On Friday mornings at Magic City Cheer in Hoover, the bass carries out into the parking lot. Inside, cheers erupt — not for a kid or teenager, but for a mom in her 40s who just landed a roundoff back tuck, met with high fives and whoops from women who were strangers just months ago.
It all started with a playful dare from Coach Tression “Tre” Nash to a 7-year-old spitfire in his class.
“I bet your mom could get her back handspring before you,” he challenged Maylie.
Her mother, Magen, perked up. “Tre, you don’t know what kind of person you’re talking to,” she said. “I’m very competitive.”
“Well, then come out this Friday morning.”
Last August, Magen found herself standing on the tumbling floor.
“I was so nervous,” she remembers. “I don’t think I’ve been this nervous as an adult.”
The jury is still out on who will land the back handspring first. Magen and Maylie are both close.
“I’m sitting here pushing my daughter to get out of her comfort zone — and now I’m doing it too.”
Word began to spread about the class, drawing the interest of women across Birmingham, including 46-year-old Ashley Tatum, who hadn’t thrown a back tuck since cheer tryouts at Auburn 25 years ago. With a little encouragement, she ran through every tumbling skill still in her repertoire on her first day with Coach Tre. She’s been tumbling weekly ever since.
“I live for Fridays,” she says. “As moms, we’re always on the sidelines cheering for our husbands, our families, and our children. It’s such a cool experience to have your peers standing there cheering you on.”
Jessica Gilmore, 30, has found the same spark.
“This group has been so fun — just finding an actual hobby. Not something for my family, my church, my job, or my home, but something just for fun and for me,” she says. “I didn’t know I needed that.”
Pregnant with her second child, Gilmore even threw standing back handsprings during her first trimester.
“With motherhood, it’s not that you have to completely find yourself again,” she says. “It’s figuring out what brings joy for you in this season. And for us right now, it’s this.”
E.P. Cade, 33, owner of barre3 Birmingham, thought her tumbling days were over, but she has found joy returning to the floor.
“Coming back to skills I worked so hard toward as a young athlete, but now through the lens of playfulness and enjoyment, has been such a full-circle moment,” she says. “It feels rare to find an outlet like this in adulthood, and it’s made even more special by the community of women who show up week after week ready to cheer each other on.”
Coach Tre believes age is no excuse not to tumble. Many of the women say they now feel physically and mentally stronger than they did in their teens.
“A lot of us work out at the gym to prepare for these tumbling skills,” says Tatum.
“They’re very transparent with me,” says Coach Tre. “If I’m pushing them and they tell me it’s not the day for it, that’s fine — we’re not going to push it.” The women know when to respect their limits. “We’re at the age where we can listen to our bodies and play it safe when we need to.”
Kathleen Varner, a well-known Birmingham floral designer and prop stylist, plans her week around making the class. Once an avid tumbler and pole vaulter, she’s found her way back to a lifelong joy.
“We all call it our therapy on Fridays,” she says. “It’s just nice to have something outside of work and kids that’s truly for you. You literally feel like a kid again — I’m doing a childhood sport I never thought I’d do again.”
None of them knew each other before this.
“We never would have pictured being here doing the things we’re doing,” says local realtor Ashley Brigham. “Now we’re all close, and the encouragement means the world.”
In 2014, Brigham donated a kidney to one of her two sons. Like many of the women in the class, she had long spent most of her time caring for others.
“Most of us are moms, and you spend most of your time taking care of them,” she says. “This is the first time in a long time I’m really doing something for me. It’s been getting back into shape, having fun, and doing things I never thought I’d be doing again. It’s been the best gift.”
“Good luck at your closing, Ashley!” several women call as she heads out the door.
The camaraderie and environment, they say, begin with Coach Tre.
“These women who had never met are now full-on besties,” he says. “This has become a small group for them. Sometimes we tumble, sometimes we heal.”
Each week, Coach Tre sees them walk out happier than they walked in.
Magen says the tumbling is only part of why she comes. As a mom of two terminally ill children, this group has become a lifeline.
“Yes, we’re all here tumbling and doing all of that,” she says. “But there have been mornings when I come here after taking one of my children into the hospital. These women are right there asking me, ‘How did it go?’ They’ve become my people.”
She pauses.
“I think I come every Friday so that I can keep going, because outside of these walls, it can be really heavy. We’ve all blocked this time off on our calendars. We’ve made a point to be here, and I think we are better people outside of here because of it.”
Behind her, cheers burst from the mat as another woman tumbles through the air.
“These women who had never met are now full-on besties,” he says. “This has become a small group for them. Sometimes we tumble, sometimes we heal.”