Zach @ The Little Gym

3 weekends ago, JS and I brought Zach to his first ever gym. To think Mummy only went to gym when I was 23 years old and Zach hit the gym at the mere age of 7 half months. :) But not to forget, Daddy Seng was once a frequent gym goer. That's why it is not surprising that Zach gone to the gym at such an early age...
Of course, the reason behind the gym class has nothing to do with the above. In fact, choosing between appreciating music or developing motor skills has always been the back of my mind since Zach was as young as 5 months. After some thoughts, I decided to go for the latter first as the skills will be able to develop Zach's sense of competence and self-confidence.

We brought Zach to attend the trial lesson and the lesson was divided into three segments with music accompany every segment. The first segment is mainly the warming up session where parents exercise the babys' shoulder, hands, legs and followed by the body. The second segment is the most intense, at least for the parents, as they have to carry their babies in the form of gunny sack under their arms or on their shoulders and walk/ run along with the music. Daddy Seng enjoys this segment most as he enjoys tucking Zach under his arms. After a tedious 10 minutes of exercise, the instructor will use different items such as parachute, handerchief, ball to facilitate his teachings. After that, it is left to free exercise for babies to build up their strength using ramp, slides and climbers. The last segment is the cooling down time for baby and parents after a tiring 40 minutes. In this segment, the instructor will blow bubbles to babies for the purpose of coordinating their eyes and hands. Last but not leave, the class will end off with parents singing the goodbye song.

Zach did not enjoy his first session as much as JS and I did. I guess it was due to the new environment and people. Despite Zach showed interest during the lesson, he was very stiff. But he has definately loosen himself up and starting to enjoy the gym classes in the next 2 lessons. Overall, I feel that the lesson programme is well-organised and planned, the instructor is professional and the class size is also comfortable enough. And after attending the lesson, we know that babies are not as fragile as what we thought. There are now so many fun activities we can do together with Zach now. :-)