Today we’d like to introduce you to Lilly Downs.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I spent years teaching athletes how to bend without breaking. Life would eventually teach me what those words truly meant.
I was born in 1992 in Chernihiv, Ukraine, a year after independence, into a family that had very little. My parents, both engineers, were sometimes paid in canned food instead of a salary. My mother sewed my clothes from her old ones. Then, when I was five, they did something brave: they started a small local newspaper and built it into several publications. From them I learned that people don’t wait for opportunities. They create them.
At four, I was chosen for rhythmic gymnastics. I loved it, until the training became fear. As small children, we were yelled at, humiliated, and pushed through pain. At seven I injured my back, and slowly I began to hate the sport I once loved. I never became a champion. But deep inside, a quiet determination grew: one day I would become someone, and I would never let a child feel the way I felt.
In 2012, at 20 years old, I moved to the United States and started my life over from scratch: a new country, a new language, no family nearby, and no one who knew my name. Once again, I had to adapt. Every challenge I had faced as a young athlete had quietly prepared me for this one.
That promise to never let a child feel the way I felt brought me back to the gym as a coach, and eventually to founding Freedom Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy in Randolph, New Jersey.
Then came the day no one can prepare for. My first-born daughter, Aleksandra, passed away at just two and a half years old from Sudden Unexplained Death. My world stopped. I closed my school, and for a while I didn’t know how to go on. There is no training program for heartbreak, and no coach standing beside you with the answers.
But my gymnastics families didn’t let me fall. With their support, I rebuilt Freedom from nothing in Short Hills. When COVID hit, I adapted again and moved to Morris Plains, where we are now in our seventh season. Today I also lead Flexibility Academy, and as a flexibility expert I travel across the country to share my experience with athletes in their own studios and gyms, from dancers and cheerleaders to figure skaters, ballerinas, gymnasts, and athletes from many other sports.
My mission is not only to create champions. It is to raise a generation of strong, healthy, confident young people who know how to work hard, overcome setbacks, and believe in themselves long after they leave the gym. Excellence should never come at the expense of a child’s well-being, and every child deserves a coach who believes in them before they believe in themselves.
Losing Aleksandra taught me the deepest lesson of all: our minds are just as flexible as our bodies, and far stronger than we think. We can bend under unbearable weight and still rise. Today, she is my strength and my motivation in everything I do.
That’s why I’m writing my book, *A Flexible Life*. If my story helps even one person in their darkest chapter find the strength to begin again, then everything I’ve lived through will have meaning.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it has not been a smooth road. But I’ve learned that the road was never meant to be smooth. It was meant to make me flexible.
My first struggles came early. I grew up in a family that was trying to survive in post-Soviet Ukraine, and I trained in a sport where fear and humiliation were treated as motivation. By seven, I was already living with a back injury and pain. I learned very young that talent alone doesn’t guarantee success, and that discipline and fear are not the same thing.
Moving to the United States at 20 meant starting over with nothing familiar around me. Building a business in a new country, in a sport many people here still don’t know well, took years of hard work, long days, and believing in something before anyone else did.
The hardest struggle of my life was losing my daughter, Aleksandra. No business plan, no coaching experience, and no amount of strength prepares you for that. I had to close the academy I had built, and for a time I didn’t know if I would ever coach again. Rebuilding from scratch in Short Hills, with the support of families who believed in me, was one of the bravest things I’ve ever done. Then COVID forced me to move and adapt once more, to Morris Plains, where we’ve now grown for seven seasons.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Freedom Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy and Flexibility Academy were both founded in 2015. Over the years, both have survived moves to different locations, a personal tragedy, and a pandemic, and both are still growing. Today Freedom and Flexibility Academy are based in Morris Plains, New Jersey, where we are now in our seventh season.
Rhythmic gymnastics combines ballet, dance, gymnastics, acrobatics, and apparatus work like ribbon, hoop, ball, clubs, and rope, all set to music. It’s one of the most beautiful sports in the world, and we’re proud to bring it to children in our community.
What sets us apart is our philosophy. I grew up in a training system built on fear, and I promised myself I would build something different. At Freedom, we are ambitious, we train hard, and we love results, but never at the expense of a child’s physical or emotional well-being. Our athletes learn discipline, resilience, and confidence in an environment where they feel supported and believed in.
Flexibility Academy focuses on flexibility, strength, and technique training, tailored to each athlete’s personal needs. As a flexibility expert, I travel to studios and gyms across the country to work with dancers, cheerleaders, figure skaters, ballerinas, gymnasts, and athletes from many other sports. Safe, smart training improves performance and helps prevent injuries, and I love helping athletes discover what their bodies can really do.
What I’m most proud of is our community. When I lost my daughter and had to close my school, it was our gymnastics families who helped me rebuild. Every move, every setback, and every new beginning has proven what I believe most: like our athletes, a business can bend without breaking. Freedom is more than a gym. It’s a family.
Readers can learn more at freedomrgacademy.com and flexibilityacademy.com, and follow us on Instagram at @freedom_academy_nj and @flexibilityacademy.
How do you think about luck?
People sometimes call my journey lucky, but I don’t believe luck is what brought me here. What brought me here was hard work and the support of my family and community.
My parents taught me this first. In the hardest years in Ukraine, when they were paid in canned food instead of a salary, luck didn’t change our lives. Their courage and hard work did. They started a small newspaper and built it into a successful business. I grew up watching them create their own opportunities.
I’ve faced many things I could never control: a serious back injury as a child, starting over alone in a new country at 20, and a pandemic that forced my business to move. And then losing my daughter, Aleksandra. That isn’t something any word can describe.
What carried me through wasn’t luck. It was the people around me. When I had to close my school, my gymnastics families stood beside me and helped me rebuild from scratch. My family gave me strength when I had none left. And every day since, it has been hard work, early mornings, long days, and never giving up that kept Freedom and Flexibility Academy growing.
I teach my athletes the same thing: don’t wait for luck. You can’t control every fall, but you can control how hard you work and how you get back up. And when you surround yourself with people who believe in you, there’s almost nothing you can’t overcome.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.FREEDOMRGACADEMY.com
- Instagram: www.FlexibilityAcademy.com
- Facebook: Freedom Instagram: @freedom_academy_nj
- Twitter: Flexibility Instagram: @flexibilityacademy
