The Pine Valley Gym Centre in Tawatinaw began as a dream to provide a high-performance training centre for gymnasts.
Now, close to 10 years later, the facility has evolved to bring recreation opportunities to young amateur gymnasts.
“Especially with this generation and technology, we want kids to stay active and lead active and healthy lifestyles,” said Bobby Kriangkum, spokesperson and head coach, about the mindset of the family-run business. “We’re teaching kids how to be active, how to make good choices when it comes to staying busy, and how to have fun while doing it and learning.”
The centre began as an idea when Bobby and his sister, who were part of the Edmonton Ski Club, went up to Tawatinaw for a training camp. Dad Dom Kriangkum loaded the kids up in the car, fell in love with the valley and decided it would be the perfect place to build a weekend cabin and get away.
“He got a little house and a little house turned into a spot of land,” Bobby said. “One house turned into another house, which turned into a bigger spot of land, which turned into where the town hall is and then the school house. We found ourselves out there more and more because on our weekends off…me and my sister loved it out here.”
Dom, who grew up in Thailand, came to Canada and as a teen spent his time working at summer camps in Ontario.
“He’d worked at summer camps and say ‘these were some of the best memories I had in my life,’” Bobby recalled. “And now because he had the ability, ‘Hell, I’m going to build a summer camp for kids in this beautiful valley,’ and that’s exactly what he did.”
Dom purchased the land in 2006 and began renovating the hall, then built the dorms and the gym came after that. By 2011 the gym was serving competitive junior and senior level athletes and by 2015 it opened its doors to the public.
Bobby said the facility was intended to only be a high-performance training centre but when they realized the depth of Gymnastics Canada and Gymnastics Alberta, as well as the various gymnastic federations on a provincial and regional scale, they decided to diversify and host training classes for kids, toddlers and their parents.
“As the facility itself stands, it can literally cater to any level of gymnast in the world, from two years old to 22 years old going to the Olympics,” he said.
The gym has attracted athletes from Athabasca’s gym looking for training beyond the basics, two of who competed at the Alberta Winter Game trials Dec. 8-10, hosted for the first time by Pine Valley.
The International Federation of Gymnastics has approved all of the gym’s equipment, which can be adapted to more advanced gymnastics training or basic introductory athletes.
The facility has hosted multiple Chinese national men and women’s teams, Vietnam’s national team for provincial championships, and will be bringing Japan’s team in February.
“Just with our network and with our family, how we’ve been around the gymnastics community has really helped the local community but also within the gymnastics community,” Bobby noted.
The gym has hosted training camps for men’s gymnastics since 2011 and is now starting to break into women’s gymnastics and the trampoline market.
“The majority of training camps and high performance is all eastern Canada, all in Ontario or Quebec,” he said. “Now that there’s a western Canadian site, it’s nice because the kids in B.C. don’t have to fly seven hours. They can go an hour and they’re here.”
In January Bobby’s former coach is bringing another Chinese team to Tawatinaw who will be competing at the University of Alberta Butterdome. Then in the third week of February, Pine Valley is hosting a men’s developmental training camp.
A high-performance training centre is just one of the streams Pine Valley is pursuing; to be a hub for clubs and teams to have focused training in a beautiful location in the valley, with good food and a quiet place to sleep, away from technology.
The other stream is to provide activities to local kids that come week after week, and be a place where parents can socialize together or learn with their kids or for themselves.
“At this age kids are made out of rubber, they’re super bendy,” Bobby said. “It’s being able to control their external limbs, so working on different balances and positions. We want them to be able to isolate one arm or one leg or just stand on one foot and keep their centre of balance.”
From there they can continue on in gymnasts or transition into other sports like hockey or dance, he noted.
Besides the physical aspect, he said by introducing young children to gymnastics, they also learn accountability, like putting a way a mat or finishing their turn, and playing with other kids, as many are homeschooled.
January winter classes are starting for children who are just under two years old up to competitive training for 13 and 15 year olds.
In the past, Bobby ran an adult class and would like to do that again this winter.
“For the little ones we’re teaching fine motor skill develop, whereas adults I can talk to them and be like, ‘what do you want to learn?’ If you work a desk job and have stiff shoulders, I can teach you some exercises to help strengthen your shoulders and wrists and make it so you have less discomfort at work.
“Or if you want to learn how to do a flip on the trampoline, I can teach you that too.”
