It’s difficult being 8 years old. There’s school and homework, and of course, practice. For Jaxon Mosqueda that means nearly three hours of weekly gymnastics practice.
Jaxon has been involved in gymnastics at KT’s All-Star Gymnastics in the Santa Maria Town Center mall for nearly two years. And though he admits it’s a lot of work, it’s something he loves to do.
“I love pretty much everything about it. I love how sometimes we get to play games at the end of class. I love how we get to take a break if we need it, and I love how we always get to choose what we do with routines,” Jaxon said.
He said he also likes that he gets to compete and that as a reward you get a medal, though Jaxon is still working on getting a medal himself.
“You need to be very good and accomplish something. I haven’t got a medal yet, but I’m close,” he said.
He said in order to meet that goal he needs to complete a back handspring. “I can’t land it,” he explained.
Conversely, his favorite move is the front flip, which he called pretty easy, much the way her thinks of gymnastics as a whole. “It’s hard but at the same time it’s easy. I’d say it’s medium hard,” he said.
Jaxon is more than just a one-trick kid though. A fan of all things reptilian, he said he wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up.
“I already know about lizards, and I capture lizards and let them go,” he said.
He said he’s also already made a big pre-historic find. He said he was at the beach and jabbed his toe on something that looked like a claw.
“I think it was a raptor claw, but I don’t know what it was. I thought it was a shaped rock, but later on it was not as stable as a rock. It wasn’t hard. So then I thought it was dry clay but it wasn’t. It was a fossil,” he said. “But I’m keeping it a secret.”
While Jaxon continues to hone his paleontologist skills, he is happy to be a gymnast though he doesn’t rule out other sports. He said he hopes to go on and try other sports like soccer, though he also likes playing kickball and basketball at school. In the meantime, though he’s going to commit to earning his medal. “For now I’m going to stick with gymnastics,” he said.
This article appears in Nov 19-26, 2015.
