Lets All Brainstorm: More Cheerleaders

[cheerisloving]

^^^^^Yes.

I think that what gyms are starting to realize is that NOT EVERYONE HAS ALL YEAR TO DEVOTE TO ONE CHILD'S ACTIVITY.

All Stars (as much as I adore it) is incredibly time consuming and does not have a concrete season. It's all year.

It requires a lot of personal sacrifices on the parts of families.

Ex: If Becky wants to do all star cheer, she practices T/Th from 6-8 PM. All year. That means Mom or Dad is booked during that time. Which means Little Brother can't do any T or Th night activities. It becomes a FAMILY commitment.

It also ties up Becky's schedule. She can't do Spring Play because it opens in March on a competition weekend. Dance? Forget it.

However, if the gym offers a HALF-YEAR team that goes from say, May-December and practices Wed nights 6-8, she can do Spring Play, mom and dad are only booked up one night a week, other siblings have room to participate in their own activities, and there is a definite ENDING.

She might end up loving cheer and wanting to do a whole-year travel team. Or not. But there is a "just trying it out" half-year option available so parents aren't asked to go "whole hog" with such a new activity.

In summary, not everybody got time for dat and gyms need to be aware.

Yes, so true especially when you get into high school.

I had a semi late start at 10 but I progressed really quickly in the years that I was apart of the sport. My parents were tired out by the time I was in 8th grade and we took a break. High school came and I wanted to go back but it was almost impossible to do school cheer (HS bball is the bomb) or the musical. Or anything. I already commuted to my HS, so even the the gym was 20 minutes away, any extra driving was taxing.

Now many of the girls on my HS team that do AS are on 4.2 or a half year team nearby that doesn't really travel far and doesn't really conflicted with their schedules. I couldn't do that. I'm a strong level 4 athlete and there isn't a half year team market for that.

 

[Official OWECheer]

Yes, so true especially when you get into high school.

I had a semi late start at 10 but I progressed really quickly in the years that I was apart of the sport. My parents were tired out by the time I was in 8th grade and we took a break. High school came and I wanted to go back but it was almost impossible to do school cheer (HS bball is the bomb) or the musical. Or anything. I already commuted to my HS, so even the the gym was 20 minutes away, any extra driving was taxing.

Now many of the girls on my HS team that do AS are on 4.2 or a half year team nearby that doesn't really travel far and doesn't really conflicted with their schedules. I couldn't do that. I'm a strong level 4 athlete and there isn't a half year team market for that.

One of the reasons I'm thankful for the fall/winter season breakup in scholastic cheerleading. Kids are much more like to stick with cheer if they don't feel compelled to do it all year round.

 

[cheerisloving]

One of the reasons I'm thankful for the fall/winter season breakup in scholastic cheerleading. Kids are much more like to stick with cheer if they don't feel compelled to do it all year round.

Well where I'm from, you don't have to do football season and if you do you don't have to compete. My HS football team is atrocious, but I wanted to compete. We aren't State contenders so usually after October we just have games. Some girls stick around for basketball, some don't, some girls tryout for bball. Because basketball is so prominent in our school, girls usually never sit that season out. It is more flexible, we don't really practice outside of days when we have games. So essentially you only have to days to commit to cheer, so if you want to do AS you can luck out without a Tuesday practice and half years prob aren't going to any of the big comps. It's workable.