Chalk Dust and Crash Mats: Gymnastics, Cheer and Tumbling in Fredericton

How the scene fits together

For a city of Fredericton’s size, the gymnastics and cheer landscape is surprisingly easy to map, because nearly everything runs through four organizations. Kingswood Gymnastics, out at the Kingswood entertainment complex in Hanwell, is the region’s full-service artistic gymnastics club and has been since 1997. Go-Go Gymnastics runs recreational classes for younger kids on the north side. Rythmika is the city’s rhythmic gymnastics club, the one with ribbons, hoops and balls rather than vaults and bars. And Capital City Elite, on Hilton Road, is the city’s all-star cheerleading and tumbling gym, the only Fredericton club listed as an all-star member by Cheer New Brunswick.

It helps to know the governing bodies, because they shape what your kid can actually do here. Artistic gymnastics, trampoline gymnastics and the CANGYM badge system all fall under the New Brunswick Gymnastics Association, which happens to be headquartered in Fredericton at 5 Cuffman Street on the north side. Cheerleading answers to Cheer New Brunswick, the provincial sport organization for both New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, which sits under Cheer Canada. If a club is a member of one of these bodies, its coaches carry certifications and its athletes carry insurance, which matters more in a sport built on flipping children through the air than it does in, say, chess club.

What Fredericton does not have is worth stating plainly, because parents ask. There is no dedicated trampoline park in the city; the closest is Oasis Trampoline Park in Saint John’s Parkway Mall at 212 McAllister Drive. A Fredericton expansion was floated back in 2018 but never materialized. There is also no standalone parkour gym. The closest things to both live inside Kingswood’s program list: an Intro Trampoline class and a pair of ninja programs that borrow from obstacle course training and freestyle movement. More on those below.

Ages run from about 18 months (parent-and-tot classes at Kingswood and Go-Go) all the way up to adult open gym nights. Nobody ages out of this scene unless they want to.

Kingswood Gymnastics: the region’s big club

Kingswood Gymnastics is the anchor tenant of this whole scene. Operating since 1997 inside the Kingswood complex at 31 Kingswood Park, just off Hanwell Road about ten minutes from downtown, it bills itself as one of the best gymnastics facilities in Atlantic Canada, and the claim is not outrageous: the gym carries Olympic-standard competition equipment for both men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics, plus scaled-down apparatus for the littlest gymnasts. The New Brunswick Gymnastics Association lists it as offering women’s artistic, men’s artistic and trampoline gymnastics, and it regularly hosts sanctioned meets.

The program ladder is long and clearly signposted. On the preschool side, Tumble Bugs takes children from 18 months to 3 years for gross motor basics, Tumble Bunnies (ages 3 to 4) starts building independence, Tumble Bears (4 to 5) preps kids for the recreational program, and Advanced Tumble Bears (5 and up) bridges into the CANGYM badge series. From age 6, recreational gymnasts move through Intro Co-Ed, then split into Girls and Boys Intermediate groups, with a Developmental Rec stream for girls who have topped out the advanced recreational levels and want more difficulty without a full competitive commitment.

Beyond the core ladder there are specialty classes that quietly cover several sports this article promised to address: Intro Trampoline teaches trampoline and tumbling fundamentals, ACRO builds the acrobatic skills that feed cheerleading and dance, Lil’ Ninja and Ninja Gym blend gymnastics, martial arts and obstacle course training, and an Adaptive Gymnastics program is designed specifically for children with varying abilities. That last one deserves more attention than it gets; inclusive programming at a proper gymnastics facility is not something every city this size can offer.

The gym is open through the week (afternoons on most weekdays, Wednesday evenings until 8:00 pm, Saturdays 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and Sunday afternoons), and registration runs online through the JackRabbit class system. For questions, call 506-444-9500 ext. 502 or email [email protected]. Head coach Trip Lewis oversees the program. Birthday parties and school-break camps round out the offering, which is handy intel if you have been reading our other family guides at the guides hub.

Starting young: Go-Go Gymnastics and the preschool years

If Kingswood is the destination club, Go-Go Gymnastics is the neighbourhood option, and for north-side families it may be the more practical one. Go-Go Group Inc. is a Fredericton company headquartered at 80 Two Nations Crossing that runs children’s programming across the city, and its gymnastics arm offers recreational classes currently held at Journey Church, 131 Duncan Lane. The equipment is set up in stations: tumbling floors, vaults, balance beams, bars, rings, and yes, a bouncy castle, because the audience is small.

