male vs. female gymnastics instructors

[Fred Mak]

i'm a man.

 

i just started looking for gymnastic schools.  i'm a beginner.

 

i've noticed that a lot of the adult classes only teach tumbling.  i don't have much interest in tumbling.

 

the main skills that i want to attain are the handstand and flares.  

 

do you think that it would be detrimental for me to go to adult gymnastics classes taught by females.  flares, as far as i know, are a pommel horse exercise, which is a male gymnastics event.  therefore, i think a female would have no idea how to coach me in that.  

 

it also seems like the exercises that are talked about in this forum are geared towards male gymnastic events.

 

so would it be in my best interest to only attend gymnastics schools with male teachers?

[Blairbob]

 Some female coaches might actually know some basics of the men's event. They may have to coach boy's rec or had brothers who were in gym or played on it themselves and some gyms even have female competitive coaches.

 

Occasionally we have held clinics in the gym for the female staff in case they need to sub a class and start getting the kinder boys on apparatus at 4-6yo. It's good for girls too! I've had a female coaches run the beginner's boy's class ( and some little boys were very in awe of their female coaches  , some other's not so much  ).

 

 Bare in mind, most gyms are roughly 3-5 female coaches per male coaches ( which can be kind of awesome    if they're not crazy   which  ).

 

They also might be able to refer you to one of the men's coaches.

 

You could also ask the office/coach if you can work on apparatus instead. Some gym's insurance sometimes doesn't allow this or the mere fact that adults tend to rather work on tumbling and acro than apparatus ( unless they are aspiring gymnasts or ex gymnasts ).

 

Push comes to shove and you might be able to get a men's coach for privates but that's gonna be more expensive than classes. Roughly starting at 2-3x as expensive as a class and possibly more.