All-Star Save Youth 5

[CheerLaydee]

My CP cheered on a youth 5 team for two years. She has progressed through Junior 5 and now Senior 5. I wouldn't have wanted to miss a single moment of her days on the youth 5 team. Those little ones where fierce competitors and worked just as hard at thier skills as as any senior team. I would hate to see this division die out or be restricted.

 

[BubbleToes]

My CP cheered on a youth 5 team for two years. She has progressed through Junior 5 and now Senior 5. I wouldn't have wanted to miss a single moment of her days on the youth 5 team. Those little ones where fierce competitors and worked just as hard at thier skills as as any senior team. I would hate to see this division die out or be restricted.

What?!?! She made it all the way to Sr5? So, I'm assuming from everything I've learned from this thread that any wins for her now are just like "ho hum, big deal. Been there, done that"? She's got to be permanently injured from being on the Y5 team. I'm sure she was forced and pressured into tumbling too as a youth. That poor thing. Better save for counseling later in life from all that cheer abuse!

 

[KB_Legend]

keep in mind that cheerleading was much different 10 and even 5 years ago... It has been very recent that double fulls became expected, and people had to start building seperate closets for their national championsip jackets. Orange and Smoke are full of kids who cheered on youth 5 teams and I know the path they have taken from there to here, the same path has not been laid for the kids that are on youth 5 right now... The sport changes, the expectations change, work ethich changes, the sport and the world are not static but very, very dynamic

 

[BubbleToes]

Of course! But if the concern is safety, I would think they would want to restrict all levels (and no, I don't want that to happen!) Plenty of older athletes getting beat up from the pressure to be better. After age 11, the concern is gone?

 

[nccheerdad]

Posted this on the other thread, then realized it's more about saving an unrestricted Y5 than it is about what Courtney said...

tinytumblersmom said: ↑

I still would like to know how many of the youth 5 kids are not crossing over to a junior team.... so far on this thread we have heard from one. I just saw a video from CEA save youth 5... I'm pretty sure I've seen most of these kids on junior so they are competing their doubles that they worked so hard to get. Restricting the y5 is not taking anything away from them!!
As a parent of a 10 year old with a double I can totally relate... But you gotta do what you have to to make it work. If that means traveling or changing teams then thats your choice. I truly think that restricting the division would make it more competitive. Ask yourself if your child was on Y5 and you spent thousands of dollars a year to compete against a score sheet time and time again would you want that?? What's the sense of gaining these skills if they only count once in a great while when you do come across someone in your division?​

Tinytumblersmom:

I have asked myself that same question many times, and while no I don't "want" that, I recognize that it comes with the territory of having my child on a team like this. It does not bother me to go to a competition and have no other teams to compete against. When we do manage to attend one with other teams it is a bonus. Outside of major nationals, these kids don't expect to have competition. They are, however, unbelievably driven to get better every time they step on the mat.

My daughter is at CEA on a Mini 3 team and crosses up to Youth 5. She is not a flyer, she is not throwing doubles, and she is certainly not a main part of basing the tick-tocks that these kids are throwing on Y5. She does have some very good tumbling fundamentals that will set the stage to allow her to do these 'elite' tumbling passes. This year? Certainly not. Next Year? Maybe. The year after? Most likely. My point is that she will get there, but IN TIME. Affording her the opportunity to practice at the highest level, week after week, with some of the most elite 11 and 12-year-olds in the world of cheer is what this division is all about.

I go to just about every practice and watch closely what is being done. I can honestly say that not once have I ever felt uncomfortable or seen a situation where a tumbling coach at CEA (or the other two gyms we have been with, for that matter) have compromised her safety. These coaches at this level know their athletes and know what they are capable of. They are extremely patient in allowing the child to work through the skills. Do they encourage them and push them? Absolutely. Do they compromise the child's safety? Not that I have ever seen. I would expect that coaches at other gyms at this calibre would have the same values. If not, they have no business coaching children.

I think so many people get caught up in the pleasure of "beating" someone. If you are a cheer parent of a young athlete, and you have any interest in sticking through it for the long haul, you have to focus on how you can allow your child to continue to get better. If she is fortunate enough to be within proximity to a great cheer program, you do what you can for her to be in a position to make the final cut of a very strong J5 and then an S5 team when she is a teenager and when winning becomes more important to her. I feel that it is my responsibility as a parent to provide her with every opportunity to do just that. By not allowing her to be in an environment over the next two or three years where it doesn't really matter if she maximizes her ability (i.e. limiting Y5), to me, is a complete disservice and absolute backwards way of thinking.

