FOUNDER STORY
Why a gymnast spending 20 hours a week on the floor decided to rethink how we train, share, and get recruited.
I literally spend 20 hours a week in the gym. Between ripping my hands on bars (the absolute worst), chasing tiny tenths on beam, and trying so hard to stick my dismounts, gymnastics is basically my whole entire life. But when I wanted to connect with other gymnasts online, I realized regular social media just isn't built for us. It can get super toxic, really distracting, and honestly, kind of creepy.
At first, I just wanted to make a totally secure app where my friends and I could talk and post our training videos privately. I wanted a safe spot to hype each other up over new skills without worrying about cyberbullying, fake accounts, or weird strangers watching us.
While I was drawing out how this private app would work, I realized something actually huge: this is exactly what college recruiters want to see.
I started looking into it and found out there is literally nothing out there made just for college coaches to recruit gymnasts. The whole process of sending random YouTube links and messy Google Drive folders to D1 coaches is just totally broken.
So, I changed my plan. I decided to add a public—but totally verified—section to the app. It takes all those daily practice clips and automatically turns them into an active College Recruiting Resume so we can show off our videos, scores, and meet results in one place.
I've been so obsessed with this project from the first salute. The Chalk Circle gives us our safe space back, but it also gives college scouts a direct line to see how hard we actually work.
— Emma
Gymnast & Co-Founder, The Chalk Circle