All-Star Xtreme Spirit, Wisconson Dells

TwistersPride said:

i had this issue with them last year. granted it was a mini 1 team- but they only scored the tumbling that was my last pass (two girls doing the hardest skills). When i questioned it, i was told that they only score the hardest level appropriate skill. i asked if i should have nuggeted the rest of my team that couldn't do that pass- i was told that it would have gotten me the same amount of point if i had. This is the same day that i got my day 1 score sheets back and had a ZERO for jumps. i questioned this as well- and was told that my team didn't do jumps. who goes to a 2 day nationals and doesn't have jumps in the routine?! Turns out that the judge was judging tumbling and jumps. she put her head down to write my scores for tumbling and missed the jumps. At least they went back and rescored....

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yes! they told us they would go back and basically look over the things they missed..this shouldnt be an issue in the first place

ztaprincess said:

I am just really failing to see how a team scores a 191 out of 200 with 5 points per stunt fall when there are several stunt falls and an all around good but sloppy routine. I don't blame Top Gun at all, but I am really questioning the judges and people over deductions.

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exactly everyones complaint. you cant have judges not looking up from their scoresheets so they miss a whole section from their routine and also teenagers judging...i would also appreciate it if xtreme would of notified us of scoresheet changes for this competition, since we already went to one of theirs earlier this year so we would know how they scored.

loveuboy said:

omg the got bid with THAT ROUTINE HUH ARE U SERIOUS ?

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whats wrong with the routine? i thought the routine, even though watered down, was still amazing. probably the best one at xtreme spirit

i cant wait for this thread to die O___o

proof that allstar cheer has turned all into politics. and doesnt necessarily matter on talent.
plain and simple.
sucks for the girls and boys working extremely hard but dont get what they deserve just because they dont come from a big name gym.

cheer3693 said:

proof that allstar cheer has turned all into politics. and doesnt necessarily matter on talent.
plain and simple.
sucks for the girls and boys working extremely hard but dont get what they deserve just because they dont come from a big name gym.

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or they aren't as good as the other team. there's a reason why they're a big gym..

I don't normally comment on these boards too often, but I'm left with no choice when my name is being thrown around and ridiculous rumors are being spread. This is the truth and the whole truth everyone, so read up:

For those of you who don't know me, here's a briefing: my name is Chris Tsanadis (most of you probably know me as the Bed Pyramid guy haha). I used to coach at Top Gun in Miami (2006-2011), and this past May I decided to stop coaching (as hard as it was to leave an awesome place like Top Gun), and I ventured off into new avenues in the cheerleading industry and took a full time job with Xtreme Spirit. They hired me as an event director for the Eastern Region of the US, and Director of Camps & Choreography. In October, I was offered an amazing opportunity to live and work in Australia for 3 months at my friend's gym, Australian Outlaws. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that!! So I spoke with the owners of Xtreme Spirit and asked if I could just be a part-time employee for them so that I can live out this awesome opportunity I've been offered. They were very supportive and encouraged me to go through with it. So I'm going to Australia in a month and will be back just in time to go to Worlds! In the meantime, I've been doing follow ups with clients I do choreography for and I've also been doing some judging (I'm USASF Safety Judge Certified) to make some extra money before heading to the Land Down Under. This weekend at the Kalahari event was my 2nd time judging for Xtreme Spirit.

Back-track a bit. When I made the decision to leave Top Gun, Victor, Kristen and the entire staff were extremely supportive of my new venture! They wanted to show their support by attending as many Xtreme Spirit competitions this season as possible (any of you who know Victor and Kristen know that they are a class act and train their coaches and athletes to be the same. They always say "we want to teach our kids not just to be good athletes, but good people too. In the real world, no one cares if you have a double full or 3 Worlds rings, but they do care about the type of person you choose to be." They're very humble people). I was very thankful and appreciative that they were willing to support me and the new company I was working for. Back in May, when Top Gun was choosing their competitions for the upcoming season, the staff immediately decided that they would bring either their i5 or i6 to Xtreme Spirit's Worlds Bid event in Wisconsin, and that they would bring most, if not all of the program to the two local South Florida competitions Xtreme Spirit was hosting in January and February. Of course the owners and staff of Xtreme Spirit were ecstatic and honored to host a class act program like Top Gun. In July, the TG staff made Xtreme Spirit aware that the i5 team would be the team attending the Worlds bid event because their i6 probably wouldn't be ready in time for a December competition. Xtreme Spirit offers a summer July savings program where if a program registers their teams for any of their competitions before August 1st, they get a 50% discount off registrations. Top Gun took advantage of that offer since their i5 athletes are apparently not the wealthiest of athletes. Lets face it, what college-aged kids are? So that discount that they got was offered to every gym in the world... no special treatment there.