I clearly understand the wear and tear and the rest/cross-training argument and I am an advocate for that, but that is where you need to trust that the coaches use common sense or intervene on your own accord.

Limiting the Y5 division will make it more competitive, only because you will be putting reigns on the difference makers on each team. I have a hard time believing that it will lead to more competition.

 

[twinmom]

My daughter was on a Youth 5 team from age 8-12. She never got hurt, pushed to progress to quickly, she did practice 2 days a week, and take a private once a week. She is on a Sr 5 team now and honestly her tumbling form was much better when she was on Youth 5. She tumbled through growth spurts and puberty. This year she got hurt... doing a side roll in the dance! So I don't buy the whole safety thing. The kid's safety lies in the hands of a qualified coach. If gyms don't have a level 5 tumbling coach, maybe they shouldn't try to field a level 5 team of any age.

I have asked this before and no one has answered...Where is the data on injuries in Youth5??
Kids have been doing doubles in Youth 5 for years....why now???

Are coaches seriously going to vote to change or get rid of a division without data?

 

[KB_Legend]

Of course! But if the concern is safety, I would think they would want to restrict all levels (and no, I don't want that to happen!) Plenty of older athletes getting beat up from the pressure to be better. After age 11, the concern is gone?

The safety concern, for me anyway I can only speak for myself, is that some programs are putting kids on a fast track to elite skills it's not the skills themselves! I do not have any problem whatsoever with a double full in and of itself, and yes some older kids are pushed to be better faster than they should, but like I said earlier you make the rules and HOPE people will follow them, we were granted free will by a MUCH higher power than the USASF so they certainly can't take it away, I think they can, however, put the system in place to encourage people to make better choices

I am in no way implying that you can't teach a youth kid a double full, heck we have some really good ones on our youth 5 team I'm proud to say. I'm also not saying that everyone who has a youth age kid throwing a double full or full punch full or whatever other skill is rushing and skipping progressions because I know for a fact that's not the case everywhere. In this situation we are also thinking about teams who are already winning major national championships in that division, the problem is the feeling that you need to push harder to catch up or keep up and that's when accidents happen, and at the risk of sounding rude I think its naive to think that is not the case in many places, maybe not at your gym but definitely some gyms.

My final thought on progressions and safety is that, like most of cheerleading, it's pretty subjective as well. What one parent thinks is their kid moving very slowly through safe progressions another tumbling coach might think is rushing through with poor technique, it's a matter of opinion and perspective. I am not accusing anyone in this thread of using poor technique or rushing through progressions so please don't take it that way, I am just making a general statement, two people can look at the same piece of art and see two totally different things, that doesn't make either one of them right or wrong!!

 

[KB_Legend]

My thing is that the kids really weren't throwing the doubles 5-10 years ago because it wasn't expected then like it is now... I looked for some old videos of youth 5 teams and they are somewhat hard to find but I did find one from 07 where a team threw about 5 doubles, and that same team this year threw about 10... Don't take this the wrong way I'm not saying that this gym is doing anything wrong because they aren't I'm just saying the expectations are different and the standard is different so just because things were a certain way on youth 5 teams 5 years ago doesn't mean they are that way now necessarily

 

[cheeeeer93]

Youth 5 teams at cheersport last year:
World Cup Twinkles, CEA Youth Elite, Premier TN Cheetahs.

If we want to talk about increasing competition, this is the greatest example. Arguably the biggest competition of the season only has 3 teams?! But moving up to juniors (combining large, small, and coed) there were 23 teams. If there is any way to get more teams into the division, restricting it would be the best option.

 

[NoOneSpecial]

Just curious what was the net impact when Senior Open level 5 was created? Was there more teams that dropped from the Senior Level 5 to that division or was there more teams created to fill that division (level 4/emerging 5 stepping up to the plate)? If more teams were created to fill this division then could the same hold true for a Youth Restricted Level 5?

 

[BubbleToes]

Good post KB. I agree that some gyms push too hard, as well as the parents and possibly the athletes themselves. I guess I'm just concerned with the targeting of Y5 when it happens, probably to a larger extent, with the J5 and S5.

 

[Cheer_Explosion_Coach]

I am going to be rogue and look at things a little different... haha I mean no harm.

First, I don't have and will not have a dog in the fight for quite some time if ever so I offer my opinions only. I was at first all for restricting this division, then after more thought I think it should stay as is.

