Melissa Cassidy | My experience as a disabled coach
We are proud to support Scottish disability sport week as it enters its third year. 2025’s campaign holds even more importance. Scottish Disability Sport (SDS) launched a four-point call to action to create a more inclusive and active Scotland.
Covering Friday’s topic theme of accessibility is Melissa Cassidy. A former rhythmic gymnast turned coach, below she shares her experiences and views on why we need more disabled coaches in gymnastics.
Introduction
“I think that rhythmic gymnastics is one of the most beautiful sports out there, ribbons dancing across floors, balls flying through the air but most importantly gymnasts coming together to train and learn new skills. My opinion may be biased though as I trained as a rhythmic gymnast for just over a decade before becoming a coach.
“There’s a certain skill set required for rhythmic gymnastics which includes balance, precision, timing. This skill set was not mentioned when my parents signed up their six-year-old with cerebral palsy to the City of Glasgow rhythmic squad. This disability results in a lack of balance, precision and timing.
“Despite this, I absolutely loved gymnastics growing up and it was the only club I went to where I got to meet other disabled people. I think this was a key part of why I stuck around so long, I never felt like my disability was a barrier to me participating in the sport. Even when I was getting yet another gold medal because I was the only competitor in the physically disabled category, I had coaches who would set personal goals for me which always kept the sport engaging.
Retiring from training
“Getting into coaching was a challenge. It was something I had thought about for a while before eventually discussing it with my club and signing up for a coaching course. A lot of the time I felt as though I was teaching the people running the course because they weren’t very familiar with disability in general. So the scenario of me being a disabled coach working with a disability rhythmic section was a lot for people to wrap their heads around. There’s also a mammoth amount of paperwork required with the existing level one coaching. Converting everything so it could be done digitally was much harder than I anticipated.
“I absolutely love working with my disability rhythmic crew, I think me being disabled as a coach is sometimes beneficial to them because I am very used to adapting and finding different ways to do things. It’s also so important to give them that representation of another disabled person in a coaching role.
“The only difficulties I’ve encountered with coaching is navigating events like competitions or displays where I’m on my feet all day or trying to navigate new places and having to worry about accessibility when I really want to put all of my focus on the gymnasts.
Improvements
“Gymnastics as a sport is still fairly behind in regards to disability awareness and inclusion so it’s unsurprising that there aren’t many resources or places to look for advice on how other disabled gymnastics coaches do it. Even though gymnastics has its many disciplines and disability has its many forms, it would be nice to have more of a network for disabled gymnastics coaches to share their experiences.
“The good news is gymnastics is definitely becoming more inclusive. Para gymnastics is on the rise, there are increasing opportunities for learning disability teams to perform in mainstream competitions, and more clubs are setting up disability strands. So we can only hope that when those disabled gymnasts reach the end of their competing days that they feel they have the same opportunity and encouragement as their non-disabled peers to train as coaches.”
Outside of the gym, Melissa is a film and journalism university student, publish author and recently named on The Young Women’s Movement 30 under 30 list for 2025. Thank you to Melissa for sharing her story with for this year’s Scottish disability sport week. If you’d like to read more from Melissa about her experiences check her blog Buttons and Ramps.
Share your story or show support for the campaign online using #ScottishDisabilitySportWeek.