A Post from the Past!
Here’s a little flash from the past! Our Director of Operations, Amy L, is one of the founders of Dynowear and this is what she originally posted back in 2011 when she posted her first blog.
Thanks for taking the time to read my introductory blog. As a mother of three growing and active boys, I’m constantly on the go and interacting with other parents in the same boat. As kids develop their mobility and learn to use their bodies for activities beyond walking and eating, parents have no choice but to keep up. We all want to encourage our children to be physically active but the big question is – can we keep up?
Surviving the toddler-to-teen years of your child’s growth is a fulltime job that requires physical and emotional strength as well as the ability to multitask and work well with others – Can you say carpooling! One thing I’ve learned over the years as I plan the chaotic family schedule of social and recreational activities, is the importance of taking time for myself.
At first I wasn’t sure how to go about it but then I realized that the kids were almost always at a sports and recreation facility of some kind (the pool, the tennis club, the arena, the soccer or baseball field, etc.), and that I was usually there with them. Often in a support role – chauffeur, coach, cheerleader, nurse, etc. – but occasionally just standing around waiting for an activity to end. If you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em as they say and so I began trying the activities the boys seemed to be enjoying so thoroughly.
I started out by simply kicking a soccer ball around on the sidelines with other parents or kids or doing laps in the pool while one of the boys took diving lessons. But it was when we decided to buy a family membership at the local tennis club that I really found my game. The kids spent so much time on the court taking lessons or playing with each other and their friends that I was often left sitting there with other parents, sipping on summer drinks or nibbling on healthy and not-so-healthy snacks.
Even though I’d never played tennis before, one day while my eldest was playing with friends in the club pool, I picked up his racket and began hitting against the practice wall. To be honest, I did this mostly to avoid the snacks but I guess I was also curious to see if I could manage to keep the ball in play for any length of time. The practice wall was centrally located and I dreaded the fact that people would be able to watch me make a fool of myself but I managed to block that out long enough to hit the wall above the line that first time – and I was hooked!
That was two summers ago and I’m now on the ladder board at the club and on the courts almost as much as the kids. People who know me know that I’m not big into sweating and dirt but there’s something totally liberating about running around on the clay courts trying to keep the ball in play as long as I can. The boys have even started asking me if I won or lost, which is quite the role reversal from our normal post-activity conversations. So, my advice to you parents of active children is to join them. Who knows, one day you might even beat them (at their own game)!
Dynowear annouces new size for 6 year olds!
It has been some time since this blog has been updated, and I will admit that it is entirely my fault. Sometimes there are priorities that just don’t allow you to dedicate your time to the the things you’d like to do, and for many of you as parents, you know know exactly what I mean!
Here we are back again posting in the blogging world and we have some great news to share with everyone! Dynowear will be launching a new size for our protective gear in the fall of 2013. Our size 6 will be made available to parents who want to protect their child(ren) from serious injury when participating in certain developmental sports such as ice-skating and skiiing. This has come to light after many requests from parents who wanted to see some larger sizes and so we have listened to you. Thank you for your feedback.
You will be able to find our cut-resistant gloves, our integrated protective pants and tops online at www.dynowear.com and also at our participating Play It Again Sports www.playitagainsports.com) across Canada and the US and Sports Experts (www.sportsexperts.com) in Quebec.
Stay tuned as I plan to make this blog a lot more regular and this time I promise. If you don’t see a new blog from within 2 weeks from this date, you can email me at Ryan@dynowear.com and I will personally give you 15% off the product of your choice!
Ryan FM your DynoBEAT writer
Discount Coupon Campaign Turning into a Success!
Here we are again, after a 3 week hiatus, which included vacation down to a beautiful part of the Massachusetts known as Cape Cod with loved ones. While I enjoyed the beautiful weather and the cold yet refreshing swimming in the Atlantic ocean, my mind kept on wondering back to work and the amount of emails I would have to answer I got back to the office. Well to say that I had close to 200 emails after only being away for 7 days wouldn’t be much of a stretch.
Now that I am back I can share with everyone some great news about some developments that Dynowear has experienced. With the new ice skating season coming up in the fall, we are proud to announce our agreement with the City of Ottawa Skating School. We have partnered up with the school to offer the parents and guardians of skaters in their learn-to-skate programs discount coupons for our Dynowear products. Each parent of a child between 2-6 years old will receive a coupon that will enable them to save up to 15% on purchases of Dynowear products in all of the Play It Again Sports stores in the Ottawa region.
This is a very proud moment for us as we will have successfully accomplished our goal of raising awareness about on ice safety with parents of close to 3,000 children!
We are continuously approaching Figure Skating Clubs in and around the great Montreal region in hopes of offering this exact same opportunity for parents. We already have up to ten clubs and associations on board. If you would like your club or association to offer this rebate campaign, feel free to contact us!
