My name is Marley Midkiff, and I have been teaching gymnastics for over 26 years and an art teacher for 8 years. My journey started as a child watching someone do a double back flip on the trampoline and was hooked! I wanted to flip all the time. I was a gymnast myself at a young age but struggled with knee pain. This lead me down the art road for a bit. My family was very big on traveling. I was very blessed to travel and experience a wide variety of cultures which I feel influence my artwork and personality greatly. In high school I got sucked into the cheerleading world because I could tumble. I started at a gymnastics gym where I learned how to coach gymnastics to pay my cheer tuition. I started to really like working with kids and gymnasts. As I got older, I attend Virginia Commonwealth University for Art Education. I got sucked into the cheerleading world again because I could tumble so cheered for VCU for 6years while also working for Richmond Olympiad coaching gymnastics. After my first year of college, I stopped working for a short period because the drive from Richmond and my class schedule did not match up. I also started to cheer for VCU, so my schedule was very full. Through VCU cheer, I met a coach that was working at Gym Quest Gymnastics. He convinced me to come back to coaching and I did. I loved my years there coaching classes as well as Level 4 team. I graduated from VCU with a bachelor’s degree in art education and got a job teaching art at Nottoway Intermediate School. I continued to coach at Gym Quest, but it was hard with all the driving, so I eventually left due to the drive. In Nottoway, I was teaching with a teacher who worked at a dance studio, and she convinced me to come out to her studio to teach acro. I taught acro for 8 years out in Amelia and started a family. I wanted to get back into the classroom, so I started teaching Elementary/High school PE as well as High School art at the school my children attended, Guardian Christian Academy. I started up a tumbling program that I taught after school, and it felt great getting back into it. I loved working there, but I disagreed with how Things were being handled and I ended up resigning from my position. I met up with Doug and Colleen at Jerrell Steele meet because my daughter was competing and they convinced me to come out of retirement again. I am very happy to return to such a happy, positive environment and look forward to this new chapter in my life as their director and new owner as well as becoming a published author of a therapeutic art coloring book. Art has helped through so much stress in my life and I want to help others do the same.