The class structure is simple. Tumble Tots (18 months to 3 years) is a 45-minute parent-participation class; one adult per child is required on the floor. Kinder Kids (ages 4 to 5) is a 60-minute independent class with a medal and evaluation system, which small children treat with Olympic-level seriousness. Shooting Stars (6 to 8) pushes skill development, strength and flexibility. Classes run Fridays and Saturdays in eight-week sessions, three times a year (fall, winter, spring). Posted rates are $264 plus HST for Tumble Tots and $294 plus HST for the older groups, which works out to a little over $30 a class. Go-Go aims for a ratio of eight children per coach and reports a roughly even split of boys and girls, which tracks with what you see through the viewing window.

A practical note on expectations: Go-Go is a recreational program through and through. There is no competitive team, and the website is refreshingly honest that the goal is fun, fitness and safety, with a recreational advancing experience for kids who want it. For a lot of families that is exactly the right product, either as the whole gymnastics journey or as a low-pressure test before committing to the bigger club across the river. Kids wear comfy clothes and bare feet (grippy socks if bare feet are a no), and Go-Go partners with KidSport, ProKids and Canadian Tire Jumpstart for families who need help with fees. Contact is (506) 455-5496. The City of Fredericton lists Go-Go in its recreation directory, which is where many parents first stumble across it.

Rythmika: the ribbons-and-hoops option

Rhythmic gymnastics is the artistic cousin of the sport: leaps, balances and choreography performed with ribbon, hoop, ball, clubs or rope, scored on both difficulty and artistry. Fredericton has exactly one club for it, and it is a good story. Rythmika is a non-profit club founded in 2011 by Nathalie D’Amours, an Edmundston native and former international rhythmic gymnast who, on finding no place in the capital region to enrol her own daughters in her sport, built one herself.

The club grew out of the francophone community, with training based at École des Bâtisseurs on the city’s north side, and it serves gymnasts from kindergarten age through adulthood. Programming spans recreational classes through to competitive streams, and because rhythmic gymnastics is a small discipline in the Maritimes, Rythmika athletes who compete do so against clubs from across the province and region rather than across town. For a young athlete who loves movement and performance but is lukewarm on vaulting, this is the lane; it rewards flexibility, musicality and precision over raw power.

Two practical notes. First, rhythmic gymnastics is overwhelmingly practised by girls at the competitive level, though recreational classes are open to any kid who wants to learn. Second, because Rythmika is volunteer-driven and non-profit, session offerings and schedules shift year to year more than they do at the commercial clubs, so check rythmika.ca or the Club Rythmika Facebook page for the current season before you plan your fall around it. Registration questions go to [email protected]. If your child is more drawn to the dance and performance side than the sport side, our broader lessons coverage at the guides hub covers the city’s dance studios, which occupy neighbouring territory.

The competitive stream and the meet circuit

Competitive artistic gymnastics in Fredericton runs through Kingswood, and entry is by assessment rather than open registration. Coaches identify kids with the right mix of strength, flexibility and focus, often out of the recreational or developmental streams, and families are invited to step up. It is worth being clear-eyed about what that step means. Competitive gymnastics is one of the most training-intensive youth sports there is: multiple practices a week even at lower levels, escalating toward serious hours for provincial-stream athletes, plus competition weekends, coaching fees, NBGA registration and travel. Contact the club at 506-444-9502 before assuming anything about the commitment.

The competition calendar gives you a feel for the rhythm of the season. In recent seasons the circuit has included Kingswood’s own Christmas Claus meet in December for women’s and men’s artistic gymnasts, a Spring Cup for trampoline gymnastics in March, the Fundy Invitational in Saint John, the Irish Rose in Miramichi, and provincial championships in spring, hosted on rotation by NBGA member clubs around the province (River Valley Gymnastics in Florenceville-Bristol took a recent turn). Beyond provincials sit Atlantic-level events and, for the strongest athletes, Canadian Championships. When Kingswood hosts, the meets are open to spectators and genuinely fun to watch, even if you have no gymnast in the field; keep an eye on our events calendar and the NBGA site for dates.

Trampoline gymnastics deserves its own mention here because it is an actual competitive discipline in New Brunswick, distinct from artistic gymnastics, with its own provincial events. Kingswood is listed by the NBGA as a trampoline gymnastics club, and its Intro Trampoline class is the on-ramp. For a kid who lives to bounce, this is a legitimate sport pathway, the same one that produces Olympic trampolinists, not just a rainy-day activity.

One caution born of experience writing these guides: club rosters and season calendars change. The NBGA member directory and events page at gym.nb.ca is the authoritative, current list of sanctioned clubs and meets, and it is the first place to check if anything here has drifted since publication.

