All-Star All star as a exchange student

[esthersvenssonn]

Hey!
I am a girl that has competed all star cheerleading in Sweden for 8 years!
Right now I am competing at a level 3 team, and coaching a prep level one team!
Next year I am going in an exchange year! As I have read it is very hard to compete in an Al star team as an exchange student. I would really like to compete in an all star team because it has been my dream my whole life!
The thought of high school cheer is weird, I don’t know how different it would be compared to at home. I feel like it is not as serious and I feel like you start from the beginning again.
I have always loved cheer and I spend 5/7 days a week in the gym! A absolute love the sport and I don’t think high school cheer will fill that whole:/
Is it completely impossible to join an all star team?
I am very thankful for answers!!

 

[cachoi]

Some good feedback is in this thread here and here that may answer a few questions.

Basically seriousness can vary greatly in whichever school district/area you’re matched with. The school district I graduated from had programs that were like top 5 in the state with team standing tucks and running fulls and the school down the street in the same exact town did not require experience so you could potentially get placed at a school that does have a very competitive program.

Does the exchange program you’re doing allow you to specifically pick the town or school you want to be at or to be placed with a host family that has a cheer interest/goes to the gym you want to go to? If it’s a lottery system and you get placed with regular people, they might not be expecting to or have the ability to bring you to the gym all the time or be able to get time off and travel, etc. for competitions.

 

[esthersvenssonn]

Some good feedback is in this thread here and here that may answer a few questions.

Basically seriousness can vary greatly in whichever school district/area you’re matched with. The school district I graduated from had programs that were like top 5 in the state with team standing tucks and running fulls and the school down the street in the same exact town did not require experience so you could potentially get placed at a school that does have a very competitive program.

Does the exchange program you’re doing allow you to specifically pick the town or school you want to be at or to be placed with a host family that has a cheer interest/goes to the gym you want to go to? If it’s a lottery system and you get placed with regular people, they might not be expecting to or have the ability to bring you to the gym all the time or be able to get time off and travel, etc. for competitions.

My program does not allow me to pick an exact town or school, but I have made it very clear that all I do is cheer and I really wanna do cheer in USA.
But is it allowed for an exchange student to do allstar cheer? And if a join an all star team I need to travel to America for tryouts. I have looked in to Prep teams because then I don’t need to travel to America for tryouts, but because I am competing in level 3 in Sweden it would be to easy:/
I don’t know what to do, because all star cheer leading in America is my biggest dream!!

 

[cachoi]

My program does not allow me to pick an exact town or school, but I have made it very clear that all I do is cheer and I really wanna do cheer in USA.
But is it allowed for an exchange student to do allstar cheer? And if a join an all star team I need to travel to America for tryouts. I have looked in to Prep teams because then I don’t need to travel to America for tryouts, but because I am competing in level 3 in Sweden it would be to easy:/
I don’t know what to do, because all star cheer leading in America is my biggest dream!!

To my knowledge, it’s not illegal for international athletes to compete with American gyms. College kids do it every season when they come to the US for school, I’ve heard there are people who live along the US/Canada boarder and they compete with a gym technically in a different country than they are a citizen of, I’ve seen other foreign exchange students do it in the past like there was a girl from Viqueens/Team Norway that did a foreign exchange year and was on Senior Elite, I’ve had military friends who cheered while in other countries. If you have a birth certificate, a legal guardian sign the forms and waivers, fit the age grid and level available, a gym won’t forbid taking anyone’s money to participate.

Some gyms will allow virtual tryouts where you can submit a skills video so your parents don’t have to pay for multiple international trips. But would you be okay with cheering anywhere, even if it’s a small gym or level 1? Depending on when a gym does choreography/finalizes their rosters, even if you attend the actual day of tryouts in the spring, you might have to settle for whatever team/level still has a spot open at the time of whenever you’re able to actually stay in America and attend practices every week for the rest of the year.

The only thing I can think of who would not allow it is your exchange program because of the amount of extra commitment you’re asking of your host family to bring you to practice multiple times a week and chaperone you to competitions that could potentially be several states away/may require air travel or require them to take work off or conflict with their kids activities as well. That’s why I think they encourage participating in activities within the school you’ll already be at and most likely have some kind of faculty advisor/exchange coordinator. From a personal experience, my family hosted a high school student from Japan when I was younger and if it was a non-negotiable deal breaker to her, we wouldn’t have been able to accommodate doing a travel club sport or all star cheer since at that time, the closest small gym we lived near was ~45 mins away without traffic in the next state over or a competitive bigger name gyms were ~1-1.5 hours without traffic towards Boston.

I’m not trying to be negative or discourage you, there’s just more to consider when you can’t control the family you get placed with and what’s already on their schedule. If you could even at least pick the state/what part of the country you want to be in, because there are states with 0 cheer gyms, that could help narrow down the odds. I wish you luck in getting paired with a host family that is already involved in all star cheer so they’re completely aligned with that lifestyle to begin with or you’re at least placed in a town with a gym that you would be satisfied with conveniently nearby. Sounds like it would be fun to experience!