The Lessons of Tumbling
by Melissa Blair, photos by Jordan Miller
The wheels on the bus go round-and-round, and the kids on Gym on Wheels all tumble around!
Jo Maxey, a lifelong gymnast, started Gym on Wheels in 1993 after quitting a job that was only giving her the option of living somewhere other than Texarkana. Maxey bought a school bus from one of the local schools, ordered some gym equipment and with some help from her brother, designed and built a child’s wildest fantasy: a mobile gym cleverly disguised as a dream playground.
This big red bus is an attention-getter from the outside in. It is decked out with gym equipment for preschoolers and has everything from balance beams to trampolines and is padded from the floor to ceiling so that, Maxey says, ‘The kids actually do get a chance to bounce off the walls!’
But this isn’t just all about the fun. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has tripled since 1980.
And with the onslaught of technology that has the ability to pin kids down where they sit, it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Maxey echoes these issues when she says, “Driving down the street, you don’t see kids riding bicycles and running around like they used to. Gym on Wheels really gets them up and moving around.”
The health benefits of getting kids out from in front of their gadgets and games and onto physical exercise is something we all know about. But did you know that gymnastics specifically incorporates strength, flexibility, speed, balance, coordination, power and discipline all into one sport? And the kids think they’re just having fun!
“Now listen,” she says excitedly. “They really do learn stuff!” Maxey tells about the time that she ran into a former Gym On Wheels student and her parent while running errands around town. The former student had just started a gymnastics program with a local gym for the first time. She already knew how to do all of the basics of gymnastics and had incredible upper body strength…and she told Maxey that it was because of Gym on Wheels.
The only person that loves Gym on Wheels more than the kids? Maxey. She truly loves what she does because she smiles almost the entire time she talks animatedly about all that they get to do with the kids. Nineteen years, three buses, and gaggles and gaggles of giggling children later…Gym on Wheels is a beloved Texarkana icon.
