All-Star What Happened To The Basics?

[JayySoFierce]

I'm watching old videos from 2005-2015 and i'm baffled at the technique i'm seeing.

What happened to feet being together in a sponge/scrunch. Toes being pointed always. Heelstretches being pulled in front of your body, along with a pointed toe in bow & arrows. Bases being chest to chest in stunts. Not dropping your chest in your jumps. Feet apart in backhandsprings?

What has happened to our sport. How do we change this? I feel like we need more emphasis on technique than difficulty.


and No, I'm not arguing with any team, or gym, in particular, I just feel like perfection before progression needs to be more heavily influenced. Thoughts?

 

[haylsv3]

I completely agree and I see it everywhere. Safety concerns become more prominent too if we don't perfect the skill before moving on. I think jump technique is the top offender on most teams. They are the least focused on at practices because teams need to nail the hard stunts. People always forget that jumps are worth a good chunk of your score too!

 

[caitlyn_the_camille]

I feel like judges scoring a jank double up higher than a perfect full up, or placing a team with more difficult stunts but some falls over a team with less difficulty but perfect execution, could have something to do with it. Coaches are realizing that they can throw harder stuff in their routine and rush skill progression (which is a safety concern for the athletes) and its okay if it's not good technique bc it's gonna outscore the team with lower difficulty but good technique. Also, gyms rushing to field teams to keep parents there so they won't go up the road to xyz gym, and putting kids on teams they aren't ready for just because they have some of the tumbling and their mommy wants them to.

In completely unrelated news my sisters team didn't make it past the wildcard round at Summit today after hitting 0 deductions, and the team that won (whose choreography was admittedly much better than theirs) had two falls. But I'm not biased, promise

 

[Official OWECheer]

I'm watching old videos from 2005-2015 and i'm baffled at the technique i'm seeing.

What happened to feet being together in a sponge/scrunch. Toes being pointed always. Heelstretches being pulled in front of your body, along with a pointed toe in bow & arrows. Bases being chest to chest in stunts. Not dropping your chest in your jumps. Feet apart in backhandsprings?

What has happened to our sport. How do we change this? I feel like we need more emphasis on technique than difficulty.


and No, I'm not arguing with any team, or gym, in particular, I just feel like perfection before progression needs to be more heavily influenced. Thoughts?

A to the MEN. I think it's the scoresheet. When a gym realizes that they don't have to be technically perfect to win, they will allow jankiness to be put on the floor. Not to mention the fact that there are parents who will pull their kid from a program if the kid is not taught XYZ tumbling skill ASAP. They don't understand or appreciate the importance of teaching basics.

 

[nicolee]

It's the massive push towards difficulty rather than technique. Unfortunately, due to the scoresheet, a team is better off having 20 messy doubles in a routine than 10 perfect ones.

I have the same issue with gymnastics. 15 years ago you had to be absolutely perfect – no stumbles, no untidy feet, no steps on landing, and a whole lot of grace and style. But now, scores are so focused on difficulty that technique has regressed. I can barely bring myself to watch a lot of the routines.

 

[cupieqt]

The difficulty over technique hit me hard in 2003. We were at a small local comp and it was my first year as head coach. My team was new and I worked really hard to give them a visually exciting routine along with very clean technique. My team was coed and they hit solid walk in extensions, toss libs and other partner stunts. Compared to today's standards it was super basic, but it was still great stuff. Standing tucks, running tumbling that was synced and tight. Clean clean clean!

But we had a rival team. And this team had a bit of a crazy routine. They had one boy that could do a full (this was back before levels were a thing [emoji57] ) and he just threw them left and right. The team just ran around the floor hitting motions while he threw fulls. This was also before age divisions became popular (most people just had ONE team) and one little munchkin got lost and wandered out onto the middle of the floor while he threw a full up center and he had to straddle her on the landing.

They had some super wobbly cupies that looked like fish out of water with the wiggling and dropping all over.

But they were a larger team and that boy throwing 10 fulls was all it took. They swept awards. Tumbling awards, dance award, stunt awards and of course, Grand Champs.

I asked to meet with the judges afterwards and one reason they loved them so much was because they had purple uniforms -__-

It was a Varsity event. It took me 11 years before I ever did business with Varsity again.


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[BuegeSmalls]

Also motions!! I've seen so many janky high-v's in all star cheer! We've had girls show up to our college tryouts who have done all star cheer and are very talented, but have no motion placement/technique. Then unfortunately for them they don't make the team because at the collegiate level coaches don't have time to fix jank motions.


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[Cheerleader of the Castle]

as a base I was taught that the flyer (who is always most of the time a tiny person anyway) didn't need that much room to jump into sponge/smoosh, which made is so much easier to keep her feet together!

Now I'm at a new gym my partners always step back from me when I step in and now I'm having problems with the stunt moving and myself stepping out. (If someone could tell me how to stop this or something that'd be great!)
Anyway! I think we need to bring the notion of "forced perfection" back as it makes everything look clean

 

[Jule]

... Bases being chest to chest in stunts. ...

