A Labor of Love
The idea of the A Kids was conceived by Jack West and Elisa Llamido. The husband and wife team produced the best-selling The Perfect Pregnancy and Postnatal Workout Series that has helped hundreds of thousands of women prepare for (and recover from) labor and delivery. Elisa is a former personal trainer, dancer, martial artist and acrobat who stars in the The Perfect Pregnancy Workout volume 3: The Ancient Art of Belly Dance for Labor, where she shares the belly dance workout that she credits with her incredibly short labor that lasted just 4 hours from first contraction to beautiful, natural delivery.
Jack was the driving force behind A Kids Beginner Gymnastics, as the instructor of the content and director. Among other duties, he hired and worked with designers to create the look of the characters and environment; researched, directed and executed the motion capture; designed the layout and even hand-animated when necessary.
The Right Coach Makes All the Difference
Jack started gymnastics at the age of five. By high school his talent brought him a Colorado state championship and his choice of college scholarships before the glamor of the film industry called to him. After college he became a Hollywood stuntman, performing in over 100 major motion pictures and television shows, including such classics as the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, The Sandlot, Lost Boys and Big Trouble in Little China.
In his spare time, Jack enjoyed coaching children in inner city schools. He saw first-hand how quickly kids made gains in gymnastics with the right coaching. He watched kids’ self-esteem grow in just a few workouts, as they could see how much stronger and more flexible they were becoming, and even kids who had a hard time sitting still found better focus after training.
When he had sons of his own, he realized that not only was it was very hard to find a gymnastics gym with good coaches, but the cost of training in a gym made gymnastics a privilege that many families couldn’t afford, especially when they had more than one child. And many children who would benefit from the full-body training are put off by group classes and loud environments.
Jack created the A Kids Beginner Gymnastics program to bring high-quality gymnastics training within reach of every family, no matter how remote their location, how busy their schedules are, how many children they have, what special needs they have, or what the quality of their local coaches is.
Kids love training with the animated characters, and parents can let children train on their own, or join in the fun and improve their own strength, flexibility and balance, too!
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