Gymnastics Club in Strathfield: The Origin Story Behind IWG

Every gym has a story about how it started. Ours started with an off-the-cuff comment over dinner.

We asked our founder, Mary-Lou Labruna, to share how one dinner conversation turned into a gymnastics club in Strathfield. This is her story, in her own words.

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A Comment Over Dinner

"The idea of Inner West Gymnastics started as a joke at State last year.

A group of parents sat down to dinner after State, frustrated and unhappy with the lack of competition experience our kids had and the lack of support our coaches had. As a joke, I said, "What if I open a gym?" Everyone's eyes lit up, and one by one, the coaches and parents sitting there said, "I'd come."

I didn't think too much about it again that night. But in the days that followed, I started to think, what if?"

Building a Gymnastics Club in Strathfield

"I had no idea what to do or where to start, but all of a sudden, everywhere I looked, I saw For Lease signs and warehouses. I really started to look into the idea.

I thought about everything I would want in a gymnastics academy as a mum: a change room, a dedicated room for homework, a parent viewing deck, somewhere to cook dinner and shower after training.

First, I found a warehouse that could cater to everything I thought we needed. Then I started looking for equipment suppliers, contacted Gymnastics NSW, and got in touch with Karl and Yvette about coming on board as head coaches.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew that if I could pull it off, it would be great. We organised trades and turned an ugly warehouse into a gym we were proud of in six weeks."

One Big Family

"Together with my amazing team, I am building a community of well-balanced, healthy athletes who train under very different conditions to many other gyms. I provide fresh fruit, snacks and dinner for our competitive athletes during training days, and they have the flexibility to do homework if they need to. They are humans before they are gymnasts.

At Inner West Gymnastics, we are one big family, where every gymnast is equal no matter their level. We train together, we eat together, we work hard together, we succeed together, and we even fail together."

That's really the whole philosophy in one story. It's why we talk about Breathe, Build, Belong at IWG, calm enough to try, challenged enough to grow, connected enough to stay. It didn't start as a slogan. It started with a mum in a warehouse, working out what she'd want for her own kid, and deciding to build it for everyone else's too.

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IWG is based at 8 Pilcher Street, Strathfield South, serving families across Strathfield, Burwood, Homebush and the wider inner west. Karl and Yvette's own stories, and how they shaped IWG into what it is today, are coming soon.

If you'd like to see what a warehouse turned into, come by and say hello.