This summer, Xtreme Spirit invited ALL level 5 teams to their Worlds Bid event (duh, what competition company doesn't want as many level 5 teams as possible competing at their Worlds Bid event?). They made special discount offers to some of the top programs in the country... Top Gun being one of those top programs. Top Gun was the only top program who was open to attending an Xtreme Spirit event... the other programs already had there competition schedules picked for the season, but said they'd consider it for next year. The special discount offer was NOT paying for all registrations, hotel rooms and airfare. The Top Gun Staff and the Xtreme Spirit Staff can GUARENTEE and PROVE that. Xtreme Spirit is a very small independent competition company... they don't have the money to be paying for all the things people are claiming they paid for. The special offer they made for these top programs was very basic and minimal, nothing out of the norm. Every big-name program in the country gets special offers from many of the Event Producers, Uniform Companies, Shoe Companies, etc. in the cheerleading industry. It happens in cheerleading, football, baseball, soccer... it happens in almost every sport. If you didn't know that, you have now been educated. For people to make assumptions and start rumors about things they have no idea about is silly. So now you all know the truth on that issue.

Now, as far as the judging this past weekend. I was the safety legalities and deduction judge. As Steven from Northern Elite mentioned, I made a terrible human error (which I still feel so bad about) and gave two level 3 teams from Northern Elite a legality deduction on their pyramid that they didn't deserve. When I realized my error, I immediately scratched off their deductions and rewarded them back those points. Lesson learned: don't review a routine on a 2"x2" video camera screen! Sorry again for that Steven and the NE staff! .... This past weekend, I also oversaw all of the Worlds Teams scoresheets. Like I said before, Xtreme Spirit is a small event company... their staff has not had a strong showing of level 5 teams at their events over the course of the past 7 years. Therefore, they wanted me to oversee the scoresheets for all of the Worlds Teams since I have much more experience and education on what qualifies a strong Worlds Team. Now, before I continue on, let me say this: anyone who actually knows me and is friends with me (especially the coaches from Top Gun; Cory and Dom can verify this on here) will tell you that I am very honest and fair, not to mention, unbias. When I coached at Top Gun, I was always the coach that the other coaches came to to get an honest opinion about how their team did, how they matched up in their division, etc. I call it like I see it, with no bias attached. I'm educated on good quality cheerleading and what judges are looking for... plain and simple. So any assumptions any of you were making thinking "Oh, how convenient that a former Top Gun coach was overseeing the Worlds Teams, when Top Gun had a Worlds Team there going for the bid." I don't care if I coached there or not, if they deserved the paid bid, they were getting the paid bid... if they didn't deserve the paid bid, they were NOT getting the paid bid. The most deserving team was getting the bid... Its as simple as that. That was understood by the Top Gun staff as soon as they decided they wanted to come to the Worlds Bid event. I would never allow myself or Xtreme Spirit to automatically give Top Gun the paid bid just because I was a former coach there, nor would the Top Gun staff. Its simply not fair. End of that discussion.

On Day 1 of the competition, all of the level 5 teams had mistakes and deductions. Not one single level 5 team had zero deductions. There were teams with up to 9 points in deductions, some teams had just -1.5 in deductions. Most teams had 3-6 points in deductions though. Top Gun had -3.5 points in deductions. I did not come up with the criteria for how many points should be deducted for what... Xtreme Spirit had that in place years ago before I started working for them. I just followed what their deduction scales are and applied them to all the teams and was consistent with all the teams from levels 1-5 all weekend long. Top Gun had 3 drops in their routine on Day 1... one in their 2nd stunt sequence, and two at the end of their pyramid... the Day 1 video shows that clear as day. Someone on here said 5 or 6 drops... I guess some people are not only uneducated in cheerleading, but they are also uneducated on basic math skills. Top Gun's 3 drops were each 1 point in deductions (3 points). They also had a noticeable bobble in that 2nd stunt sequence which received the -.5 deduction (totaling 3.5). The other minor bobble in the stunt, and the mishap in the pyramid were taken off their execution scores in those categories. We were consistent with that for every team. If a bobble was minor and not extremely shaky or noticeable, teams did not receive a deduction for it, they just got their execution score lowered. If a team dropped a stunt and the flyer landed on the ground and it was a total wipeout, the deduction was 5 points... same if a tumbler ate carpet.. 5 points. A hands down in tumbling is 1 point. Like I said, I didn't make the values for deductions... I'm not responsible for that. But the deductions for every team of the entire weekend were fair and consistent according to the Xtreme Spirit Deductions grid.