If we restrict Y5 could it possibly cause more injuries? Here is my thought process. Could this cause enough gyms who haven't properly developed their Y4 athletes move up into this restricted Y5 division? They would feel more comfortable competing because they have half + 1 kiddos working fulls and landing kind of, doing full ups and hitting every now and if they miraculously hit then they have a shot. When the truth is, they are pushing these kids too fast, too hard, and could injure children for the long run. How is that knee going to feel when she is 50, if she torn an ACL when she was 10, then again when she was 15, and later in college? I know we like to think that ALL coaches are amazing and would never push an athlete to do something he/she is not comfortable with or ready for, but it happens. I just think that with the rules like it is deters a lot of people from jumping prematurely into this division which has a potential to be the most unsafe. Keeping kids in Y4 who need to be there to get stronger. Or the gyms who truly want to have a Y5 team for the sake of giving their athletes a chance to be the highest level possible can be in the curent division for a few years and not be competitive. Is it far fetched to look at your 9 year old Level 5 athletes and say "Yes, we are getting beat by XYZ gym from across the country every time, but you are amazing athletes who are doing what only a select few kids your age are doing. We are going to train the right way , use progressions, and get better and one day when we do win, it will be because of years of dedication, hard work, and perseverance. What an intangible to teach our cheerleaders. I, as a coach, could rightfully justify why we are getting beat by some superstar teams because we dare to be great one day. What's not okay is putting kids in a position that their likeliness to get injured increases. And that will always happen when coaches care more about winning than progressions. So changing rules to this division won't change coaches' competitive spirit.

Is what's keeping talented gyms out of this existing division, the fact that they can't win nationally THIS or NEXT year? Serious question because I do not know why people don't enter this division?


Last thought, the rules aren't making this division unsafe for the children IMO the coaches are by pushing them too hard and not being patience with what they have. The only thing that has power over the coach is the score sheet. So that's maybe where we can start )

 

[NoOneSpecial]

My thing is that the kids really weren't throwing the doubles 5-10 years ago because it wasn't expected then like it is now... I looked for some old videos of youth 5 teams and they are somewhat hard to find but I did find one from 07 where a team threw about 5 doubles, and that same team this year threw about 10... Don't take this the wrong way I'm not saying that this gym is doing anything wrong because they aren't I'm just saying the expectations are different and the standard is different so just because things were a certain way on youth 5 teams 5 years ago doesn't mean they are that way now necessarily

Now a days on Senior 5 we count how many double fulls or combo to double fulls. The competative landscape has changed drastically in all divisions.

 

[KB_Legend]

CheerExplosionCoach, I see your point and I suppose it's possible but what I see happening (and maybe I'm wrong) is that some strong youth 4 teams that already have majority jump backs and a decent number of fulls that didn't feel like they could compete in youth 5 because they don't have enough yet might feel like thats a smaller jump now and go ahead and move up. Then instead of the gym you are talking about trying to jump up to level 5 they can actually stay level 4 and really win because the teams that used to beat them were really teams with some level 5 skills and not just really good level 4 teams... Maybe that's wrong maybe it's not only time can potentially tell

as far as senior open 5 goes I think that division got so big so fast because it was getting teams from both ends, the high end level 4 kids moving up and the lower end level 5 kids moving down created a pretty large pool of talented open 5 athletes. I believe the same thing can happen in youth 5, you would already have all the current youth 5 teams, plus the teams that were on the bubble before now feel like they can jump in and have a chance, AND some gyms who had a few kids they were bumping up to juniors and some really strong youth 4 kids now it might seem possible to keep the youth kids down off the J5 team and coach up some of those strong level 4 kids and create a team where there was not one before

 

[specialtpass]

My thing is that the kids really weren't throwing the doubles 5-10 years ago because it wasn't expected then like it is now... I looked for some old videos of youth 5 teams and they are somewhat hard to find but I did find one from 07 where a team threw about 5 doubles, and that same team this year threw about 10... Don't take this the wrong way I'm not saying that this gym is doing anything wrong because they aren't I'm just saying the expectations are different and the standard is different so just because things were a certain way on youth 5 teams 5 years ago doesn't mean they are that way now necessarily

I agree with your last few posts. I posted something a couple days ago in the standing double thread from a parent perspective on how our elite tumblers today in Junior and Senior were a result of a much different time in All Stars. Elite tumblers are highly motivated and have an internal push that is not there in every athlete. There are many very beautiful and talented tumblers who can double and have the ability to double but don't for many reasons. Are some afraid? I'm sure they are They are more the majority out there. The contributions they bring to a team may be measured in so many other ways. A beautiful trick pass to full also counts and has just as much value. Very few can do theseelite amazing passes to double and standing to doubles because it is very difficult. The score sheets push to have more and more doubles and who are the kids they look to to bring numbers up? Thhe kids beyond the phenoms. That pressure can make them walk away because there is only value placed on the elusive double.