All-Star Measuring Rivalries

[12stepCheermom]

no such thing, right?
but there is. its a really long, complicated story.

It's cheerleading....there is nothing about that, that surprises me

 

[coachbd]

This is going to sound incredibly sanctimonious, but it is actually how our coaches and owners address the rivalry thing. They've trained our kids (and parents) that it's not about any other team....it's about the score sheet. We're out to beat the score sheet. If we don't win, it's because we did X, Y, and possibly Z that caused the score sheet to beat us. Another gym did a better job of taking on the score sheet that day and hence...that's why we finished in whatever place we did. To further reinforce the idea that we want to be friends with everybody....the portable Bose (we call her "bella") goes with our coaches and teams backstage in warm ups and frequent, spontaneous dance parties break out at regular intervals. We take pictures with everyone and have an album on our FB page "friends from other cheer programs" including our kids with pics of kids that used to be ours and moved to other gyms. Because stuff like that happens, and it's okay!

That's just how our program rolls, and one of the things I really like about it. We've actually established a great friendship with one of our most frequent "rivals" Elite Cheer and Dance from Raleigh and we'll go support them in VIP seating and they'll come support us (that even happened at Cheersport when two of our teams were in the same division). It's not about the other team, it's about us hitting OUR routine and beating down the score sheet. It puts the focus in the right place.

Plus the dance parties help our kids not be so star struck....at UCA our brand new Lv 5 was dancing it out with Stingrays Orange backstage (and our kids were definitely a little star struck then but they're older) two years ago, our Junior 2 (built with mostly new cheerleaders) was rocking it our backstage at BATB with Shooting Stars on one side and Senior Elite on the other and had NO IDEA who they were dancing with....which was fantastic! They just had fun with other cheerleaders backstage and our coaches were amazed they weren't the least bit "OMG IT'S ______!" Because, like we all know, if your kids grow up intimidated from other gyms, that will mess with your head and head cases are the fastest way to kill a stout routine...and rivalries imply intimidation on some level. We don't want to be intimidated by anyone so we make friends with everyone

I really love this! I am going to try and implement this in my program They're all adult athletes but I still think it'll work and it's a great approach to have for anyone

 

[NaplesC]

I like California and TopGun i guess you could say they have a friendly rivarly in large coed its fun to watch that division.