Today we’d like to introduce you to Halle Mccomb. She and her team share their story with us below:
Halle McComb grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania as a young competitive gymnast. Halle joined a competitive team at 6 yrs old and competed for 11 years. After years of hard work with limited equipment, and overcoming injuries in her YMCA gym, Halle ended up as the first-place state champion in Class 2 and Regional Champion in bars and All Around (out of 8 states). She trained for collegiate gymnastics but retired at age 17, already as an established coach and went on to run the program at her home gym at 18 yrs old. Her coaches, Helen and Gus Haun were wonderful, supportive, family-oriented coaches that dedicated their lives to the sport. Halle started coaching at age 14 and continued throughout her life, ending up with a fantastic award-winning program of her own in Charleston, South Carolina. Halle holds a degree in Early Childhood Education with a minor in art and psychology.
Neil and Halle started their first gymnastics business as a mobile program in Asheville, NC, in the late 1990s with their VW bus and toddler in tow, which grew large and turned into a permanent gym location in Black Mountain, NC. Starting in Charleston in their early 20s, Halle and Neil decided to return to where they married and create the same great program in the Lowcountry. Since 2007, FLIP! GYM existed and grew into the largest Gymnastics/Cheer program in Charleston and was awarded the Post and Courier’s People’s Choice Award for two years in a row before the Covid pandemic began. The McComb’s also introduced the sport of Ninja (involves hanging and ground obstacles with timed completion-like American Ninja Warrior) to the Lowcountry with two large brand new custom ninja gyms, built and completed in 2019 and early 2020. Halle and Neil, along with their two children, Joleah and Ivy, dedicated their lives to creating a family-friendly, high-quality gymnastics, cheer, and ninja gym operation, opening a total of 6 gyms, two mobile programs, and serving thousands of families throughout North and South Carolina.
The pandemic caused a quick and tragic halt to all of FLIP! GYM’s operations. The last two and a half years was spent transforming what was built over the previous 20 years into an expansive operation to now a reinvented start up again. Now, in the upstate of South Carolina, after so much uncertainty, FLIP! GYM has begun again, much like it has in the past. With the help of McComb’s youngest daughter who is an accomplished past level 10 competitive gymnast and incredible coach, the McComb’s once again are operating FLIP! GYM’s mobile program, now with the added sport of ninja. With years of knowledge, business, and coaching development, The McComb’s have hopes to grow and expand this reinvented quality program throughout the southeast and eventually nationwide. The mobile gymnastics and ninja program serves children 2-12 yrs old with a fully equipped mobile gym that can be run at any preschool, private or public elementary school, church, or recreation center. It is a great way to give children a strong foundation of strength, balance, flexibility, and coordination, plus a jumpstart to the great sports of gymnastics and ninja!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There have been many struggles along the way, including finding start-up money, obtaining affordable gym space, finding and affording coaches with experience, and keeping the program’s quality as it grew fast. Other operational challenges included retaining the staff needed to keep up with the growth, finding additional gym space as programs expanded, operating seven days a week (so as an owner, you are never indeed “off of work”), keeping up with technology as needed, and maintaining a satisfied clientele (especially with the competitive programs that require so much involvement). The background work of accounting, bookkeeping, and the IRS was a very time-consuming task as well. As a business owner, balancing all of these roles was challenging. I was the owner and operator; head gymnastics coach; and operations, program, and financial manager in a very competitive industry operating in a highly competitive market (Charleston). I was doing all while also being an involved mother of two incredible girls. None of this ever felt like a smooth road. It was all gratifying to work with such wonderful children, families, and incredible staff teaching these sports and promoting health, but it also came with extreme stress and uncertainty. The commercial space needed for this industry and the cost of Charleston real estate were never a great match, unfortunately. Then the experience of Covid hitting our community and shutting down our business suddenly was and still is a challenge that is hard to describe. I could never have imagined this crisis as a possibility, so there was no preparation for this experience. The halt in business after such a large growth time felt like driving a large semi truck fast and hitting a brick wall! This rollercoaster experience over the past 3 years has been unbelievable. Our decisions were so difficult and we have endured financial hardship along with emotional loss. While waiting patiently for more information and medical intervention to come about, we remained dedicated to the safety of the people in our community first, and made decisions based on that. This changed our day to day tasks to working on the tricky finances, physically breaking down all of our gyms, and dealing with a mass of equipment that nobody wanted which was very expensive to transport and store. We explored so many avenues to try to survive this in a way that would be the least punishing, but this has impacted our future for the rest of our lives. We are still proud of the very difficult decisions we had to make and know that we did the right thing to protect the lives of others, even though it meant enduring financial hardship and loss.
We are thankful to once again have the opportunity to start our program with its established quality in a new area of the state of South Carolina. With all of this knowledge and experience under our belts, we are confident in providing such a solid program that we are certain to serve thousands of more children in the future. We have plans to take this well established, successful, and now reinvented program and expand it to many areas around the country. I am sure we will still have more challenges along the way, hopefully the toughest of them are in the past though.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about FLIP! GYM?
FLIP! GYM has transformed over the years but started as a mobile gymnastics program in the mountains of North Carolina. Since its conception, Flip! Gym has offered recreational and competitive programs in three sports; gymnastics, all-star cheer, and ninja. We have a strong brand, program, and concept that has proven success. We are known for our quality instruction and friendly approach to the children we work with. We have always kept a family friendly and respectful environment, encouraging supportive teamwork, safety, and a loving/caring approach. The children we have worked with and will continue to affect are more than just athletes or clients to us, they are an important contribution to our community that we have a part in shaping. We are currently offering weekly gymnastics/ninja classes in schools throughout the upstate of South Carolina. We will continue to grow this and expand with hopes to reach children throughout the southeast, nationwide, and beyond!
What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most is that we are operating a program that will provide the most lasting and positive impact on the children we serve to better our chances of creating responsible, healthy, and loving people for our society’s future.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.flipgym.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram,com/flipgymmobile
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flipgymmobile/
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@flipmobilegym
