All-Star Flyers

[BlueCat]

I refer back to my suggestion in other threads:

2 "types" of gyms - "Worlds" and "National" (select your own type at the beginning of each season - it affects ALL teams at your gym and you can't change mid-season)

"Worlds" - eligible for Worlds bids, tight age restrictions
"National" - not eligible for Worlds bids, loose age restrictions

Competitions split divisions when BOTH sides would have at least 2 teams.

 

[oncecoolcoachnowmom]

So the beast base that is 5'8" and solid muscle and can hold a stunt up by herself but can't tumble or only has jump to back and a running full would be cheating too if put on a senior 5 team correct? Why is it only the tiny flyer has to have amazing tumbling in order to justify her being on a level 5 team??

That's what my issue is with this argument.

Suzie has to have all requisite Level 5 skills to fly on Senior 5 as a 10 year old.

But beast base doesn't.

Or beast tumbler.

How.

 

[BlueCat]

...

 

[cheer25mom]

That's what my issue is with this argument.

Suzie has to have all requisite Level 5 skills to fly on Senior 5 as a 10 year old.

But beast base doesn't.

Or beast tumbler

How.

The best all around athlete in our gym is a 12 year old who might weigh 60 lbs. I can tell you how she got there. I have watched her work for it. For the 5 years we have been with the gym she has been putting in the sweat equity to get where she is. There are others in the gym that are amazing in certain areas, but she is the best all around athlete on a daily basis, because she works her tail off at ALL of it. She just happens to be small. She could have just as easily been a base or back, but the common denominator is the work ethic. Work ethic is what got her where she is. My CP is 12 and twice her size. If she was that driven/talented she could be in the same position as a base. I don't think size is what pushes these kids, I think it's work ethic. I don't think that should be written off just because a kid is small any more than I think a kid who is "too big to fly" should get written off.




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[Quotation]

as has already been said in this thread, tiny does not equal easy. I've flown in base groups who's regular flyers are at least 15-20 pounds lighter than me and a couple inches shorter, and have been told that i'm very light. not because i'm actually lighter than their usual flyer (i'm not) but because I can hold my weight. just because someone is smaller on the ground, doesn't mean they'll feel smaller when they are in the air.

take Aly Brewer for example, senior elites point flyer for 2016. she is taller than her bases but is still the most solid flyer on that team because she has the body control needed to be a good flyer. some people seem to think that since she is bigger than her bases she's too big to fly, but clearly she isn't. as much as people like to say that size matters, it really doesn't. a good flyer shouldn't be taken out of the air just because they are getting "too big" if they can still fly just as well as they did before.

also Maddie Gardner, Tessa Konczylo, Kelcie Burch, Cami Branson, Kelsey Rule, and Kiara Knowlin, just to name a few, were all just as big or bigger than their bases, but were all great flyers.

The argument that size should be the main factor (or god forbid the ONLY factor) for choosing flyers is just plain ridiculous.

 

[cheer25mom]

as has already been said in this thread, tiny does not equal easy. I've flown in base groups who's regular flyers are at least 15-20 pounds lighter than me and a couple inches shorter, and have been told that i'm very light. not because i'm actually lighter than their usual flyer (i'm not) but because I can hold my weight. just because someone is smaller on the ground, doesn't mean they'll feel smaller when they are in the air.

take Aly Brewer for example, senior elites point flyer for 2016. she is taller than her bases but is still the most solid flyer on that team because she has the body control needed to be a good flyer. some people seem to think that since she is bigger than her bases she's too big to fly, but clearly she isn't. as much as people like to say that size matters, it really doesn't. a good flyer shouldn't be taken out of the air just because they are getting "too big" if they can still fly just as well as they did before.

also Maddie Gardner, Tessa Konczylo, Kelcie Burch, Cami Branson, Kelsey Rule, and Kiara Knowlin, just to name a few, were all just as big or bigger than their bases, but were all great flyers.

The argument that size should be the main factor (or god forbid the ONLY factor) for choosing flyers is just plain ridiculous.

No one says size should be the only factor, but to claim it doesn't matter at all is fooling yourself. It does. Given the same flying ability, the lighter flyer is easier to base. Can taller/bigger girls be successful flyers, absolutely? Do smaller girls have an easier time being successful? Yes they do. It is simple physics. Gravity is what it is, and there is no changing it. You can mitigate the effects with skill in the air, but the heavier you are that harder you have to work to overcome it.
At the highest levels, where teams are pushing the limits of what can be accomplished and everyone is highly skilled, it makes a difference.
That doesn't mean bigger flyers cannot succeed, it just means that smaller flyers have an innate advantage.


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[cheerspirit]

as has already been said in this thread, tiny does not equal easy. I've flown in base groups who's regular flyers are at least 15-20 pounds lighter than me and a couple inches shorter, and have been told that i'm very light. not because i'm actually lighter than their usual flyer (i'm not) but because I can hold my weight. just because someone is smaller on the ground, doesn't mean they'll feel smaller when they are in the air.

take Aly Brewer for example, senior elites point flyer for 2016. she is taller than her bases but is still the most solid flyer on that team because she has the body control needed to be a good flyer. some people seem to think that since she is bigger than her bases she's too big to fly, but clearly she isn't. as much as people like to say that size matters, it really doesn't. a good flyer shouldn't be taken out of the air just because they are getting "too big" if they can still fly just as well as they did before.

also Maddie Gardner, Tessa Konczylo, Kelcie Burch, Cami Branson, Kelsey Rule, and Kiara Knowlin, just to name a few, were all just as big or bigger than their bases, but were all great flyers.