Cheerleading: all-star, school and university

Cheerleading in Fredericton has three distinct layers, and they work differently. The all-star layer is Capital City Elite (Cheer & Tumbling) at 245 Hilton Road, off Two Nations Crossing on the north side. It is Fredericton’s only Cheer New Brunswick all-star member gym, and its program list runs from Learn 2 Cheer and recreational classes through prep teams to elite competitive and travel teams, plus standalone tumbling classes that attract dancers and school-team cheerleaders looking to add back handsprings. Registration runs through JackRabbit, and the gym is active on Facebook and Instagram, which is where season announcements, tryout dates and showcase events tend to land first. All-star cheer runs on a season that starts with spring or early-summer team placements and builds to competitions through the winter, so if your kid is keen, ask about placement windows in the spring rather than showing up in October expecting a spot.

The school layer is bigger than most people realize. Both big anglophone high schools field cheer teams: Leo Hayes runs tryouts each fall, and Fredericton High has a long-running program of its own. School cheer is the cheapest way into the sport, and Cheer New Brunswick runs a dedicated scholastic championship stream for these teams alongside its all-star provincials.

The university layer is the UNB Reds cheerleading club, a competitive sport club open to UNB students of all experience levels; the club is explicit that prior cheer or gymnastics experience helps but is not required, and that all necessary training is provided. The team practises two to three times a week from September to April and competes two to three times a season around the province. Tryout info comes via [email protected].

The whole pyramid points at Cheer NB’s provincial championships, hosted on a rotating basis around the province; the 2026 edition ran in February at the qplex in Quispamsis. Fredericton teams travel, parents carpool, and the gymnasium noise levels have to be experienced to be believed.

Trampoline, tumbling, ninja and open gym

Here is the honest summary of the bounce-and-obstacle category in Fredericton: there is no trampoline park, no dedicated parkour gym, and no standalone ninja facility. What the city has instead is Kingswood’s specialty programming, which covers the same itches in a more structured (and arguably safer) format. Intro Trampoline teaches real trampoline and tumbling fundamentals on competition equipment. Lil’ Ninja gives young kids an obstacle-course-flavoured mix of gymnastics and martial arts movement, and Ninja Gym scales the same idea up for older kids with obstacle course training and freestyle movement. ACRO, meanwhile, is the tumbling class aimed squarely at cheerleaders and dancers who need floor skills: walkovers, handsprings and the rest. Capital City Elite also runs tumbling classes on the cheer side of town, so a school-team cheerleader chasing a specific skill has two doors to knock on.

For teens and adults who just want gym time, Kingswood runs open gymnastics sessions, including an adult session (ages 15 and up) on Wednesdays at $10 a visit, with a $30 annual registration fee collected on your second visit and punch cards available for regulars. One quirk to know before you go: due to NBGA insurance rules, the trampolines, Tumbl Trak and mini-tramps are off limits during family and adult open gym times. You get the sprung floor, the pits and the apparatus, which is still a better Wednesday night than most.

If your crew absolutely must have wall-to-wall trampolines, the closest option is Oasis Trampoline Park in Saint John, about an hour down the highway at 212 McAllister Drive in the Parkway Mall, open Wednesday through Sunday. It is a solid add-on to a Saint John day trip rather than a weekly habit. A Fredericton location was publicly mused about in 2018, per Huddle, and nothing has come of it since, so plan accordingly rather than waiting.

Costs, ages and how to actually start

What does all this cost? Verified numbers first. Go-Go’s recreational sessions run $264 to $294 plus HST for eight weeks. Kingswood publishes its class prices inside the JackRabbit registration portal rather than on the website, but its adult open gym is $10 a session, and recreational gymnastics classes in the Maritimes typically land in the same per-class range as Go-Go’s, somewhere around $25 to $35. Competitive streams are a different animal: between training fees, club and association registration, competition entries, travel and gear, families of competitive gymnasts and all-star cheerleaders should budget in the thousands per year, not hundreds. All-star cheer adds uniform, bow, choreography and competition fees on top of regular tuition, and gyms are generally upfront about the full list once you attend a placement or parent meeting. Ask for the season fee schedule in writing before committing; every reputable club has one.

Ages: 18 months is the practical entry point, via Tumble Bugs at Kingswood or Tumble Tots at Go-Go, both parent-participation classes. Independent classes start around age 3 to 4. Cheer typically starts a little later, with Learn 2 Cheer-type programs in the early school years and team placements running up through the teen years. And there is no upper limit: adult open gym exists, UNB fields a team, and Rythmika serves gymnasts into adulthood.

How to start: for gymnastics, register online (Kingswood and Capital City Elite both use JackRabbit; Go-Go uses its own inquiry form) and register early, because preschool and beginner spots fill fastest in late summer for fall sessions. For cheer, watch Capital City Elite’s socials for placement dates in spring. For rhythmic, email Rythmika ahead of the school year. If your child just wants to try flipping before you commit to anything, a single drop-in open gym visit or a school-break camp is the cheapest possible experiment.