Ryan FM
Twitter: @dynowear
Learning to Ice Skate – Discovering Dynowear Episode 2
Enjoy our second Discovering Dynowear Web Series. Learn about our Cut-Resistant Gloves that offer light wieght protection.
You can find it on YouTube at
http://fb.me/2evteGWFx
Confidence when learning to skate is crucial
Wecome back to our weekly blog!
This week I want to talk about the importance of confidence in the learning process. We all have experienced it ourselves at one point or another in our lives where we have lacked some confidence when we were learning something in school or in sports. This would lead to being nervous, or lacking self confidence in ones own skills meaning that we questioned our ability over being able to complete something properly. Having those doubts can lead to someone giving up on whatever they were trying to learn in the first place.
The most crucial time for confidence is especially when a young child is learning something new, wether it be in school or a new sport. As a parent you want to encourage your child to succeed at whatever it is they are trying to learn, and that type of encouragement is so important in terms of building up that confidence.
However sometimes you simply can’t support them in everything, when it comes to sports, such as learning how to ice skate, your child will fall and hurt themselves. They will have to get up, shake off the pain and learn that it is okay to fall and this is part of the learning curve. As the old saying goes if at first you dont’t succeed try and try again. But here is the kicker, if you do fall and hurt yourself often enough, it simply will discourage you, especially when you are younger and your tolerance for pain is just not as high as when you are older.
What you need to do when this type of situation arises is to provide your child with proper protection, so when they continue to fall on the same place, the pain does not become a hinderance. Rita S. Eagle, Ph.D. who launched a Special Needs Ice Hockey program in Panorama City, California, which provides an opportunity for kids and adults with developmental disabilities to learn and play hockey believes that proper protection provides confidence. “The kids wear protective gear and padding that gives them confidence and combats fear of falling, so the desire to get the puck into the net seems to take over. ” (www.Specialneeds.com)
You can’t overlook the importance of offering the right protection so that your child is safe out on the ice. This will affect their confidence in a positive manner and they will be more willing to try and try again until they learn how to do it right.
Ryan FM
@Dynowear
Is enough being done to protect our children when learning a new sport?
It’s Thursday afternoon on warm summer day here in Montreal and do you know what we’ve been discussing here at Dynowear? Well you probably don’t exactly have an idea, but I’m sure you can guess it has to do with properly protecting your child when they are learning how to skate. If you thought that then you were close. What we are talking about is children out learning how to ice skate with a serious lack of protection..
What has been coming up in our conversation of late is the topic of various learn to skate programs across Canada and what are they doing in terms of providing adequate protection for young children who are learning to ice skate. For the most part, Skate Canada has instituted the right type of policy nationwide, with all of its member associations being issued a statement in 2011, that children before a certain stage of their training must wear CSA (Canadian Standards Association) approved helmets or they will be asked to leave the ice until they are properly equipped (Skate Canada Statement). The organization is on the right track in terms of mainting a safe enviroment to learn in.
Personally I think this regulation is extremely crucial in providing added safety for young children when they are out on that hard ice surface, however not everyone is happy about it. Some parents have argued that the added cost of buying a certified helmet isn’t always that affordable. I would respond with “Is there really a price on the safety and health of your child?” At the end of the day each parent is responsible for their child and I understand that not everyone has money growing on a magical tree in their backyard or that the economy is providing everyone with large amounts of disposible income. So what is a possible solution? I would recommend buying a used helmet which still meets CSA approved standards (Helmets do have pre-determined life cycles before they no longer provide protection in a fall).
On that note, I want to bring this discussion around to the other aspect of on ice safety. While children are now being asked to wear proper head protection, there is still a void in terms of policy related to body protection that a child should have. Most skating clubs have guidelines in place that ask that the children wear regular mittens or gloves to reduce the chance of injury on their hands. For the rest of the body no real recommendations are made save for asking that jeans not be worn and that in many cases the clubs uniform be worn (this is more true for Figure Skating Clubs). So that brings me to ask the question, would you rather your child be wearing a pair of those black dollar store gloves or would you be more inclined to spend the extra money to buy a pair of cut-resistant gloves that provide padding as well to absorb the shock of a fall? Would you buy a pair of integrated protective pants that offer protection on all the key contact points so when your child falls, which they obviously will when they are learning to skate, their knees, hip bones and tail bone are properly protected?
Is it time that we start to ask our skating clubs and schools to start considering the implementation of more well rounded safety policy to that proper hand protection is offered? God forbid that your child should fall when they are learning to skate and a classmate, who still doesnt fully know how to control themselves on the ice should skate right over your child’s finger?
Is it really worth taking a chance on your child’s health and safety?
Just some food for thought,
Ryan FM
