All-Star Age And Level Of Members Of Your Gym

[Usacheer12]

our gym has more higher aged athletes (with an j3 j4 s2 s3 s4 and s5 ) and only like 2 younger teams

 

[INeverStopCheering]

Program Stats:
2 Tiny Teams (one Ex.), Mini 1, Youth 2, Youth 3, J1, J2, J3, J4, S3, S5
We have a lot of junior kids this year and a lot of little little girls (3 and 4). Overall I would say our heaviest age range is Youth to Junior. Our biggest population is kids ages 9-14. It kind of comes in waves for us. Last year we had a lot of incoming Tiny(5 and 6) and Youth kids. This year we have so many new Juniors we have a J1, a team we've never really needed before.

We have 9 teams levels 1-3 and 2 teams levels 4 and 5. The majority of our athletes are a solid 2 or 3. The number of level 2 and 3 teams we have is equal to the number of levels 1,4, and 5 teams we have.

We get a lot of kids who are unhappy with their rec/school programs. Our gym hosts a rec competition where we recruit a lot of elementary and middle aged kids (8-13) to a fall team, where they then join full season next year. Last year we have a huge turnout with a Large Youth 1 and a Small Jr 2. This is why we have such huge numbers of this aged team this year. The other thing we have is open tumble every night for a reasonable price. You come when you want no obligations and around try out time we get a lot of hopeful school cheerleaders. They become friend with our girls and if they don't make the squad (or even if they do) they often decide to come cheer for us?

For those bottom heavy programs: Where are the kids going?

 

[MomOf2ThatsMe]

What does your gym statistics look like? How many tiny, mini, youth, junior, and seinor kids do you have?

Hmmm.. tiny- 13/14 M2- 26/28 Y5, J2, S2 and SO5 I think are all competing as small, but close to full, so between 20 & 24 I guess... Not too many crossovers either.

All these level 1's help create a smaller subset of level 2's. And so on and so forth until you reach the apex of level 5's.

We were very top heavy the first season (09-10) that we were at our gym. I think we had 12 teams. 2 tiny, 2 mini 1, mini 3, youth 3, junior 5, 2 senior 5's, IOC 5 and IAG 5. I know I am missing one, I'm pretty sure it was another youth team- level 4 I think. Those numbers include two exhibition teams (tiny & mini)

But I have heard from quite a few people that cheerleading is getting smaller. To me I am thinking that means there are less level 1's and less mini's getting involved. So seeing the makeup of peoples gyms might help give a little clarity to that.

The economy. The financial boom of the mid 2000's is over, and people are less willing to drop a few grand per year per kid on cheerleading. I think there are certainly more gyms out there, but they are competing for a finite number of kids who do have the parents with some extra cash. I think that you will see less emerging good, really fantastic small gyms due to the athletes leaving for the established, successful gyms with teams that place top 5 at Worlds.

 

[Cheer_Explosion_Coach]

We are a very bottom heavy gym. Tiny, Mini, Youth, and 2 junior teams... No seniors. We have 1 High school team as well. I love love this situation.

We also have a banging Rec tumbling program. It's definitely double the size of our team so about 130 students. And none of them are over 14 years old.

 

[Deleted member 8658]

my gym is pretty evenly numbered when it comes to age but we are "bottom heavy" as you would say since we only have levels 1-3
team levels:
mini-1
mini-2
youth-1
junior-2
sennior-3

we have lots of mini kids and only a few youth kids-
we also have lots of junior kids and smaller then average amount of senior kids-
(so their is pretty much an even amount of kids through all ages, not a specific age of kids come to our gym)

 

[ccchampsbridget]

CC Champs has a Large Youth 1, Large Junior 2, Small Junior 3, Large Senior 4, and Small Senior 5.

 

[KikiD22]

Our numbers are below, but I think it's probably safe to say that UA is a top-heavy program, both age and levels.

Tiny 1 - 5
Mini 1 - 9 (plus 3 Mini 2 crossovers)
Mini 2 - 18
Youth 3 - 25
Junior 1 - 16
Junior 2 - 31
Junior 3 - 23
Junior 4 - 31
Junior 5 - 16 (plus 4 crossovers)
Senior 4.2 - 32
Senior 4 - 29
Senior 5 all girl - 20
Senior 5 Coed - 36

 

[kristenthegreat]

I think many smaller gyms suffer the case of athlete's leaving for the big-name gym once they reach the upper tier, or parents not wanting to shell out for a bigger gym (who might normally have higher costs) unless they were SURE their kid was gonna stick with it or needed that higher level of coaching. My mum was like that- would only shell out for the pricier athletic activity if we were gonna stick with it for any length of time..

