Liverpool Trampoline Gymnastics Academy Athlete Set To Compete In 2024 Olympics

The Liverpool Trampoline Gymnastics Academy has grown from humble beginnings into a centre of excellence in British Gymnastics. Founded by Jay Scouler, his journey from a young gymnast to the head coach and owner of one of the most thriving and successful academies in the country is nothing short of inspiring. His commitment to nurturing talent and fostering a supportive environment has culminated in a significant milestone: one of his gymnasts, Zak Perzamanos, is set to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In this interview, Jay shares insights into his journey, the academy’s growth, and the story of Zak’s path to the Olympics.

Liverpool Noise: So, Jay how did you get into gymnastics?

Jay: I started doing gymnastics back in the summer of 1994 at a local play scheme near to where I used to live in Fazakerly. I think it was called Summer Splash, if I remember right. I think I started in the play scheme programme and there was trampolining on in there as one of the activities and I just loved it and stuck at it.

Liverpool Noise: And then how did you start the Liverpool Trampoline Gymnastics Academy?

Jay: In the late 90s, the club I attended in Liverpool folded, forcing us to travel to Salford to train. At 16, I started taking kids to competitions, at 17 I did my first level coaching badge and by 18, I had set up a club in Liverpool. In 2002 I had an offer from Gary and Amanda Kirby at Park Road, which is the Liverpool City Council elite gymnastics facility which produced Beth Tweddle and a raft of other other athletes. They saw what I was doing, saw this young kid and actually kind of took me under their wing. I worked in their development trampoline programme for the next 14 years. Then in 2016, we moved into our own facility in Hunts Cross with 25 athletes. Today, we have over 1000 kids doing trampolining every week, and we’ve topped the medal table at every national competitive event for the last seven years.

Liverpool Noise: That’s an incredible achievement! Is it just kids from Liverpool who attend the academy?

Jay: The main body of our membership are kids from the city. But we’ve actually just had a family relocate from Carlisle. We also have regular members from Yorkshire, the East Midlands, and beyond. We’re a high performance centre within the British Gymnastics setup which means they recognise us and two other sites in the country as centres of excellence. 

Athletes that want to access more training or get a little bit more experience in the coaching or engage with support services come to us. So, within our programme, we’ve invested in sports psychology, sports nutrition, strength and conditioning, physiotherapy, all of those things, we’ve got on hand at the club that wrap around the athletes in order to be able to enhance their journey. So I get a lot of people travelling to us to access that.

Liverpool Noise: Gymnastics isn’t just good for the body either, it’s really beneficial for mental health too, right?

Jay: Yeah. So I mean, for me, I just think this point reaches further than one single sport; my advice to all parents out there would be get your kids in to sport. I think doing a sport, any sport, when they’re young is just so beneficial. Get down to us at Bounce Tots. We do holiday camps every school holiday which is a great way into the club. So if people have not started with us in the Bounce Tots programme and you’ve got kids that love bouncing on trampolines and stuff like that, holiday camp is fun and structured learning throughout the day where it gives them a little bit of a taster of the gym and what they’re going to do and a lot of kids join the club via that route. 

So my advice to parents would be get your kids around as many different sports as you can. And the one that they’re stood at the door with their bag ready to go, encourage them in that sport. Find out what they love because sports just has so many benefits for children in terms of helping them develop as people. It helps kids develop their self esteem, their self confidence, sport gives them that kind of that construct that gives them self efficacy and teaches them to be disciplined, they know kind of as they’re getting older ‘Okay, I’ve got exams, but I’ve also got to train’. So I just think that the benefits that go with doing sport are just fantastic and phenomenal. 

I know a lot of kinds of programmes in the Liverpool area and in Great Britain where clubs offer that support to help children and young people deal with failure and to deal with defeat. Knowing how you dust yourself off and how you come back again helps them become stronger individuals. We often say in the gym, if the kids fail at something we’re like, yeah, fantastic, brilliant, amazing. It’s an opportunity to be able to get better. Without failure you can’t improve and you can’t grow and can’t get better.

Liverpool Noise: That’s some great advice. What other classes do you run at the academy?

Jay: So, the first step on the pyramid is Bounce Tots, which is a class that’s designed for preschool-aged children. We run those classes every weekday morning. It’s been going for a long time and it’s a really popular class. And gymnastics at its foundation is a phenomenal kind of start off sport, it gives rise to great physical literacy in kids. So even if they don’t look to pursue a competitive career, or even go to do recreational gymnastics in the future doing preschool gymnastics sets them up fantastically for all other sports. I think a lot of people recognise that now and bring the kids into the gym, and it’s learning through play and learning through exploring.

Then on from that we get into our club-based training sessions. So the majority of our training sessions are 90 minutes long. The amount that the children train with us can range anywhere between one session a week, up to the senior international athletes that are doing seven, eight sessions a week. So kind of, there’s something for everybody. And we’ve got a variety of different kinds of levels within the club that actually when the kids start school, we’ve got a programme that starts at 4pm every evening. Saturday and Sunday we run all day and the kids can pick whether they want to do trampoline gymnastics, tumbling gymnastics, whether they want to do that just for fun and health benefits, regional level competition, national and international competition and obviously kind of now got someone over the line and we’ve got someone competing at Olympic level competition. 

Liverpool Noise: Yes, so let’s talk about Zak Perzamanos! How does it feel to have one of your gymnasts like competing at the Olympics?

Jay: I think more than anything for me it’s a sense of relief. We’ve been so close at Liverpool for such a long time now to have somebody get that nod and get onto the Olympic team is amazing. We’ve had world record holders, World Champions, European champions and British champions coming out of our ears, we’ve literally done everything in the sport, other than get that final milestone of a gymnast onto the Olympic team.

So yeah, I think more than anything else a sense of relief and pride. I can’t wait to get out there now and sit back and watch Zak in the competition. Regardless of what happens in the competition, there’s so many people going over to Paris, there’s athletes from years gone by at the club, a lot of friends and family and people associated with the club as well as all of our staff that are going over there. So we’re going to have a fantastic time in Paris, regardless of what the end result is. It’s exciting!

Liverpool Noise: Yes, definitely! Could you tell us about Zach’s journey and getting to the Olympics?

Jay: Zak started attending classes with his older sister at Springers Trampoline Club in Crosby. When we moved into our facility, Zak and his coach Zoe Brooks joined us. As Zak grew older, he transferred to me as his primary coach at 13 and it’s just gone from there really! We got a little bit excited when he finally got the nod for the Olympic Team. I started frantically buying tickets and it just grew arms and legs so there’s a group of about 100 of us heading out to Paris next week!

Find out more about the Liverpool Trampoline Gymnastics Academy.