High School Enforcing Correct Tumbling Technique In A High School Program

[Official OWECheer]

Now that you've done a full season with positive conditioning, I'd love to know how it all turned out. Success stories or any flaws you found.

I second that.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Now that you've done a full season with positive conditioning, I'd love to know how it all turned out. Success stories or any flaws you found.

I 100% recommend it with a few caveats:

The entire coaching staff has to buy in. We were killing it in the summer until right before school started. We lost our luster, and I could not figure out why. Then a couple of the kids on team A told me that on a day when I was practicing with team B one of my assistants threatened them with conditioning as a punishment. When they questioned her, her response was "well, he's not here today, and I get to decide." The materials from Coach Brown say plainly that even THREATENING with conditioning will derail your progress. It's absolutely true.

Have plans in place for some other form of consequences when kids violate team standards. This mistake was mine. I was so gung ho on this positive conditioning thing, that I failed to set my teams up in a fashion that allowed me to deal with a problem without punishing the rest of the team. I am not a fan of having 3 kids in a stunt group who don't get to practice because the 4th kid is suspended from the team. I am remedying that problem this year. Rather than being extra-inclusive and trying to get everyone on the comp floor, I am leaning towards competing 40-60% of the kids we take for game cheering. The rest of them will have to earn their way onto the floor by outshining their peers.

How effective is positive conditioning? Even with those two pitfalls, I could completely turn a practice around by doing a positive conditioning drill. Examples:

We were having a miserable practice one day up until I put the stunt groups in a row, and every time a group hit the stunt we were doing they did some random form of conditioning. "Nice stretch full, all four of you give me ten pushups"

Rather than saying "we're going to do the stunt sequence until everyone has hit 10 times, put a clock on them, and say "we are going to go one at a time, let's see how many we can hit in 10 minutes." They will rise to the challenge. If you keep good records, you can bring up the fact that they did 15 a week ago, and can set a team goal of 16 and watch them kill themselves to get after it.

You can use it for team building too:

We ran miles as a team. Have to run the whole thing in a pack. Provides great teaching moments that there is more to cheerleading and athletics than being a good runner. Teaches the faster kids that they may have to sacrifice their own performance for the good of the team. Teaches the slower kids they may have to push themselves on something they don't necessarily like for the good of the team.

We ran sprints holding hands. The kids figured out how to position themselves for the most efficient run

There's lots of good here, despite the mistakes myself and my coaching staff made in implementing this season.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

I second that.

See above

 

[Sterling von Shimmer]

Here in AZ it's the worst - your division is determined solely by school size. It's so unfair! There's three divisions, so my poor Title I school that has barely any tumbling and 12 kids on the mat is against a school in a very well off area that has 28 athletes that all have standing tucks and generally make it to finals at UCA Nationals in Florida. I wish soooo bad there was some other way to split divisions based off talent and team size. Or at the very least, the team that wins every year should have to bump up a division. For example, in the past 20 years Cactus Shadows, the well-off school, has won state 16 times, gotten second 3 times, and gotten third 1 time. Arizona stinksssss.

Cactus Shadows has been going downhill ever since their current coach (removed coach's name) took over. When they won USA years ago, they only did so by a point or half point which is way too close of a margin considering how much they practice. For all those training hours, they should've beaten every team into the ground, not depended on luck to squeak by. Ever since then they've dropped to second and fourth. They can't even break into UCA finals anymore, something they used to do frequently.

I can't say I feel bad for them since (removed coach's name) has a history of letting the girls taunt other teams at competitions and otherwise act like an all-white racist sorority. She's like a 38-year-old mean girl who peaked in middle school and is now clinging to any scrap of her youth by coaching a high school cheer team, and failing at it. I don't even know why she still has a job. I've got a friend at USA who says they get complaints every year about their poor sportsmanship and tasteless behavior. Which I would think is really embarrassing for both her and the school she represents, but she's still employed for some reason despite the fact that all she's done during her time there is turn a once-great team into an embarrassment. I imagine she'll be fired once the parents realize that not only is she tacky, immature, and incompetent, she's also completely unqualified to teach kids how to be decent, respectable people. I really hate to think what kind of people they're going to grow up to be with such a worthless, undignified role model teaching them that being openly rude and kinda racist to people you wrongly perceive as inferior to you is the way to go through life. If it were me, I would pull my kid out of that school so fast because I would not want her around a coach like that or the administration that doesn't seem to think she's doing anything wrong.

