THE EXUBERANT SHRIEKS and shouts emanating from the gymnastics room at the Sunshine Early Stimulation Centre any day leave no doubt that the children inside are enjoying whatever activity they are engaged in.
And when you look in, you see a restless set of children of varying ages going through routines, though you can’t miss the adult at the centre of the fun. Indeed, from the look of it, gymnast Michael Taitt appears to be having just as much fun as the children.
Lying on his back on the cushioned floor, his outstretched legs supporting a small child perched atop them, he pushes that child to achieve a sense of balance while other children either romp around, impatient for their turn to be taken through the same routine, or stand by cheering.
While Taitt fixes his attention on the child with whom he is working, he keeps an eye on the others and may use a firm tone to insist that they settle down if their restlessness is becoming a distraction. He may even give a gentle reprimand, but there is not the slightest hint of anger. The words are spoken firmly but not in a harsh tone, reflecting his deep care for the special children and their challenges.
The Guyana-born gymnast, dancer and acrobat is the first to acknowledge the limitations and challenges of children with special needs.
“They have varying physical and cognitive abilities and there are different learning styles,” he explains. “Some people learn by visually observing stuff; some people need to be told – they prefer to listen and discuss it; other people have to get up and do it.”
Working out with the children in the room appropriately named Tumble Tots, he gets the opportunity to give expression to his gymnastic talent. It also is an outlet for him to put into action things he learnt when he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in teaching physical education at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University. The basic course work exposed him to techniques in working with special needs children.
Taitt was teaching gymnastics to children at a Wildey gym when representatives of the Sunshine Early Stimulation Centre, which caters to special needs children, first saw him in action. He seemed the ideal person for the job he now does two days a week at the Perry Gap, Roebuck Street facility.
Taitt said: “I didn’t choose to work in this special area. They chose me. They saw me doing what I do, teaching a children’s gymnastic class, and they said ‘Yes, we have a place for you here’.”
“It was the action that caught them. They saw that I was safe, that I was comfortable with children and they were having fun,” he added.
Taitt set about fashioning a programme specially designed for children in need of the special facilities offered by the Sunshine Early Stimulation Centre. He included lots of balancing and stability core work, and strength work to give the children flexibility and build their confidence. He was not interested in the classroom exercise.
He started walking on his hands at age six in Guyana after seeing a show in which performers were doing just that. “I went home and taught myself how to walk on my hands,” he said. Later Taitt met a US Peace Corps volunteer who was working in Guyana and together they travelled the country performing in primary schools to children of his age.
When that Peace Corps volunteer returned to the United States, the group he formed, which had been travelling across Guyana performing with him, continued their performances. “At that time I was not thinking money, I just wanted to perform,” and that is exactly what he found pleasure doing.
When he moved to Barbados about eight years ago, he hooked up with people here who were into gymnastics and began training with them. Most of that training was peer teaching through which the gymnasts worked with each other, observed each other, shared critiques about performance and generally helped each other. For Taitt it was the ideal place to be, given his passion for gymnastics.
Away from the Sunshine Early Stimulation Centre, Taitt can be found performing gymnastics, dance and acrobatics on the hotel circuit. In addition, he conducts classes at the National Cultural Foundation’s dance studio, and teaches gymnastics to cheer leaders.
When he was 18, his aunt Helen Taitt taught him ballet, though some may say he really inherited his father Clairmonte Taitt’s artistic genes. Taitt senior, now age 84, is a former broadcaster with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, but he is better remembered for his characterisations as a dramatist appearing in several local and regional productions.
The younger Taitt proudly claims his Barbadian roots. “My grandfather was Bajan. His father had a shop in Nelson Street and he left and went to Guyana when he was 21, studied and became a doctor and had seven children, including my father,” he explained.
The gymnast gives lots of credit to his parents for backing him all the way although he chose a non-traditional path. That they supported him emotionally and financially when he made his career choice is something for which he holds them in high esteem. It is the example that he hopes he has been successful in passing on to his own 21-year-old son, who is currently a university student.
Taitt’s son does not want to be a gymnast, though he is as fit and agile. He prefers to leave the gymnastics to dad, and instead expends his sporting energies on the tennis courts or hiking.
And gymnast Taitt is comfortable with that.
One of this father’s greatest joys is seeing his special needs charges experience movement they would not otherwise experience when he puts them on his shoulders and spins them.
“I give them all in the process of aiding their physical development,” he said, confessing he preferred working with children than adults. With children at the Stimulation Centre ranging in ages between two and eleven, Taitt remarked: “They are more likely to relax, release and have fun.”
“I stretch them, I give them flexibility, even the ones that are not mobile and I massage them.” And he does it with such ease and efficiency that the children do not complain and some even press him for more. Their immense joy at working out with Uncle Michael is evident.
His patience is elastic. “I never get frustrated, plus I am doing what I love,” he said, in acknowledgement of the limitations of his special charges and the effort they must put in to progress. Yet there is a toll: “Physically it is hard for me. I get tired by the end of the three-hour session.”
Nonetheless, week after week he carries on because he is doing something he loves. As he said: “It is not a doctor or lawyer position but I am doing what I like.”