 

[TheyCallMeDoctorT]

in our program, we are heavier in the "mid-level" athletes. We are a very heavily tumbling based program and that is where we excel the most. This year we have more level 3 and 4 athletes than anything but our tiny program and mini program is really building up. In years past, we have built level 5 athletes that had the tendency to leave our program for level 5 teams ( we are a 5th year program and just starting to debut our worlds level team) in the area but we are just now starting to retain those athletes (and have even gained a few) but as of now we have a vast array of athletes in level 3 and 4 but I see a little bit of spreading out with gaining new athletes from our younger teams and advancing athletes into level 5 in the next couple years.

 

[cheermommaRN]

We are not that top heavy this season...we have:
Small Youth 1
Large Junior 2
Large Senior 3
Senior 4

And then 5 level 5 teams (inc. Restricted 5) so it's almost 50/50 split. There is also more kids 11 and under then last season...

 

[pctmom]

We are pretty even throughout age wise. We don't allow 13 and under onto Senior teams (regardless of level) so our numbers of "juniors" is very true.

Mini - 25
Youth - 80
Junior - 90
Senior - 138
Open - 54

In levels they are distributed:
Level 1 - 73
Level 2 - 83
Level 3 - 65
Level 4 - 52
Level 4.2 - 28
Level 5 - 24
Level 6 - 48

 

[yojaehs]

Im not sure the exact numbers but we are EXTREMELY Top heavy. Way more Senior age kids than tiny, mini, youth and junior combined, which is unfortunate and we are working on. @kingston from my experience, Most gymnastics gyms operate where it would look much more pyramid style, and you are correct, there are very few Elite gymnastics gyms. It was explained to me kind of like this--It takes 10,000 kids to get 1 elite gymnast. If you start with 10,000 only 5,000 will get to levels 1,2,3 only 2,500 will make level 4, only 2,000 will make level 5, then the cut increases 1,000 level 6, 500 level 7, 250 level 8 100 level 9, 50 level 10 and then MAYBE 1 Elite.

 

[luv2tumble89]

We are a relatively small gym in only our fourth season. We have mini 1 youth 1 junior 2 and senior 2 and then a mini exhibition team which really should be a tiny team but they didn't have enough to compete that way so we added a couple six year olds and a made a mixed team. The majority of our kids are 9-11. Our mini exhibition has 5 girls ages 4-6. Our mini team has 15 members ages 6-8. Our youth team has 22 and ranges in age from 8-11. Our junior team has 18 members and is very young and is ages from 8-12. Our senior team has 19 members ages 10- 18 but the majority are 14 or younger.

 

[chyeeaaa69]

For my gymnastic people: do gymnastic gyms tend to look a little like my pyramid model? Levels 1-7 are everywhere (or maybe it is levels 1-5??) but when you get to level 8 you move on from your current gym and go to a higher level gym? Not everyone tries to have an olympic level gym.

I would say that gymnastic gyms are probably very heavy on lower levels. Everyone puts their kid in gymnastics at some point, and they obviously start out at a low level. Not every one of those girls moves on to higher levels

 

[drewpate]

Ours is pretty bottom heavy as well,
1 Mini Rec team - 18
Tiny 1 - 15ish
Mini 1 - 19
Mini 2 - 20
Youth 2 - 32
Junior 4 - 14 (some youth kids and one mini eligible)
Junior 1 - 16 (with good number of youth)
Senior 2 - 18 ( 1 youth kid and a few junior)
Senior 3 (with about half being youth through junior age) - 20
Senior 5 - 16 (a few of which are junior eligible)
so 170 kids, 2 of which are crossovers, with only 3 senior squads, leaving us at around 37 senior aged athletes. Our smallest age bracket is probably junior and tiny, I'd have to look at exact ages to be sure though. Mini has 40ish, youth had around 50 or so kids at tryouts, but with some higher levels (and not enough kids for a youth 1) ended up with one team, but they are our biggest group. We have a very high retention rate in our program, and those kids bring other kids along with them. We only had 2 cheerleaders that left our gym (without moving) to go to another gym, and not that many dropped out of cheer totally, so it tmakes since that our youth program is as big as it is. I expect that next year junior will catch up with youth as our mini's are young, and theres a good mix of ages in the youth program. Hopefully we will pick up some seniors through school cheer, a couple age out of junior, and with some other gyms areound our area struggling to hold on to them.