement skills are based on how humans develop and it starts in the womb.
"At six weeks inside the womb the baby rocks backwards and forwards. That is the start of balancing," Ashmole said.
The gymsports programmes target the physical development of humans.
"You can't expect a child to write and control a pen if they haven't got upper body development and control of their arms and fingers," Ashmole explained.
Children are often scolded because they will not stand still.
"That can be related to the vestibular system that we have in our bodies and gets stimulated through rotation," Ashmole said.
"The more rotation you do the faster the vestibular system gets stimulated and it allows children to control their bodies.
"Parents often tell their children to stand still, but the child can't. Their bodies are saying 'move, move move'.
"We have to stimulate their movement to help them to control themselves."
Ashmole said children today do not get as much movement as they need in the early stages of their life.
"Parents are incredibly busy and put children in containers and they go from backpacks to shopping carts and push chairs and are not moving as much as they should. It slows their development down."
The gymsports programme helps that development because it is based on the seven different movement patterns.
"If we haven't got them developed it makes our life that little bit harder," Ashmole said.
The movement patterns are balance, spring, landing, locomotion, manipulation, rotation and swing.
"The vestibular system controls our balancing system and is linked to our ears," Ashmole said. "We have fluid inside our ears and when we are young that fluid is like water so it settles quickly.
But once we go through puberty it gets thicker .
"When children go on fair ground rides and turn upside down their balance isn't affected when they get off. But adults feel giddy and balance is affected."
Children need their balance stimulated because they need to connect the brain and the body together.
"They do this by rotating.
"That's how the vestibular system gets stimulated," Ashmole said.
"It helps the body to be controlled so kids can sit still and is stimulated by rotation, movement and balancing activities on beams." Locomotion develops from running, hopping, skipping and anything else that takes a person from A to B.
Manipulative skills are needed to catch and throw balls.
"You need to know when to put your hands up to catch it and how much energy you need to put in when you're throwing it," Ashmole said.
"When catching or throwing the ball you have to work out the distance so it stimulates all the things you use on a daily basis.
"A child crossing the street needs to work out how fast the cars are going and the distance in order to go between the cars"When you hit a ball with a tennis racket you are using swing.
"You need those skills in daily life." Gymsports New Zealand helps to educate parents of under 5-year-olds on how the body systems work so they continue to do activities with their child at an early stage.
"The first three years of life are the most important and determine how a person will be for the rest of their life," Ashmole said.
"When a baby is born only 15% of their brain is developed and after the first three years 85% is developed.
"It all happens in a very small window. If we give children the opportunity to experience movement it helps their physical and cognitive development."
Ashmole said that scientific research done over the past 20 to 30 years has given us more understanding of the body and the brain and helped us to link that knowledge to the activities that children are doing.
At the gymsports championships "we saw the highest level of these movement patterns, " Ashmole said.
A trampolinist used spring and landing and they rotated and twisted at a very high level.
A netballer is using manipulative skills, locomotion and spring and landing and they need good balance.
"All of those base movement patterns are in every sport. The more they do it the more it becomes natural and the faster the messages go between the brain cells," Ashmole said.
"If an elite athlete has these base patterns and skills they don't have to think about them and can cope with the pressure from outside because their body does things naturally."
Gymnastics
The seven movement patterns
Balance
Spring
Landing
Locomotion
Manipulation
Rotation
Swing
