Playm8 provides both a versatile and unique opportunity to children to develop their movement skills,  and is a great way to keep them entertained at birthday party's. Recently  Wellington Cricketers, Grant Elliot and Matthew Bell put together a Playm8 Birthday party for Johnathon Stuart, son of Firebirds coach Anthony Stuart.

The idea was to get the group of party goers to get engaged in physical activity at a young age and work off that cake....

 If we teach people to throw, catch and strike as there is a suggested technique…. then why do we not teach them to run?!

 Running is a skill that can be learned!

 Crawling is important is assisting left and right sides to develop similar levels of coordination. It is often assumed that those who possess great speed or strength are born with a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibres and that no amount of speed work will turn a pack horse into a race horse.  However regardless of genetics and muscle fibre type how you develop your athletic ability will depend mostly on two factors:

 - Motor Learning Skills at an early age.

- Training stimulus / activities that muscle fibres are exposed to throughout our lives.

 If the children's reactions were anything to go by, they had a huge amount of fun. The Playm8 party certainly provided alot of opportunities to develop skills and teach new skills.

 Cheers Belly