International Level 4.2?

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Jan 31, 2011
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Do you guys think this is a good idea? I definitely think we need a lower level international team that can compete at Worlds. I was just watching VOD and I saw a lot of teams that you could tell were trying REALLY hard they just didn't have the stunting or tumbling capability. Plus I saw some really scary double downs and full attempted. Also, you could tell some of these kids were very young, one team was even from a secondary school. I feel like these teams could do better and be more encouraged if they had a division more fit to their needs. Thoughts?
 
Personally, I think 4.2 is made for international teams! Fewer purpose built facilities severely restrict the tumbling in emerging cheerleading countries severely!
 
I think something along these lines is a good idea, but maybe it could be, like, 6.2. I love watching the insane stunting!!

General International question - I wonder if anyone can answer why tumbling in this division, from many countries outside North America, is lower-level. With gymnastics being relatively popular, there are lots of facilities available for practice, so why isn't it emphasized the way stunting seems to be?
 
One must remember that cheerleading doesn't have the same wieght/importance outside of the States. In many countries, teams train outside in all weathers, and if they are fortunate to have access to a gymnasium with mats many don"t have access to tumbling coaches. They just don't take cheerleading seriously. Tumbling coaches in many areas consider cheerleading as just dancers with pompoms so even if you have coaches available they are rarely willing to help and this I know from personal experience.
 
I am a coach at a international gym and if I am being totally honest I don’t like the idea of 4.2. I just don’t like the idea of dropping the expectation on international teams to preform at the same level as American teams. I know not only at our gym but many around the country have been working hard on improving our athletes tumbling skills over the years and I defiantly didn't start as a tumbling coach but I have spent hours of time researching on the internet,watching video,asking questions to really help improve myself as a tumbling coach I can now teach and spot all level 1-5 tumbling. Like I said in another post international teams and coaches need to stop focusing on other teams and just focus on improving their own skills that is what we have done and the results speak for themselves.
 
I think something along these lines is a good idea, but maybe it could be, like, 6.2. I love watching the insane stunting!!

General International question - I wonder if anyone can answer why tumbling in this division, from many countries outside North America, is lower-level. With gymnastics being relatively popular, there are lots of facilities available for practice, so why isn't it emphasized the way stunting seems to be?

I like the 6.2 or 6.(something) idea.

Let me try and answer your second point from my experience and point of view, be warned I may ramble:
Cheerleading in my country is relatively new and not widely known or publicised. The majority of our team didn't discover the sport until university (so ages 18 and above) and come from all different backgrounds - gymnastics, circus, trampolining, dance (teaching ballerinas to fly with their feet straight is pretty funny, I know because I was one of them!). Gymnastics is relatively popular with younger kids, but there are few cheer gyms or even wide knowledge that cheerleading even exists for them to consider trying it out. We have very few actual cheer gyms, most of them are in the outer suburbs and hard to get to. Last year, our team trained at a cramped gymnastics gym once a week and then in a weird, damp, leaky warehouse with some dead mats. Over summer we trained in the park. This year we're at a nice gym facility, but it still doesn't have a full cheer floor. In fact, I doubt there are more than 10 training facilities in the whole country that have a full cheer floor. Our population is about a tenth of the US'.

There aren't many cheer coaches around, and even fewer cheer tumble coaches. I only started cheering last year, but some on my team have been doing it for four or five years. None of them have bhs. Okay, so some of them are a bit uncoordinated, but the main reason (the way I see it) is they had a gymnastics coach during that time. She was very strict about gymnastics-based progressions and wouldn't let you do anything until you could hold a handstand for at least 20s. After four years some still didn't have a cartwheel. Handstands have nothing to do with tucks or bhs, people weren't motivated to try because they weren't getting anywhere. Perhaps she was just a bad adult coach, she was (and still is) very successful with kids. But really, a 20 year old is not going to learn how to throw a full if they have no prior experience. Especially considering we know we're only going to be in the sport for a few years. If it were kids, then yeah, I'd be pushing them to tumble, but it's so much harder for adults to learn. And a lot of us have jobs that require us to be physically able to work - like in bars, restaurants, cafes, so if we get injured we're out of a means of living as well as the sport. When I was injured during tumbling training a few months ago (freak accident), I couldn't wash my hair let alone work. Thankfully I live with my partner who washed my hair for me and paid our rent, but if I was on my own I would have been stuffed. I'm not going to force anyone to do skills they have a reasonable fear of, because I'm not the one who pays their rent and puts food in their mouth.

