Today we’d like to introduce you to Galyna Gorbis.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
People tell their life stories for many reasons. Mine is necessary to show how the ABC Approach connecting Attitudes-Body-Conduct into a dynamic whole has emerged from the ups and downs in my life and become the foundation of GYMNASTIKA studio.

I was born, raised, and learned how to do gymnastics in Odessa, a Mediterranean-like city on the Black Sea. As a strong-willed child in a warm city, I wanted to be free to do whatever I wanted, not to be confined to being an award-winning athlete.

My family, especially Dad, were all trained athletes. They thought they had a clear vision of my future. At the age of 12, I left my warm nest to join an all-girls monastery-like Deriugina School, the National Team of Ukraine in Rhythmic Gymnastics, in Kiev where I was placed in the School of Physical Education. Being away from my friends and family worked, but not the way my parents intended. Most of my teammates thrived on the prospect of eliminating me and other students as their competitors. I could not trust anyone and was constantly on alert. This was so stressful that eventually I became centered only on myself, my body, my behavior, my attitudes, and on my entire being.

I did not care how other girls performed, who was the coach’s favorite, or how my weight compared to theirs. The ABC Approach came from my detachment from the collective, from abandoning the tasks of watching others and I didn’t care what they thought of me or of my performance.

I was not shaping up to be a dedicated team member, yet I had to take part in group performances. I hated these routines and yearned to perform alone in the individual program, as I was frequently praised for being the best in the group. Group performances were not what I wanted. And I stood my ground. I fought to do the individual program, where I was in command of my dance, my body and the space where ribbon, ball and other apparatuses would miraculously become an extension of me. And then, my life challenge unfolded together with my unexpected success.

By the age of 13, I was ranked as Number One among Ukrainian Juniors and joined the Top Six on the Ukraine National Team. In one year, I participated at the European Championship in a group routine, got a gold at the Grand Prix in Israel, and took 2 Bronze medals in World Cup in Tokyo in the individual program and in a team.

The following year, I was selected for the Summer Camp training for the Summer Olympics in Athens, after which I was confronted with a life-changing diagnosis. Three of my lower back vertebral discs became herniated. As they compressed nerve endings, I was in great pain. Our school doctor told me that I should avoid any athletic activities that may put a strain on my young yet already compromised spine. He warned me that if I continued, I may be paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair and may be unable to birth a child…And then he made me promise not to tell my coaches about it. Given his position in the competitive sport, he said he had no choice but to certify me as ‘fit for gymnastic activities’ and cleared me for training with some accommodations. So this was my dilemma. I made a commitment to the sport but its further pursuit threatened to put my future and life at risk.

I trusted myself to make the right choice.

With great sadness and despair, I packed my bags and went back home to Odessa. I was just 16 and a half years old. Walking away from my dreams was extremely difficult, and I questioned whether I had made the right decision for months. I went back to the Deriugina and Physical Education schools, earned the Master of Sport of International Class in Rhythmic Gymnastics, graduated from PE school, and had neither the body nor the mind to compete for status or ranking.

After some time off and recovery, I went to the United States of America for new opportunities. The people I met in Richmond didn’t keep their word and tried to take advantage of me. Barely understanding any English and being under 18, I had no other option but to return back home.

I couldn’t stand my hometown because the opportunity was scarce, and simply finding work was riddled with discrimination and corruption. Soon enough, I found another opportunity and left for China, where I performed in a Chinese Acrobatic Show for two years.

At the age of 19, I went for another shot at the American dream. With the help of my friend, James Glader, I moved to Boston. My first boss, Smaranda, gave me work, put me in college, and connected me with an amazing Russian-Jewish Family who treated and raised me as their own child.

In 3.5 years, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Pine Manor College Child Study Center in 2013 and worked as a head coach of the Junior Olympics team program at Rhythmic Dreams in Massachusetts. After I finished college, I found myself at a dead-end in Boston. With friends and opportunities in Los Angeles, I found a Head Coach position at Rhythmic Academy of Los Angeles where I was for six years. Within one year, I graduated from college, moved to LA, learned how to drive and got a car, met my future husband, got married, moved to a new place, and gave birth to my first son while working full-time at a Gymnastics Academy. For almost 7 years, I worked as a coach flying all over the US and Europe for competitions while having a family. I worked all through pregnancy until giving birth to my three sons and then went back to work a few weeks later. It was stressful, but I loved coaching, I loved my students and wanted to prove I was an exceptional coach.

After I became a mother of 3 amazing boys, I changed, my mind opened. Family became my focus and the incessant competitive environment lost its meaning. My goals changed once again. I always wanted to have my own school studio with my approach and my method. I believe that every child is special and unique, and I felt the need to honor every child in his/her physical talents and goals. Gymnastics is the beautiful sport that supports the foundation for every sport.

