Sonshine Gymnastics-Holly — Attraction in Holly Springs

We tried out Sonshine for a few months and were disappointed on many levels.

COVID Concerns - If this is a concern for your family, I recommend avoiding this place at all costs. IF Covid is not a concern for your family, see below. You should know right away that the ownership, coaches, and nearly the entire staff DID NOT wear masks at any time while being around small children who cannot yet get the vaccine. I brought up this concern several times, and it was just ignored. With the recent spike in Omicron cases, I was told on the phone they would continue to not require or encourage masking. We promptly cancelled our membership.

Staff Training - During our time here, I did not feel as if my daughter was encouraged, coached, or simply paid attention to. The revolving coaches were simply warm bodies that shouted commands at the children every now and then. I used to run the high school training program for teens that wanted to be counselors at the YMCA. Based on my experience, I would have serious conversations about the way staff present themselves to children and how to effectively manage and coach a huddle of small children. Not once did I hear anyone address my daughter by her name after weeks and weeks because it was obvious they never bothered to learn it.

Disorganization - nearly every week, the facility was FAR too crowded making it extremely disorienting and intimidating for children in the 5 and under class. The coach would consistently not have a thought out game plan of what was being worked on for the week or activities planned ahead of time. Instructions to the kids (REMEMBER, 5 and under)...were simply.."Ok, here you'll do a forward roll, here a jump, here on your hands and feet only." No demonstration, no explanation, just a, "Hey kids with little attention spans, hope you heard that thing I said one time in this really loud room!"

Discipline - Parent expectations should be addressed as well. During our time, many parents simply just sit on the bleachers reading their kindles or staring into the void of their phones, leaving their children with teenagers that have no idea how to discipline children. This created an environment where some kids would consistently cut in line, act up, etc, and take away the coaches attention. Surprisingly, coaches would often feed those behaviors by simply showing the kids acting out POSITIVE attention and ignoring the children trying their best to follow the rules.

This place has a monopoly on Holly Springs, and they know it. This review WILL fall on deaf ears, because I'm sure somebody took our spot within minutes. I STRONGLY encourage you to think about what your family is getting out of this place. Maybe if your kids are older and actually want to compete at some level...this could be a good fit, but I do not think Sonshine should be holding classes for 1st grade or lower without seriously restructuring their entire program.

Honestly, if you buy some cheap equipment on Amazon, your kid will have better coaching from a person that cares about them (you), will get more physical activity and skills learned cause you own the equipment and can set your own schedule, and you'll save a...

I like the way how they teach our kids to gymnastics skills. But, guys you need to do something with appearance of the gym. I really wanted to keep bringing my kids there, but I'm not sure if I want to do that. The problem is there is a lot of talcum powder everywhere, in the air on the floor, e.t.c. I wish there was a really good air exhaust to take this powder away or at least it would be nice if they performed wet cleaning. Kids are breathing with that talcum powder, especially when they are doing exercises they are breathing more often (and the sense of smell is one of those senses that delivers air directly to the brain). Maybe it would be good to hire someone to perform wet cleaning? This is only my concern. But staff seems really experienced and kids are performing really good, compare to the other places. Here is some information about smell in the gym, why it smells like socks ("So chalk isn’t really harmful if it is inhaled in small to moderate amounts. In fact, you could eat a piece of chalk and it wouldn’t hurt you at all. But inhaling chalk dust and what accompanies it over a period of time is harmful. Take a close look at chalk and you will see something interesting and disturbing. The disturbing part isn’t the chalk but what is ON it. Several years ago, air samples from gyms were examined and bacteria was found in the samples. It was just a little bacteria. The amount was shocking. Researchers expected everything from chalk resin to mat fibers but they never expected to find Salmonella (Salmonella cholereasuis), Staph (Staphylococcus aureus), E-Coli (Escherichia coli) and Candida (Candida albicans). The dirty sock odor (as it is often described) that is noticed in gyms is made up of Salmonella, Staph, E-Coli and Candida."). And I don't know why you don't simply replace old worn mats. We are changing our pillows and mattresses after a certain period of time because they are worn and there are probably mites. But it looks like nobody cares about what air kids are breathing in there. Yep it's just a business to make as much...

Not a bad gym. Not a good fit for my family. We joined a year ago with high hopes and witnessed a steep decline over the course of a year. 1)It is filthy you will have reoccurring URI, skin funk like ringworm and staph, and allergic asthma. I have been to several other gyms in the area and have not encountered this issue…. 2) VERY knowledgeable in making you kids physically prepared for high level gymnastics! But they will hold students back to medal, even if their scores and skills are great. That is how they keep their rankings. They also love to use negative reinforcement. Be prepared for displays of frustration. Yelling, belittling punishments especially for state meet and regionals… no calm under pressure… 3) my experience was a lot of miscommunication. I told them of a death in the family. 10 days later the coach approached me and said I just found out…. Some if the coaches joke about starting rumors and spreading false info… the problem is When you are counting or depending on information to be true. I asked to meet with them in order to prepare my daughter for the coming year and we got locked into something that delayed our transition and i ended up having to pay more money and time into the final outcome. They also dropped their Xcel program with 2 weeks notice. 4) expensive competition fees, in particular the...