All-Star Crossover Hints. How Did You Survive Two Teams?

[Cheerhastakenovermylife]

I save a screenshot of the meet & compete times to my lock screen. It allows me to quickly see where we need to be without having to open my phone & search for it.

 

[Cheerfun2]

She crossed over at our old gym two years ago. I was dreading it but it really ended up not as bad as I thought it would be. We lived fairly close to the gym so even though practices were on different nights it was ok. And one huge benefit...you get to see your kid compete more! I got to see her on stage for 5 min vs 2 1/2! ;)

Honestly, the worst part was he fact that both teams got a Summit bid AND completely re-worked the routines during April. Extra practices and trying to remember everything about killed her. She was at the gym every single day for several hours that month. But other than that it was fine. There were 4 athletes that crossed to these 2 teams so I had a group to commiserate with and had the same challenges.

 

[Sparkle Mom]

We didn't have the uniform issue, but we barely survived the last year my kid crossed. Practices overlapped and she never got to tumble. Competition times were almost always first team of the day and last session of the day (except for UCA when one team was at warmups at WWOS while her other was competing at Indiana Jones). It was awful. Never again!! Hopefully the comp schedules allow for enough time to change but won't keep you there all day! Can you meet her with her second uniform right after she competes so that you can help her change and make sure you have all of the pieces accounted for?

I completely agree with these issues. The overlapping practices, the lack of extra time to tumble and the comp time issue is so overwhelming but yet somehow I let her talk me into doing it again this year!

 

[Sparkle Mom]

My ten year old is crossing this year. I am asking for crossover hints. How did you survive two teams?I think my biggest fear (not counting logistics) is that she will have two uniforms . I really don't want her losing a few hundred dollars worth of sparkles during the day. Help ;)

Although all of the logistics can be difficult the most difficult part for us was the mental aspect of competing twice. I never thought about what might happen if team A had a disappointing performance or even worse.... my cp was extremely disappointed with her performance for the first time and I had to try to help her pull it together to compete again on the higher level team in a matter of minutes. It certainly helped her learn some important lessons but we clearly haven't learned our crossover lesson as she begged to be on two teams again this year and I gave in!

 

[renaa_rooo]

My ten year old is crossing this year. I am asking for crossover hints. How did you survive two teams?I think my biggest fear (not counting logistics) is that she will have two uniforms . I really don't want her losing a few hundred dollars worth of sparkles during the day. Help ;)

My big tip for competitions is to try your best to carve out a time where she can really rest. Especially at 2 day competitions. I only crossed for one competition but my first teams meet time was 7:30am and my second team didn't perform until like 6 at night so I was up all day, plus I was the go-to hair girl so I was doing that also. But I made sure to have a time where I could go back to the hotel room to lay down or just make sure I at least sat down for like an hour so I was resting and not running around tiring myself out. I crossed at age 17 and was exhausted lol so I definitely recommend having a rest time if at all possible.

 

[CheerBank]

Although all of the logistics can be difficult the most difficult part for us was the mental aspect of competing twice. I never thought about what might happen if team A had a disappointing performance or even worse.... my cp was extremely disappointed with her performance for the first time and I had to try to help her pull it together to compete again on the higher level team in a matter of minutes. It certainly helped her learn some important lessons but we clearly haven't learned our crossover lesson as she begged to be on two teams again this year and I gave in!

We would see that with our flyers. If performance A went poorly chances are there were also issues in performance B.

 

[TealArmySparkle]

I think the only way I handled crossing over between teams was because I was a lot younger at the time, had far more energy and a lot less responsibility. Comparing my first season on Senior (when I was triple teaming on youth, junior and senior teams) and to my last, there was a massive difference. In my cross over days I used to have rushed warm ups during competition as the junior and senior teams would always have to compete within 30 minutes of each other. Therefore, I would suggest making sure all the uniforms are organised and ready to go if you need to make a quick change. Secondly, much as people hate isotonic sports drinks, they definitely helped me when crossing over as it kept my glucose levels up and maintained my energy for the next performance.

It is important to note that I was 13 at the time and did not have the same academic commitments that I had during the equivalent of what would have been my sophomore to senior years in High School in America. Things got progressively more difficult in my Junior year as I was taking important exams that contributed towards securing my college placements (the Scottish system works slightly differently to that of the American one) and this therefore meant that I had to place more focus on academics and reduce my commitment to cheer to one 1.5 hour practice per week. My senior year turned out to be even worse as my financial situation took a bleak turn. I had taken on part time summer job previously to this in conjunction with cheering once a week and going to school. However, due to the changes I had to increase my hours to a full time contract to be able to afford to go to college. This turn happened less than a month before a competition and being as naive as I was I still tried to continue to cheer while holding down a full time job and sitting exams. Understandably the coach had a heavy dislike for me afterwards as I was missing some training sessions and extra practices due to strict working hours I could not change. I had convinced myself that doing what I could for the team instead of leaving them high and dry if i quit was the better thing to do out of loyalty but in hind sight leaving would have been better as I was still screwing them over. Therefore, my advice is when your child gets to this stage or if you are nearing this stage yourself please consider everything before you take on commitments as you may end up not being able to handle them all. Crossovers or even single teams may seem like a good idea to start with but if you cannot cope (I made myself both physically and mentally ill during my senior year) then something has to give and in the grand scheme of things cheerleading simply wasn't worth giving up college places for or the deterioration of my own health.