I've actually been wondering about that for years. Over here we teach our main base to be right underneath the flyer (for one legged stunts), while the secondary base needs to get as close to the main as possible (chest touching).
For two legged stunts it's chests together an every base underneath the respective foot of the flyer.

I've rarely ever seen that in most allstar teams. Bases seem to share the weight and base more like a triangle with the flyer standing on the tip (sorry difficult to describe). I've always asked myself wether it's supposed to be like that and just a different technique.
Any insights?

 

[Hodiestoe]

The difficulty over technique hit me hard in 2003. We were at a small local comp and it was my first year as head coach. My team was new and I worked really hard to give them a visually exciting routine along with very clean technique. My team was coed and they hit solid walk in extensions, toss libs and other partner stunts. Compared to today's standards it was super basic, but it was still great stuff. Standing tucks, running tumbling that was synced and tight. Clean clean clean!

But we had a rival team. And this team had a bit of a crazy routine. They had one boy that could do a full (this was back before levels were a thing [emoji57] ) and he just threw them left and right. The team just ran around the floor hitting motions while he threw fulls. This was also before age divisions became popular (most people just had ONE team) and one little munchkin got lost and wandered out onto the middle of the floor while he threw a full up center and he had to straddle her on the landing.

They had some super wobbly cupies that looked like fish out of water with the wiggling and dropping all over.

But they were a larger team and that boy throwing 10 fulls was all it took. They swept awards. Tumbling awards, dance award, stunt awards and of course, Grand Champs.

I asked to meet with the judges afterwards and one reason they loved them so much was because they had purple uniforms -__-

It was a Varsity event. It took me 11 years before I ever did business with Varsity again.


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Ah so that's why you have purple in your uniforms now then


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[Fiercecheermom]

I asked the same questions this year and never really received an answer. I think a "confident 1 1/2 up" looks so much better than a "fast spin double up" that may/may not hit. Both should hit the scoresheet the same IF performed with the same amount of execution, but it seems that the double up will score higher everytime...no matter what the execution. The same goes with doubles/combo doubles that look scary and dangerous.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

My only contribution to this thread is that there is no way I should be seeing BENT WRISTS IN HIGH Vs ON WOLRDS MEDALIST/TOP 10 TEAMS.

I can't even.

 

[marissa.d]

Ugh totally agree! I definitely think it has to do with what's being rewarded at competitions most of the time unfortunately. There are so many of the little things that just aren't taught by most people anymore! Now, I know I've just been a part-time coach for smaller Canadian gyms (besides when I coached for Sharks) so I'm not making a huge difference, but I ALWAYS make sure to teach technique and don't let my kids try anything until they do proper technique. This past season I coached at a smaller gym and all the athletes were surprised (and for a while quite annoyed) with how I wouldn't let them go past squish - prep - squish because legs were apart, bases were far apart with their chests down etc. It took a while but I love being able to see that now good technique is natural to them now (and up to level 2). I'm also happy to say that my Junior one team (a team of 12, only 1 with a year of cheer experience) who I focused ONLY on technique won Nationals here with a not very difficult, but CLEAN routine!

 

[tumbleyoda]

It's the massive push towards difficulty rather than technique. Unfortunately, due to the scoresheet, a team is better off having 20 messy doubles in a routine than 10 perfect ones.

I have the same issue with gymnastics. 15 years ago you had to be absolutely perfect – no stumbles, no untidy feet, no steps on landing, and a whole lot of grace and style. But now, scores are so focused on difficulty that technique has regressed. I can barely bring myself to watch a lot of the routines.

From what I have seen, especially this year the younger judges and coaches generally want to see difficulty over technique.,,ie the show of cheeerleading. The more seasoned judges and coaches want to see technique over difficulty...ie the execution of cheerleading.

Guess who is judging most events, and thereby dictating what it takes to win/get bids?

 

[Belinda]

I always think about this when seeing american teams. In Sweden, while a dropped stunt won't give you any deductions(unless it's an unsafe fall), a clean routine is always rewarded. If a judge think you're out of your league they will actually either tell you to water it down(in Sweden we have a practice in front of the judges before the comp), or they will give you a low score. Even if that means level 1 stunts in level 3.

We're also always taught to be super close while basing, with feet together in sponge, and the flyers feet just shoulder-wide in prep, chest together in anything above prep.

And for jump, advanced jumps aren't introduced until level 2, and even in level 2 you can only do one advanced jump in sequence. So t-jump toe would be okay, toe toe, not so much.. And we drill motions in jumps so so much. To keep your high v in spread eagle, not let your arm drop, but stay in a T with chest up in toe, even if that means your legs won't get/seem as high, good arms are worth more.

Also flyer body positions, the way the rules/scores are set up, you get less points for two needles and two dorritos, but more points for all simple libs, as they'd rather see unity than skills.

Sorry for the long rant, I just have been thinking about all these little things for a long time haha!