Education is perhaps the most important part of gymnastics. When an activity is naturally orchestrated to provide participants with unique and valuable learning experiences, it serves the participants better than any book, television show, or website. As time progresses, noticeable benefits in performance provide individuals with a high level of self-motivation and allow further enjoyment and progression within the sport. This pursuit of success indicates a “healthier” outlook on competition, an improvement in self esteem and an understanding of the importance to function independently and be self-reliant .

One of the most interesting elements of the activities involved in gymnastics is that the gymnast can experience a variety of effects in practice rather than just in theory. For example, physicists discuss the principle of conservation of angular momentum; the gymnast experiences it. The physics teacher may discuss moment of inertia and its relation to angular momentum, but the gymnast can see and feel this while performing skills. The richness of such experiences goes far beyond reading about them in a book. Recently, a National Science Foundation grant has used gymnastics as a means of teaching fundamental physics to students for this very reason.