Now, on the difficulty scores... which is where the lack of education comes into play even more. There is a big misconception in our industry that stunts make up most (if not all) of the score sheet. People think if a team does a stunt with high difficulty, they deserve to beat a team with little stunt difficulty... forgetting about the other elements of a scoresheet. That becomes a problem, because now coaches believe their teams should be winning if they have a full up immediate/tick tock/high to high/double up... and another team doesn't have that difficulty. They forget that there is standing tumbling, running tumbling, EXECUTION of all tumbling (AKA, bent leg fulls and doubles, or 1 1/2's that are trying to be doubles, with sloppy landings and incomplete spins is not something ANYONE wants to see), choreography, jumps, tumbling out of jumps, pyramids, dance, transitions, formations, creativity, overall impression, sportsmanship..... you all get the point. .. Many of the teams this past weekend had very strong, difficult stunts. There were several teams doing tick tocks, full up immediates, 1 1/2 ups, etc. Those teams scored very well on difficulty. Did they score well on execution? The ones that executed their stunts with strong stability did.... but many of them were shaky, dropped, etc. Top Gun was certainly not the most difficult stunting team. They scored somewhat in the mid/average range. Their 2nd stunt sequence was not very difficult, but the unassisted (most of them) coed stunts in their first sequence were. Many people overlooked that. USASF recently sent out the grid for how to range the difficulty of coed stunting. The stunt Top Gun did in their first sequence is in the 85-90 percentile of that difficulty... No teams were performing unassisted coed stunts at that level or (most importantly) of that quantity. But the other teams were doing difficult group stunts which made most of them outscore Top Gun in stunt difficulty overall... but not by a landslide or anything. Now, the thing people seem to fail to notice. Top Gun's tumbling (both standing and running) was FAR more difficult than EVERY team there, it was better executed, and the % of the team throwing tumbling was much higher than the other teams. That is not an opinion, that is a fact. Anyone with knowledge on tumbling can testify to that. Therefore, Top Gun's tumbling scores were substantially higher than the other teams. Now we have the pyramid section. Top Gun had a great pyramid. It made sense, it hit the score sheet, it had some creative elements to it... it scored very well. I don't believe it was the highest scoring pyramid of the weekend, but it was up there. Jumps... their jump sequence is very difficult, I don't care what anyone says! They spin one and a half times while performing 4 jumps, and throw tucks out of them. It was absolutely the most difficult jump sequence of the weekend. Now, they didn't score as high in execution because some girls did tuck jumps out of them and some of the back row jumps were lower than level. Overall though, they had one of the highest scores for jumps... deservingly so. Now, the extra stuff that people forget about has to be scored.... which are the things Top Gun is known for and admired for in the industry. Choreography: they had the best choreography without a doubt. They always present things in a new fresh way and always play with different formations and transitions. Now-a-days, cheer routines are getting so redundant and boring and skill-based only. Teams are literally walking to a formation, and throwing their skills... and then walking to the next formation with maybe a couple motions... and throwing more skills... and then walking to the next formation, and throwing more skills. There is so little innovation and creativity in choreography, but Top Gun never fails to step it up with their choreography and thats one thing other programs should learn from them, instead of verbally attacking them. Any coach out there can make sure an athlete doesn't cross center in a transition, just walk clean, add a couple motions, and then throw your skills when you get there. Top Gun coaches (as well as many other amazing coaches out there) don't take that monotonous approach. ... Their dance was awesome as well and was the talk of the competition because again, they brought something new with taking the bows out of the girls hair which went perfect with their dance song as well. Not to mention the actual dance was great and performed very well by their athletes. They scored very high on that as well ..... All of these "other" areas of the scoresheet (which is nearly 1/4 of the scoresheet) is what gave Top Gun the clear lead over the other teams that attended. If coaches paid more attention to that part of the scoresheet and also focused on overall execution of their routines, their scores would have reflected it and they would have probably been happier with their overall scores and placements.

This does't take away from the fact that there were very talented teams at this competition! I was pleasantly surprised with how well certain teams did and how strong certain parts of their routines were. But when taking into consideration ALL the elements of a routine and scoresheet, Top Gun was the clear winner. If you disagree with it, I'm sorry you feel that way. Luckily, the people who don't understand or agree with it aren't judges... or we'd all be in serious trouble.