Most people associate gymnastics with Ancient Greece and Olympic championships. Few know that modern gymnastics originated in 19th Century Germany. We credit two physical education experts: Johann Friedrich GutsMuths and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn as fathers of ‘gymnastics’ that gave us calisthenics and aerobics. To them, gymnastics was a complex art form and developmental health platform, not intended to be just the competitive sport we know today. Rather, it was envisioned as a platform for wholesome development of both spirit and body. In America, it was yoga that took over the matters of “spirit” while in our sport industry, the focus is still on ‘making the team” and winning the competitions.

This brought me to GYMNASTIKA, Athletic Studio. I have spent a lifetime gaining the skills, foundation, knowledge, and teaching philosophy to open GYMNASTIKA. In one year, we had approximately 200 students who tried the classes in our studio and at the moment we have 65 students with us. My goal is to hire more coaches who love children, are motivated to work with them, open-minded, open to learning, and willing to grow with GYMNASTIKA family. My dream is to expand my program and reach to franchise heights. This program is a perfect place to learn and adopt the “CAN DO” training and spirit for life, which will pay off later in life. We are open for partners and collaborations.

This journey made it easy for me to learn how to be ME as a woman, as a young mother of three boys, as a gymnast, a coach and an educator. Yes, I love myself in gymnastics and a gymnast in me. It is very much a matter of spirit gains as opposed to the matter of medals.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Before and after graduating from college, I worked as a coach and head coach in Massachusetts and California. I gave master classes in Tennessee, back home in Odessa, and continued to perform in Rhythmic Gymnastics shows. Everywhere I worked, I saw the nasty, hidden problem of private sports schools, especially prominent in the gymnastics programs. Everyone was clamoring to make it to the top. Every parent was hoping that, with the right coach, their child would become an Olympian. Every child was made to want to make the team. Those who did not, those who dropped out and those who were kicked out or discharged were in the majority. To a degree, they were all victims of bias in favor of “winners”, and against those “without potential.” Whether in search of bright stars to shine on the school name or in collusion with parents, private sports schools produce scores of children that did not succeed nor learned how to win. I saw that most kids were brought into a great game that was not yet theirs. They were put in competition with others before they knew how to win.

The problem is this: whatever athletic skills these ‘rejects’ learned may be easily forgotten, but the bitter memories of their failure to compete will remain. This, of course, is a generalization. There are exceptions to the breeding grounds of “losers” among coaches, programs and schools, but I knew that even in the best ones, something essential was missing. Most settings made a comparison of a child’s performance with that of other kids inevitable and did not think much about it. Reflecting on my career in gymnastics, I recognized that my key gains and core assets were not physical but strategic. I learned how to compete with myself and that power positioned me to be seen as better (or worse) than the others. I had the right attitude and the more I put my body to work, the more failures or setbacks I encountered, the more I trusted myself and the more I was able to accomplish.

It was an interesting journey with its ups and downs. I’m 33 now. I’ve been away from my family since age 12 and never went back. A broken back, on my own financially, it has been challenging from a very young age. In Ukraine, I needed sponsors just to obtain a job. They didn’t want me there. The corruption and difficulty just to survive is beyond American understanding.

At the grand opening of GYMNASTIKA, I shared with our community that I felt confident and complete to open this business that I love. Without all of the obstacles I’ve overcome, I would not have been able to open GYMNASTIKA. And therefore, I’m thankful for ALL the challenges and difficulty. I always tell my children and my students, “You Can Do It.” Resilience today is very important. Whatever is happening outside is happening, and every day, something will happen. We have to stay positive! If we do not challenge the bubble of comfort, we are all going to fail.

I always keep in mind a study about rats in different habitats, which demonstrated that our lifestyles will determine how resilient we are. Two cages were provided for two sets of rats. The first was a cage with not much food and scarce surroundings. The second was a luxurious cage with plenty of food and comforts. The rats with minimal food and comfort lived longer and were more resilient than the rats in the luxurious cage.

This is the reason I opened the GYMNASTIKA. Not a facility to earn medals, we teach our students the “CAN DO” training for life.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about GYMNASTIKA Athletic Studio?
GYMNASTIKA was born as a platform where children could lose self-fear and mistrust in themselves. Instead, we guide them to harness the inner skills (patience, self-trust, confidence, bounce, playfulness) necessary for anything they choose to engage in, be that dance, driving, science, physical work or ballet.

The best way to understand what sets GYMNASTIKA Studio apart is to see it as a structured way to train students to rise above the two key challenges of the 21st Century.

The first is the proliferation of new and old competitive pressures that all of us (but especially our children) face and fall under. The ABC Approach teaches them how to avoid the “winner-loser” trap.

The other challenge our students face is the absence of skills necessary to control and manage themselves regardless of the tasks they face. Unless properly trained in childhood, most adults are driven by the engrained FEAR OF FAILURE and not being as good as others.

