Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacy Alvarez.
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?
I was 11 years old. After school, I used to wait for my older brother to finish swim team practice. One day, I decided to see what was in the building next to the pool. I had seen kids and adults entering and exiting the double steel doors for weeks.
I entered the building and discovered it was an indoor basketball gym. Three courts were divided by giant gym divider curtains. The court near me had a gymnastics class in session. I saw the girls doing backhandsprings. I snuck onto the mats and tried to do one myself. Bad Idea! I face planted, embedding my braces into my lips. The coach ran over to help me carefully pull my lips off my braces,
My mom came to pick me up, and with blood all over my face and shirt, I begged her to sign me up. And she did! I got bit by the gymnastics bug. The seeds for Flipside Gymnastics and Allied Movement were planted.
I advanced very quickly. I remember the enjoyment I got from mastering body movement. It was fun flipping all over the place!
When I was 13, my dad signed me up for Cathy Rigby Gymnastics Camp for Girls. I was signed up for one week. After a few days, I called my parents and begged to stay for all five weeks! And they did! That summer, I decided I wanted to be part of the gymnastics world as a career.
One day in the 5th week of camp, 1968 and 1972 Olympian Cathy Rigby coached us the entire day. When I got to my bar rotation, Cathy was coaching that event. She asked me if I could do a bar mount called a kip. I told her I could not. She said, “Oh, I’ll show you!”. She jumped to the bar and showed me a kip. She coached me on how to get this skill. Then I tried one and made it…on my first try! She was genuinely excited for me.
When my parents came to pick me up, Cathy talked with my mom and dad. She recommended that I go to the gymnastics school that she started at. She had checked a Thomas Guide and saw it was about 25 miles from my house. I started training at Southern California Acro Team (SCATS) 2 weeks later. I trained and competed there until I graduated from high school.
Although I received many collegiate scholarship offers, I was done with gymnastics. I had injuries and was burned out! Gymnastics was not fun anymore. Ironically, having negative feelings about gymnastics, I attended El Camino College and decided to sign up for a gymnastics class. It changed my entire perspective on gymnastics. I found out that gymnastics could be fun again! Flipside Gymnastics seeds started to sprout.
In college, I helped form a gymnastics performance team with a group of retired competitive gymnasts whom I met in that class. We named ourselves California Juice. We performed at fairs, parades, and special events. One notable performance was for George Takei when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This was a positive community, and we had a blast!
I started coaching immediately after high school. I never stopped. I took many college courses, workshops, clinics, and earned many certifications that would help me be the best USA Gymnastics Women’s coach I could be.
Alongside teaching gymnastics, I taught preschool, took more college courses and clinics, studied and danced professionally, choreographed dance and gymnastics routines, entertained in the magic show industry, worked in the surf industry, learned graphic arts, became a snowboard junkie, and learned how to write music and play the guitar.
These experiences were the water, food, and sunshine that helped me flourish.
In 2008, the year I turned 45, I had a baby boy. For 30 years until this point, I was working as a USA Gymnastics competitive women’s coach. I was very happy coaching, but I was more in love with being a mom again.
Coaching hours do not match with family hours.
In 2011, 3 years later, after careful consideration, my husband and I started our corporation. Blue Wolf Music. Inc. “Music and Movement Education and Entertainment”. That is when Flipside Gymnastics was born. Flipside Gymnastics became a brick and mortar business in 2014 in the beautiful Port Town of San Pedro, Ca.
Teaching gymnastics and helping children grow in a healthy, safe environment is my passion. And this is where I am today!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
With all variables considered, it’s been smooth. The biggest struggles we faced were in the beginning. They were financial, like all mom-and-pop businesses tend to face. We took the “FIRE-AIM-READY” approach and had Rubik’s cube our way into a groove that allowed the business to function efficiently. Learning to run the business is still a giant learning curve. I get better and better every day.
The business took off quickly. If there were any losses, they showed up at home. Work-life balance became stressful.
Before COVID, we employed 24 people. Flipside offered children’s gymnastics, dance, and music lessons, Capoeira, acting, yoga, adult ballet, and children’s summer camps. We decided to close 6 months after the “shutdown”. It was hard to continue paying for the lease without students.
To survive, I taught gymnastics out of my driveway, and my husband taught guitar lessons out of his home studio. He also got hired to do drive-in and cul-de-sac concerts.
In 2021, we saw a for lease sign in San Pedro’s Downtown Art District. It was so tiny but perfect. We decided to reopen. We had to work for 3 months to get the space together.
We now employ 11 people and offer gymnastics, a performance squad, and 1 dance class. We struggle with the limited space at times. But we always manage to solve the issues.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I went to school to study Proprioceptive Motor Learning. Proprioception allows your brain to know the position of your body in space without having to rely on visual input alone. I took classes at UCLA. I knew I was going to teach gymnastics forever, so I thought this was the perfect subject to immerse myself in. As a movement specialist, I believed I should know all the whys behind the whats and the whats behind the whys.
In my Hawaiian culture, when you have an intuition or a knack for something, they call it having “Mana”. When I was young, my mom told me once, “Oh, you get da keiki Mana”. Translation: You have kid mana. There have never been more accurate words spoken about me. I have it! I have often said that children are my religion.
To witness a child discovering the world, and especially through movement and art, delights me. I feel a deep, abiding peace when it happens. Every connection is a victory. They do not know how important embodied experience is and how beneficial it is. Children are a paradox. And I appreciate and somewhat envy them.
I feel honored that I have been able to touch so many lives through the movement arts. I have been a witness to many children growing up to become contributing adults. The process of going from being a teacher to mentor to colleague, and then sometimes being their student or patient, that process is incredibly profound!
Perhaps what sets me apart from many others in my field is my deep understanding and confidence that creating a safe environment will allow a child to grow and therefore, will bring out all the potential that that individual child possesses. I believe it is the process that is most important. I know transformation and growth can happen through many activities. My love for gymnastics has led me to the path I chose.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Mentors are EVERYWHERE. My dog is the best mentor I have. She teaches me to just be. Dogs are. They are so present.
What works for me is when I need mentorship, I attend workshops and conferences, and I network in person. I am terrible at anything “screen”.
Social media has perks. The world generously loves to share their ideas. So when I’m in a rut, I do watch videos on gymnastics.
Sometimes I go out of my field and ask really smart people questions about what works for them in certain situations.
My biggest mentor ever is Steve Greeley from Imagymnation and Kids First Sports Center.
For young people getting started in any type of career, placing themselves in the corridor of that field is an important step.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fsgsanpedro.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flipsidesanpedro/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FlipsideGMD