The main disappointment in ALL of this is not only the lack of education of people out there, but the terrible sportsmanship displayed by so many gym owners, coaches, athletes and parents. Coaches/parents out there are being poor examples to their athletes/children when they complain about things they don't know about, try to argue until they get their way, teach their athletes to talk poorly about other programs and people and treat them nasty.... its very disheartening to see. Worst of all, a parent from an athlete who competed at the competition emailed Victor directly and attacked him and his program for essentially earning their paid bid. .. I don't allow myself to be involved with negative people and energy like that. I've simply posted on here (well, actually wrote a novel haha) to clear the air, clear the rumors, and speak the truth on behalf of myself, Xtreme Spirit, and Top Gun All Stars. Everything was fair, there were no rules broken or bent for anyone, there was not thousands of dollars spent to get one team to come. Everything I've stated is the facts. Take it or leave it.

Thanks for your time!

~Chris

CandC5p ^^^ thank you so much for clearing up rumors and the accusations made against TG. please remember though that not everyone is against TG. they have thousands of supporters and many of them were at Xtreme Spirit. its just the bitter people that are complaining.

People please stop with the lies and rumors about TG.... If it is not right... do not do it, if it is not true... do not say it << follow this quote & we will avoid this unnecessary drama! ( :

CandC5p I hope you don't think I was calling you out or anything! We had said afterwards that we were glad you were so nice, so we didn't have to get mad at you.

Haha, no, I didn't take offense to your comment at all... you were just stating a fact. I was totally in the wrong in that situation! I'm still mad at myself for it and feel bad that y'all had to go through that anger! .... Are you going to Worlds? I'll buy you're staff drinks and dinner to try and make up for it! ... And then when I heard about the mis-announcing of the awards that affected your team, I said to myself "Oh my gosh, this poor program has seen the worst of it."

CandC5p Oh how I've missed thee. Thank you for helping to dispel the rumor mill!

I have been holding my tongue because I have been accused many times of "defending" Top Gun since my daughter cheered there. I wasn't at the event, yet I certainly can speak to the character of the staff and the program. I have told this story before but it is worth repeating. When my daughter outgrew our local gym that was owned by one of my best friends, we went shopping for a larger program. We chose Top Gun because of Victor and Kristen and their amazing reputation, even though they were the farthest away. My daughter and I have made life long friends there and once a Jag, always a Jag. They have been supportive in every aspect of her life and mine as well. This is a very busy gym run by a small staff, particularly the office staff. Kristen doesn't just coach, she runs the business too. They have written recommendation letters, been supportive of her extra-curricular activities, encouraged her education, etc. Her coaches and staff members were at her high school Senior Night and high school graduation. When she broke her leg, it was Victor and Kristen who were with her the entire time and assisted the paramedics in getting her into the ambulance. Victor literally held her leg in place (she broke her tibia and fibula) until they got there. I was a mess and the office staff kept me as calm as they could until help arrived. The TG moms directed the ambulance to the best hospital and drove my car there so I could be with my daughter.

I could go on and on about this program and what an impact they have had in our lives. Chris and Cory are top notch and not hard on the eyes either ...lol. I still go to Worlds, with my daughter, to support the program. Jag for life.

twistinnUout said:

of course you would say that.

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are you referring to me?

As an addition to my note before, it wasn't while I was at World cup.

Top Gun IO5's dance is nice!!! The whole routine is fun and very innovative! Congratulations on the bid, I can't wait to see how this routine/ team continues to grow over the next few months!!!!

Weezy said:

I have been holding my tongue because I have been accused many times of "defending" Top Gun since my daughter cheered there. I wasn't at the event, yet I certainly can speak to the character of the staff and the program. I have told this story before but it is worth repeating. When my daughter outgrew our local gym that was owned by one of my best friends, we went shopping for a larger program. We chose Top Gun because of Victor and Kristen and their amazing reputation, even though they were the farthest away. My daughter and I have made life long friends there and once a Jag, always a Jag. They have been supportive in every aspect of her life and mine as well. This is a very busy gym run by a small staff, particularly the office staff. Kristen doesn't just coach, she runs the business too. They have written recommendation letters, been supportive of her extra-curricular activities, encouraged her education, etc. Her coaches and staff members were at her high school Senior Night and high school graduation. When she broke her leg, it was Victor and Kristen who were with her the entire time and assisted the paramedics in getting her into the ambulance. Victor literally held her leg in place (she broke her tibia and fibula) until they got there. I was a mess and the office staff kept me as calm as they could until help arrived. The TG moms directed the ambulance to the best hospital and drove my car there so I could be with my daughter.

I could go on and on about this program and what an impact they have had in our lives. Chris and Cory are top notch and not hard on the eyes either ...lol. I still go to Worlds, with my daughter, to support the program. Jag for life.

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I saw you last year, ALL weekend