While many of you may see this as irrelevant and will criticise me for posting this, I am simply trying to use my mistakes as a lesson for others to ensure they fully think things through before running head on into it. I must also state that I understand that my time management skills were the key issue and I should not have committed to cheer (therefore it is completely justified for my ex-coach to have taken a dislike to me as I caused irreparable damage to the team last year and to my own personal relationship with the coach), but this is in the past and while I may not be proud of it, let my error of judgement be a lesson for others to learn from.

 

[gibsonbabyicon]

And does anyone have suggestions for quickly switching out bows?

I hot glued a metal barrette to my CPs bows last season. Made it easier to switch out.

I screenshot my comp schedules from my notepad and made it my open screen.

Made sandwiches and packed a cooler for long comp days and also packed comfy shoes for CP so she wouldn't be walking in cheer shoes the entire day.

 

[Amy L]

Yes! Assuming you use multiple elastics for the ponytail, instead of using the elastic that comes on the bow take a zip tie and secure it to one of the random elastics so on comp day you just have to do a quick snip of the zip tie and then secure the next bow. I hope this makes sense it's a little harder to explain than I thought lol.

Ok, that's brilliant. We don't even have multiple bows but after the teasing we always end up ripping out a bunch of hair while removing it. I think I might have to try that.

 

[RandomCheerMom]

My CP crossed over 2 seasons ago, it was just from Jan-Summit (but all the big comps). It wasn't bad. Just screen shot every team mom email with meet/compete times as well as practice times (some overlap, coaches get that- as, the crossover was usually per their request, so don't stress). My daughter was worn out, but it was worth it in the end as one she crossed to won Summit. They were close enough in level that we really didn't have an issue with needing to report at 7am and like 10pm or anything. It was just between an R5 and a 4.2. Our gym has multiple locations so it was kind of a pain when in one day you'd have practice at both gyms, but we worked it out. She'd do it again I'm sure. Just take one day at a time, put everything in your phone calendar, set reminders, it's really not that bad. When in doubt, usually team #1 wins out- if something is scheduled on the same day./time. Now, I do NOT even know how people cross to 3+ teams, but there's only a gym or two that I know of that does that to kids.

ETA- we had same uniforms, but different bows. Easy to swap out. Kept them both on the backpack, took the backpack to warm ups with team 1, got off stage, went back to warm ups with team 2, changed bows, warmed up, competed again.

 

[cheer25mom]

I hot glued a metal barrette to my CPs bows last season. Made it easier to switch out.

I screenshot my comp schedules from my notepad and made it my open screen.

Made sandwiches and packed a cooler for long comp days and also packed comfy shoes for CP so she wouldn't be walking in cheer shoes the entire day.

That's not legal from what I understand, or wasn't a couple of seasons ago when we looked into it. Safety hazard. I don't know how anyone would catch it though.


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[catlady]

If the comp times ran close, cp would give her first competing coach her bow and switch it out as soon as she left the floor. In your cp's case she can use a labeled large zip lock bag to put the uniform and bow in, yes it fits, and she can hand it to her coach when they go to warm ups and the coach hands it off to her as soon as she comes off stage. I print off the schedule and wrote the meet and compete times at the top for each team. Honestly, it wasn't hard on me at all, the coaches were the ones to work out any conflicts but, by the end of the season, cp who was 18 said, "No regrets but, my body hurts and I'm exhausted.":p

 

[gibsonbabyicon]

That's not legal from what I understand, or wasn't a couple of seasons ago when we looked into it. Safety hazard. I don't know how anyone would catch it though.


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Really??? I used the small ones and clipped it into the ponytail holder. I can see the big ones being a safety hazard though. Hmm.....

 

[cheer25mom]

Really??? I used the small ones and clipped it into the ponytail holder. I can see the big ones being a safety hazard though. Hmm.....

This was a few years ago, so the rule may have changed, but they told us no metal barrettes at all on bows, gymnastics clips in the hair were ok. The concern was that they could roll on them at the lower levels on have a stunt come down on them and have it cut their head. They equated it to the no jewelry rule.

 

[Onfire381]

My cp crossed over her last 2 years of high school to a lvl 4, lvl 2 and high school. 3 different uniforms 3 different bows and sometimes had only 15 mins between routines. organization was key. having the uniforms and bows all together so she could just do a quick change and use of bobby pins to keep the bows secure. She was at practice 3 days a week from 3:30 to 9:30: 2 days 6:30 to 9 and Saturdays 10 to 3:30. It was pure craziness but she made it work kept her grades up and this was her junior & senior year of high school. Im sure she would do it all over again. She is in college now and this experience taught her time management which is a valuable tool in managing her academics along with cheering in college.