 

[Official OWECheer]

^Seriously? This is your 4th post on here.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Cactus Shadows has been going downhill ever since their current coach (removed coach's name) took over. When they won USA years ago, they only did so by a point or half point which is way too close of a margin considering how much they practice. For all those training hours, they should've beaten every team into the ground, not depended on luck to squeak by. Ever since then they've dropped to second and fourth. They can't even break into UCA finals anymore, something they used to do frequently.

I can't say I feel bad for them since (removed coach's name) has a history of letting the girls taunt other teams at competitions and otherwise act like an all-white racist sorority. She's like a 38-year-old mean girl who peaked in middle school and is now clinging to any scrap of her youth by coaching a high school cheer team, and failing at it. I don't even know why she still has a job. I've got a friend at USA who says they get complaints every year about their poor sportsmanship and tasteless behavior. Which I would think is really embarrassing for both her and the school she represents, but she's still employed for some reason despite the fact that all she's done during her time there is turn a once-great team into an embarrassment. I imagine she'll be fired once the parents realize that not only is she tacky, immature, and incompetent, she's also completely unqualified to teach kids how to be decent, respectable people. I really hate to think what kind of people they're going to grow up to be with such a worthless, undignified role model teaching them that being openly rude and kinda racist to people you wrongly perceive as inferior to you is the way to go through life. If it were me, I would pull my kid out of that school so fast because I would not want her around a coach like that or the administration that doesn't seem to think she's doing anything wrong.

LMAO!!! How do you really feel?

I applaud you for your ability to make this not sound like sour grapes at all....

 

[tojofasho]

Wow I forgot this thread existed, I was very confused to get quoted in it. I'm just gonna say a few things:

I teach at a mostly minority school. Most of the Cactus Shadows cheerleaders have treated my girls with respect in the few interactions they have had, no matter their race. I haven't spoken with (removed coach's name) personally, but I have spoken with other coaches on the team and they have always been kind and helpful - I doubt they'd get along well with (removed coach's name) if she truly was as horrible as you're saying. As for the team's skill level, they still kill it at most competitions and easily took first at state qualifiers again this year. Definitely not on some downward spiral or anything crazy like that.

 

[Sterling von Shimmer]

LMAO!!! How do you really feel?

I applaud you for your ability to make this not sound like sour grapes at all....

Wow I forgot this thread existed, I was very confused to get quoted in it. I'm just gonna say a few things:

I teach at a mostly minority school. Most of the Cactus Shadows cheerleaders have treated my girls with respect in the few interactions they have had, no matter their race. I haven't spoken with Coach (removed coach's name) personally, but I have spoken with other coaches on the team and they have always been kind and helpful - I doubt they'd get along well with (removed coach's name) if she truly was as horrible as you're saying. As for the team's skill level, they still kill it at most competitions and easily took first at state qualifiers again this year. Definitely not on some downward spiral or anything crazy like that.

I know sorry my rant got a little out of hand lol. It's just that year after year we always run into Cactus Shadows in the warmup room and they're always full of comments, insults, and snide remarks that are completely unnecessary. Not to mention they actually cheer if we fell during warmups. It's disgusting and it happens every year. I don't understand how a coach can promote bitterness between cheerleaders, even if they're on different teams. Cheering is hard no matter what team you're on. We're all in the same boat. So why fellow cheerleaders feel the need to crap on other cheerleaders -- especially under the sanction of their coach -- is beyond me.

The CS girls are good on an individual level. I'd never say they weren't. It's just too bad their coach doesn't really know what to do with all that talent and skill. They could win UCA if they had the right routine.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

I know sorry my rant got a little out of hand lol. It's just that year after year we always run into Cactus Shadows in the warmup room and they're always full of comments, insults, and snide remarks that are completely unnecessary. Not to mention they actually cheer if we fell during warmups. It's disgusting and it happens every year. I don't understand how a coach can promote bitterness between cheerleaders, even if they're on different teams. Cheering is hard no matter what team you're on. We're all in the same boat. So why fellow cheerleaders feel the need to crap on other cheerleaders -- especially under the sanction of their coach -- is beyond me.

The CS girls are good on an individual level. I'd never say they weren't. It's just too bad their coach doesn't really know what to do with all that talent and skill. They could win UCA if they had the right routine.

You didn’t save face with that post. Your rant is still out of hand.

Trying to decide if you’re:

A) a cheerleader who got cut from her team
B) a former teammate who maybe wanted the job and she got it

Or

C) a cheerleader from another school who Soaks in her own envy when she loses.

 

[NJ Coach]

FYI...I have removed the coach's name from the above posts. @Sterling von Shimmer tread very carefully. I don't like seeing a newbie posting something that gets reported that many times.