Yet, as many recent studies have shown, most grown-ups have an unrealistically high view of themselves. They keep up this front as they are not prepared to find out what they are capable of…And keep in mind that GYMANSTIKA is not just for children. We have an adult program as well and we all agree that it is much easier to turn a child around than a grown-up. Kids, on the other hand, have yet to learn how to use fear to avoid taking risks.

The truth is that everyone fails, but a growing number of people of all ages are framed by their failures to win, to reach goals and to meet expectations. Why is this so? Most of us grow under the spell of gaining approval from others, and thus we face the cruel binary choice of either being ‘winners’ or ‘losers’. GYMNASTIKA provides a gateway to be neither a hero nor a victim; a winner nor a loser.

How do we do this? Students that come to GYMNASTIKA have very similar ideas of “I can” and “I want”, but these seldom match; rather, they clash. What makes human cubs different is their Attitude toward themselves. Kids’ Attitudes often run counter to parental expectations and does not easily yield forced compliance. It is a learned strategy of resolving the conflicts between “I cannot” and “I want”, between “I can” and “I do not want” that our young develop under peer pressures, Tick-Tok role models, parental demands, past performances and a myriad of other factors. Framed under the influence of “others” any growing child’s understanding of “self” is largely fluid, emotional (defeatist or magical) and unrealistic. Simply put, very few children know themselves enough to rely upon in new situations. Consequently, they freeze and wait for outside clues. Our task is to change their strategy inside by expanding their Attitude-Mind-Body potential regardless of what happens outside. So, where does one start in setting an authentic life-long connection between the wrong Attitudes, imperfect Body and improper Conduct? The answer is obvious, we start by dropping the comparatives and the learned negative qualifiers. We then show our students how to teach their body to mold better attitudes along the “I can” path and let them expand their minds to meet new demands on their body with better attitudes. Proper conduct then follows.

Armed with ABC training, our students no longer compare their performance to that of others. They compete with themselves. Under our guidance, they set and expanded their own criteria of success. They play against themselves and not against others on the team. In fact, they learn that to be a valuable team member, they need to know their own value first. This opens up the Other Side of Gymnastics regardless of their parent’s hopes and intentions, most kids, especially girls, go into sports in order to win approval. Only a few of them are likely to succeed at any level. Most young fail in their dreams to make the team, not to mention their hopes of being champions. The reality of competitive sports warps self-image and stratifies kids into either winners or losers and that could be a source of permanent damage.

Let’s be clear that I do not condemn the competitive nature of gymnastics or any other athletic sport. Far from it, like everyone else, I am conditioned to look for the victors. I enjoy and root for my favorite heroes, but my heart is with the ones who failed to make the team. What benefits are available to those who did not make it? Why is it that “everything” that losers are told is that “winning is not everything”? This may be clear to those who console them but we need to focus on and build up the child’s own self perspective. This is where the ABC pioneering approach is essential.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Looking back on my childhood, I realize that my unwavering commitment to Rhythmic Gymnastics shaped me into the determined, focused individual I am today. Even from a young age, I had a deep passion for the sport, and I knew without a doubt that I wanted to pursue it with all my heart and soul. I vividly remember sitting at the kitchen table with my parents, discussing my aspirations to compete in the National Team of Ukraine, Russia, or Belarus and represent my country in top-level competitions. I dreamed of participating in events such as the European Championship in a group routine, and I promised my parents that I would do whatever it took to make my dreams a reality.

As I grew older, my passion for Rhythmic Gymnastics only intensified. I was eager to explore new parts of the world, train under top-notch coaches, and compete against gifted athletes. I relished the opportunity to push myself to my physical and mental limits, and I loved nothing more than the thrill of competition. Whether practicing alone in the gym or performing in front of a crowd, I remained laser-focused and dedicated to honing my skills and achieving my goals.

Through my experiences in Rhythmic Gymnastics, I developed a strong sense of competitiveness, a keen eye for goal-setting, an unwavering work ethic, and a commitment to sportsmanship and fair play. I learned to set ambitious goals for myself and to work tirelessly towards achieving them, no matter how challenging or daunting the task may seem. Additionally, I learned to view competition not as a means of triumphing over others but rather as an opportunity to push myself to be the best version of myself.

Moreover, Rhythmic Gymnastics taught me invaluable qualities such as discipline, respect for others, and responsibility. I learned to prioritize my physical and mental health, respect my fellow athletes’ efforts and accomplishments, and take responsibility for my actions both on and off the carpet. These qualities have stayed with me throughout my life, and I am grateful for the lessons I learned during my childhood.

Today, I continue to pursue my passion for Rhythmic Gymnastics, and I am excited to see where it will take me. I remain deeply committed to setting ambitious goals and working tirelessly towards achieving them. Whether practicing alone in the gym or competing on the world stage, I remain steadfast in my dedication to the sport, and I look forward to continuing to grow and develop both as an athlete and as a person.