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Gymnastics Symbols Explained to Children

When watching an artistic gymnastics routine, you see jumps, flips, balances… But in books, training sheets, or even card games like Beam Bam Gym, you often find strange little drawings that look like hieroglyphs. These drawings are gymnastic symbols!

They are used to represent movements without needing long sentences. Like a secret language for gymnasts!

Why do gymnastic symbols exist?

  • Save time: instead of writing “handspring - twist,” you just draw a symbol.
  • Be understood anywhere in the world: whether you're in France, the United States, or Japan, symbols are universal.

  • Remember a routine: it's like a musical score, but for gym movements.

Some easy-to-recognize symbols?

Here are a few examples that children can learn to decipher:

  • The salto: often represented by a loop → it evokes the body's rotation.
  • The balance: a small vertical line with a dot representing the head → it means "hold the position on your hands."
  • The cartwheel: an X that represents the body's position → easy for beginners to spot.

Note: the further you advance in gymnastics, the more precise the symbols become (for example, to show the number of twists, or a sequence of several positions).

How can children learn gymnastic symbols?

  • Play with them by drawing them as riddles → “which move do you recognize?”
  • Use them to code a mini-routine: the coach can give a sequence of symbols to their gymnasts, who then have to decipher them to perform the requested movement (a bit like solving a secret code).
  • Find them in fun materials: some games like Beam Bam Gym use symbols on cards to get young gymnasts used to seeing them while having fun. The activity book associated with the game will also offer exercises specifically designed to discover the symbols.

Why is it useful from a young age?

Learning symbols isn't just for judges or coaches!
For children, it develops:

  • Visual memory: remembering routines faster
  • Autonomy: being able to reread their own notes
  • Gymnastics vocabulary: because each symbol also corresponds to a precise word in French and English

In summary

Gymnastic symbols are like a universal language of gymnastics.
They allow children to understand, write, and share their movements more easily. And if you want to practice using them while playing, you can find them in the game Beam Bam Gym, which associates each element with its symbol.

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