In the past, my team had a new cheer coach every few years, one year they didn't even have one, and a lot of the time they were learning off youtube. Last year when I started I was just chucked up in the air and told to lock and squeeze. When it came to learning how to fulldown, I got told to lock, squeeze and just turn, literally. Every year we have new people joining the team with no cheer experience but can tumble, or have danced, so they have some potential. Because we're not a cheer gym, just a stand-alone team, we try and take on as many new people with good potential and train them up to our level. It's great to have new people interested in the sport, but it's also hard because those with experience can't advance until everyone is roughly up to speed with stunting. This year we have awesome, experienced coaches and they're making a world of difference.

I suppose in the end, we all love the sport. We're good at stunting, subpar at tumbling (most of us, we have a few good ones) but that's not going to stop us from participating and competing. Tumbling is not our biggest priority. I know it should be, and I know all the arguments for it, but if we can have fun and are safe and good at building level 6 pyramids, then why hold us back because we can't do a bhs? We're like Bangkok, the crowd loved them at worlds but they had subpar tumbling (and I don't think they should have won, but that's another thread). This is pretty much the same story for every other adult team we compete against.

In my opinion, providing a place for young adults to hang out, be active and work towards a common goal and socialise in a place that doesn't involve alcohol or sex (and isn't church) is a good thing. I love it, they love it, and we do amazing things together. It's going to take a long time for the rest of the world to build cheer gyms and have the right people coaching and getting kids involved. It will happen, it's just taking time. Right now, participation in cheerleading in my country is about 50/50 over/under 18. Until more kids start picking it up, and they won't until there are the facilities for them to start, we're going to be bad tumblers. Trust me, it's not from lack of trying!

So when internationals come to worlds, we know that we're not going to have the tumbling skills, WE KNOWWW, so continually hearing about how we're not good enough all round cheerleaders is a bit tiring. We come to appreciate allstar cheer for what it is supposed to be, and maybe take a little bit of that sparkle home with us to spread around our small community of cheerleaders and get a little better every year.
 
Aargh sorry for the essay, I'm in essay writing mode at the moment! Pity my real thesis is barely at the thousand word mark. Sigh.
 
A question for the other international coaches. How did you learn to coach stunting? for me i learnt to coach stunting the same way i started to learn to coach tumbling watching video,asking questions and the internet. if you can teach yourself to coach stunt there is nothing stopping you from teaching yourself to become a tumbling coach.
 
@Edie , thank you! I hadn't thought about the fact that there are probably a lot of older beginning cheerleaders. Makes sense. And kudos for continuing to do what you love under some pretty tough conditions!
 
I would be all for this - or maybe just an all round level 4 International division. I know this doesn't suit a lot of people...but for the international teams it would be a great progressive stepping stone. The population of Ireland is 4million people in total...cheerleading population is 350 young people...so the chances that we are going to have lots of great/talented tumblers in Ireland is very minimal....but we still don't want the young people to miss out on some great opportunities. In time...the cheer population will grow and the skill range will of course develop. This is all about time though and something that is not going to be done in the next couple of years. So a division where teams can compete and actually have a fighting chance would be a great incentive for teams to enter international competitions.

If I speak to the sports ministry of Ireland and tell them we are competiting level 5 and competing against country A, country B etc... they will have the same attitude of most of the people in this country. Why Bother Going?
If I could argue that we could put together a pretty good level 4 team in the coming years, they would be more on board with the idea.

