5 Star Sports Academy — Attraction in Town of Hempstead

If you don't have time to read the details, the summary is that your money is more important to Five Star than you are. Unfortunately, when money is the motivation for a business, customers get taken advantage of. This is our story with Five Star.

Last summer, after watching the Olympics, my dance daughter decided that she wanted to try gymnastics. Personally, I wasn't for it, but I figured that she should do what she thought she loved. So, come September 2021, we did trial classes at 3 different gyms. While I couldn't decide between gyms, my daughter chose Five Star because she felt that she wasn't babied during the trial class. Fair enough, we enrolled in Five Star.

I want to pause here to preface my comments (below) by saying that, bar one, I sat through every class and observed every single thing that was done. This is the teacher in me, details are everything.

Anyway, from what I observed, the kids NEVER moved on from the initial skills that they learned. While they rotated equipment each week, they never learned more/different skills on the same equipment. I personally felt that my daughter was ready and could have been pushed to learn a lot more new skills, but she wasn't.

Around January 2022, my daughter told me after class that her teacher suggested that she try out for the team. My husband and I were not too keen on the idea because of the skimpy clothing gymnasts wear. However, our daughter begged us and I received a guarantee from Five Star that if our daughter made the team, she would be able to compete with pants. Okay, great. Here's the one catch though - I was told that if my daughter wanted to make the team, she should take private lessons with her weekly rec gymnastics teacher.

Alarm bells went off for hubby and I because this sounded shady. Our daughter was supposedly strong enough (according to her teacher) to make the team, but we needed to pay an extra $60 per private lesson for the same teacher to teach her the new skills she needed to know? Sounded like we were going to be taken advantage of, but alas, we trusted the teacher.

To try to cut a long story shorter, our daughter was taught the same skills over and over again in the private lessons, and they were the skills that she was already strong in, mostly. She was not properly prepped for the team tryout. Our daughter even asked her teacher on different occasions if she would be learning anything new, to which the teacher replied that she just needed to practice.

After the fact, Five Star had the audacity to tell me that I should have done the private lessons with a team coach instead of my daughter's non-team coach. So apparently, it was my fault that my daughter was not prepared for the team tryout. There was also the idea that it was my daughter's fault too because she didn't know the skills - the skills that I paid extra for her to learn. Five Star took no responsibility that their coach didn't teach her the skills she needed to know. And before they come on here and try to say differently, here's a list of the skills that my daughter supposedly needed to know to pass the tryouts. The yes/no in parentheses indicates the skills that were taught/were not taught in the private lessons (I sat through every single one and observed everything).

Legs & body tight on vaults (no) Pull over without spotting (yes, but with spotting) Glide swing (no) Cast without spotting (no) Splits (no) Upper body Strength exercises (yes) Chin ups (yes, once) leg lifts (yes, one) balance beam straight jump (no) tuck jump on balance beam (no) split jump on balance beam (no) split leap on balance beam (no) back handspring on floor (no, she was taught to do it in the foam pit) full turn on floor(no) split leap on floor (no)

Thankfully a new gym is opening up close by. We'll either be there, or because of her height, we'll try rhythmic gymnastics. My daughter loves sports and is involved in soccer and swimming as well, so no love lost...

I went here, a really, really long time ago with my friend to take a trial class . I think it was back in 2016. I must say they have some good nice teachers here . But this one time I went to class with my friend and we were on the tumble track and I was doing my aerial . I don’t mean to be racist. I honestly don’t know his name, but it was a Chinese teacher . And he made a really, really nasty comment that made me cry, and the girls that he was teaching were laughing at me. He basically got involved with my teacher, saying how I was doing my aerial wrong and making fun of me . Like excuse me, it’s not your place. I was 14 at the time crying from a teacher who didn’t need to get involved because he wasn’t my teacher . He said it so condescending and very nasty like he was mocking me. After he made the nasty comment, the nice teacher I forgot what her name is but thank you for being so nice to me. She said “yeah he always does this” “ he always tries to correct other students, even though he’s not their teacher he just works here” “ he likes controlling and telling certain kids who are not the favorite of the class what to do “ . so I was crying the whole time . After the tumble track, we went on the floor. And the girls that he was teaching were making fun of me and doing Ariel‘s to mock me on the tumble track cause it was their turn to go on the tumble truck. He basically letting his girls bully me. After that, I never went back. A lot of teachers and students here think they’re better than...

Went to a birthday party there and was shocked to see how dirty the place is. Immeditedly I smelled old/ dirty carpets and big broken piece of foams around. At the back room, there is balance bar but at 5 feet above the ground. Some kids cried, some kids won't even try getting on the bar. The monkey is probably 7 feet high and no kids can cross it with a staff supervision. But the gym staff were not always there and seemed confused on what they needed to do for a good 20 minutes. The ball pit (or the cube pit) was verydeep and some kids had hard time getting out of it. But the worst is yet to come. After grusome 1 1/2 hours of kids running around without much staff supervision, there was no place for kids to wash their dirty hands. Grand finale...at the eating time, there weren't enough table / bench space to fit all kids (about 30 kids). Some kids stood to eat, some kids circled around the table as they didn't know what to do. I am mad the parents who hosted the birthday party here and at the gym for accepting bday party for small/ young kids. The gym might be doing fine for individual kids but deficient in both safety and hygiene for little kids without even sufficient table space for a decent...