UNUSUAL circumstances meant the EBOP Gymnastics Club’s new coach really only got to know her gymnasts via Zoom.
Kelly Precious started at the club as the new head recreational coach only a week before the country went into lockdown in alert level four.
“But that was an intro week, so I had Anne [Gould, operations manager] on the floor with me.”
But after lockdown, the new coach, who now works alongside competitive coach Jordan Biggs, quickly put into action some fun Zoom classes that the kids could do in their living rooms – keeping them fit and in touch with their sport.
“It was like, ‘Hi, I am the new coach and we are doing it online and I am in your living room’,” Precious said.
With the country going back into alert level two, Precious has been able to get back to doing what she loves best.
Of course, like other sport, things have not returned completely to normal yet with all sorts of protocols to ensure distancing and hygiene practices are maintained at the club.
Although an individual sport, coaches need to be hands-on to “spot” their young gymnasts.
“Most of it I have managed to keep doing without spotting them, but habits are so hard to break. I have been coaching for such a long time.
“Last week I was coaching one of the boys and I automatically just stepped in to correct what he was doing, and I was like ‘oh, I am not supposed to be doing that’.
“It has been hands off coaching mostly. We are only supposed to spot them if it is a safety issue.
“One of the girls was like, ‘help me on the beam’ and I was like, ‘just put your hand on my shoulder’.
“So it is a bit different.”
A former competitive gymnast, Precious got into the sport when she was only seven or eight, and it wasn’t long before she was competing.
That was Waitakere Gymnastics Club in Auckland, and Precious said she began volunteer coaching at the club while at intermediate school, which progressed to paid coaching.
For many gymnasts, beam can be the scariest apparatus, but Precious said it had always been her favourite.
“I don’t know why, maybe it is because there is a bit of danger with the beam,” she said.
“When I was 19, I went and travelled with the circus for two years, the Webber Bros Splash tour. It went all over New Zealand and came to Whakatane.
“First I was just working in the ticket office and then the mermaid got pregnant and so the show director was, ‘oh, you are a gymnast?’ and I was ‘yes’, ‘Oh good, we need you’, and so then I was the mermaid.
“It was a bungee aerial act. I was also training for another act and had a nasty fall and had a compression fracture of my spine, so that kind of slowed me down and put a stop to a lot of stuff.”
After the circus, Precious was drawn back to her old club for coaching. She said all in all she probably spent 20 years competing and coaching there.
“I was part of the furniture.”
These days Precious has a family, two children, aged 13 and 11, who are now at Trident and Whakatane Intermediate schools.
The family was living in Pukehina, and Precious was coaching at Te Puke Gymsport where she headed the recreation programme, before coming to Whakatane.
“My husband has worked here in Whakatane for past 18 months at Law Creative and he was commuting and we both always really liked it here.”
The family decided to move to Whakatane.
“It has also made life a little bit easier, we were having to get in the car and travel for everything, to Papamoa, the Mount and here everything is accessible, and the kids can get themselves places.”
Although still early days at EBOP Gymnastics, Precious said she was already enjoying her new role taking the special needs, preschool, recreational and teens classes.
“The kids have all been really good,
I am enjoying it, everyone is really friendly.”