There are some cool gymnastic facilities around, but they are VERY limited and strictly for the clubs who own them. Also in Ireland as I am sure in many parts of the world, gymnastic coaches don't let their athletes become cheerleaders either...so we have to creat our own tumblers...but then getting a good tumbling coach who wants to work with cheerleaders in Ireland is pretty non-existant too.

So please bare in mind, just because 4.2 doesn't suit some, it would be the developing grounds for thousands of athletes around the world.
 
@Mamarazzi A year ago I had to wiki allstar cheerleading (for reals). At my last training session I was pulling stretch doubles (kinda) partner stunting and birdy flips based all-girl style. And I still can't backtuck my way into a foampit ;)
 
I think the lower level for international teams is probably a very good idea. I do however think it should mean that if they go to worlds they should only be able compete in the ICU competition unless they are competing at level 5 or 6 there.
I do understand that for most people the problem with tumbling is that a lot of people do not have access to tumbling coaches. I started off (& still am) a acrobatic gymnastics and tumbling coach. I know other tumbling coaches who have no interest in coaching cheerleaders but generally these are coaches who work at the top level of their sport so I kind of understand why. I do think it is very unsafe for coaches or cheerleaders to try and learn how to teach tumbling or stunting from videos on the Internet. I use them for a bit of inspiration but they are not a coaching qualification. If there was an accident while teaching someone to do a back tuck for example I doubt the insurance company would take that as a sufficient qualification.
I feel that a lot of coaches outside north America do not take tumbling very seriously and until they all do and we all expect a higher standard it will not progress. I know some squads work their butts off to improve their tumbling, please don't think I am saying we are all not bothering to improve or trying to insult anyone. However for the number of squads I know who are pushing to raise their tumbling I know as many who seem to chose to ignore it.
 
I think the lower level for international teams is probably a very good idea. I do however think it should mean that if they go to worlds they should only be able compete in the ICU competition unless they are competing at level 5 or 6 there.
I do understand that for most people the problem with tumbling is that a lot of people do not have access to tumbling coaches. I started off (& still am) a acrobatic gymnastics and tumbling coach. I know other tumbling coaches who have no interest in coaching cheerleaders but generally these are coaches who work at the top level of their sport so I kind of understand why. I do think it is very unsafe for coaches or cheerleaders to try and learn how to teach tumbling or stunting from videos on the Internet. I use them for a bit of inspiration but they are not a coaching qualification. If there was an accident while teaching someone to do a back tuck for example I doubt the insurance company would take that as a sufficient qualification.
I feel that a lot of coaches outside north America do not take tumbling very seriously and until they all do and we all expect a higher standard it will not progress. I know some squads work their butts off to improve their tumbling, please don't think I am saying we are all not bothering to improve or trying to insult anyone. However for the number of squads I know who are pushing to raise their tumbling I know as many who seem to chose to ignore it.

I totally agree with you i by no means recommend it, but when cheerleading first started to grow in my country there was that lack of tumbling coaches and it showed if you had a backhandspring you were seen as a legend and with a lack of resources available the internet was a great tool for me to sit and look at video and study the technique used by some of the top gymnast and tumblers in the world and it also gave me the opportunity to contact some top coaches and ask them for advice and help. Now days cheerleading has really taken off in my country and the level and standards are being lifted every year. My all-girl level 5 team this year has girls who can tumble just as good as some of the girls on the top America teams and i am not just seeing it in level 5 we also have amazing tumblers on our junior level 2,3 and 4 teams as well as our other senior teams. I understand where people are coming from i have had to train in halls,on fields with little to no mats before and to try and teach anything let alone tumbling in places like that is hard, thankfully those times have changed here and most of the "big" name gyms in my country have their own gyms with full size floors and tumbling equipment which has made a huge difference in the skill level of our athletes. I do think that knowledge and understanding i got from coaches and video via the internet back when i first started cheer is one of the reasons i now work full time as a cheerleading/tumbling coach.
 
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