Keshia Shannon, a Kansas City resident, describes a beautiful story that led her to open a gym of her own. In her childhood, she was into cheerleading and wanted the same for her daughter. However, her daughter followed a different path, and that led to a very eye-opening experience for Keshia.
The field that her daughter chose has some factors that need to be added, which led her to her goal of building a gym of her own. Keshia felt that the gymnastics lacked African-American people and building a gym would be a community for their people to rise.
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Quest for inclusivity in gymnastics
Keshia Shannon, a woman from Kansas, went to the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and then she started cheerleading for high school. After the time when she became a mom, she wanted the same for her daughter. However, her daughter wasn’t cut out for cheerleading. Apart from that, she lacks interest in the field as well. However, her daughter showed interest in gymnastics. This led her to go to competitions with her daughter, where she realized the lack of African-American people in gymnastics.
It led to an idea for creating a safe space for their race to come forward without the feeling of peer pressure, the feeling of being left out, or the feeling of being an odd one out in a particular place. Keshia has always been a very indulgent mother to her kids. She wants them to do the best in their life and she’s open up for anything they like to choose.
Keisha’s journey as a supportive parent
Being a conscious parent led Keshia to observe and understand the lack of things in a certain sport. It was because of her daughter, joining gymnastics, that she went into that new environment. She observed everything that was going around. Apart from this, Keshia has supported her daughter in picking any career field she wants. Even after sharing that her dream was to make her daughter a cheerleader, her daughter chose a different path and supported her at every step.
In our own words, she mentions, “We took her to a class, and she loved it. I considered her a traitor because she chose gymnastics over cheer. Broke my heart. But I am a helicopter parent. I home-school my kids. I keep my kids with me everywhere. So it was just easy for me to just jump in and be a part of, you know, whatever activity she was doing.”
Keshia has named her gym, fire and Ice, and she hopes it keeps on igniting the fire in the people to come forward and perform their skills in a chill and safe space.
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Written by
Edited by
Arnima Shukla