The argument that size should be the main factor (or god forbid the ONLY factor) for choosing flyers is just plain ridiculous.

I rarely make any comments. I will point out a top owner of a hugely successful cheer gym with the most World medals is telling us that size matters, it is simply physics. He is an expert on the subject and knows what he is talking about. How can anyone argue? I will also say, last season I saw a big cheerlebrity move to a new gym. She was a beautiful flyer, but she was also big for elite level 5 stunts. Bases had to be moved around repeatedly to keep her in the air. When she flew it was gorgeous, but she could not fly unless she had 3 of the strongest bases. In fact she ended up with 2 guy bases. Other flyers/stunt groups struggled so she could stay in the air. Kiara Knowlin transitioned to a base. She was a beast base. You can hold your weight. Yes, I believe that, but many small flyers can also hold their weight. When all things are equal the smaller flyer will be more successful and a bigger asset to the team.

 

[Lablover]

Everyone knows my opinion on instituting bottom ages. All Star needs to adopt the same competition restrictions as USGA. I think it's been made pretty clear that pushing kids to be on these level 5 teams at younger ages contributes to burn out and excessive wear/tear on the body. I would love to see a long term study done on the age of athletes when they enter a sport and their probability for a major career ending injury. In my ideal universe:

Tiny=4-6
Mini=7-9
Youth=10-12
Junior=13-15
Senior=15-18

For Worlds teams waivers can be submitted for a child to compete ONE age level up from where they should be legally (so only Jr age), but a team is limited to a certain amount of waivers per Worlds teams. The waiver is ONLY for Worlds and level 5. This way truly exceptional athletes can compete "elite" but not every 12 year old with a janky full is finding their way to the floor.
I'll also say it again, this new idea of placing pre-pubescent 12 year old flyers on Coed teams is doing NOTHING for your boys unless you are giving them ample opportunity to stunt with real women because guess what? Those 12 year olds don't exist on UofL Large Coed. Unless a boy is coming in and working with IOC girls that weigh more than 60 pounds, they are going to get to tryouts and feel like they are lifting a horse...even if she's only 100 pounds.
I know I'll get flamed for this but you can't compare an ex-gymnast making level 5 with no stunting to a flyer with no tumbling. Tumbling takes years to perfect and master, flying you can teach a kid in a season if not less. You very rarely see a athlete get placed on a high level team if all they are there for is basing, but I have watched a routine where the team "cheerlebrity" did nothing but a forward roll, a prep, and prance around the back a couple times....that's called Senior level 2.

For me personally I think the age groups listed above are too tight. For larger gyms (by number of athletes) but small in actual gym size (floors) those ages groups would create a ton more teams. Lots of shift from large teams to small. More than our gym could comfortably accommodate for a season. Or the teams would be stacked because you would simply place by age and not necessarily true skill level and there would be lots of accusations of sandbagging. Also my youth age daughter who is a pretty strong base would have difficulty competing level 3-5 stunts with most flyers at her gym who are 10-12 years old but has no problem with 7-9 year olds. I also would feel badly for the truly gifted 7-8 year old who's capable of level 4-5 skills but couldn't be placed on a youth or junior 4-5 team.

 

[Cheer0825]

I am definitely in favor of raising the minimum age in the senior division and I'm saying this as a senior age main base who has no dream of flying and has had nothing but "fetus" flyers for the past season. Coming from a bases perspective there is an advantage to having older more mature flyers with more experience. I also believe that if correct stunting technique is used the extra weight isn't much of a burden. It obviously takes more effort but, if the flyer knows how to squeeze and hold themselves up then it really makes up for the difference IMO (and most older flyers usually do both of these things because they know that if they don't there's always another tiny who can be put in the air in their place).
Another advantage is I find older flyers are usually better equipped to handle the stress of a senior team. For the most part coaches are a lot harder on senior teams than younger teams and they expect us to be more mature and set an example for younger teams. Not saying that young flyers are incapable of maturity but when they move to a senior team straight from youth the difference may startle them.
It also really doesn't help the bases in the long term. I've learned the hard way that having lighter flyers can make it very easy to fall into bad basing habits. It's so easy to just hold them in the air, do the skills and come down without even thinking about basing technique. Moving back to larger flyers this season I've had to recondition myself to basing people of that size. So if bases of these lighter followers choose to go into college cheerleading they will likely have to recondition themselves as well and going from 80lbs or less flyers to 110lbs plus flyers is a rather harsh transition

 

[BlueCat]

...

 

[Quotation]

No one says size should be the only factor, but to claim it doesn't matter at all is fooling yourself. It does. Given the same flying ability, the lighter flyer is easier to base. Can taller/bigger girls be successful flyers, absolutely? Do smaller girls have an easier time being successful? Yes they do. It is simple physics. Gravity is what it is, and there is no changing it. You can mitigate the effects with skill in the air, but the heavier you are that harder you have to work to overcome it.
At the highest levels, where teams are pushing the limits of what can be accomplished and everyone is highly skilled, it makes a difference.
That doesn't mean bigger flyers cannot succeed, it just means that smaller flyers have an innate advantage.


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Just because a smaller flyer is easier to base doesn't mean that she is instantly a better flyer, the better flyer is the one who looks better in the air. If we only allow the lightest and "easiest" flyers to be in the air, we also make it much easier for bases to have bad technique.

and if you want to talk about physics, then it wouldn't be the smallest flyer who's lightest, but the least dense. first we should take into account that more mass over more area (less density) creates a lighter object, when compared to an object with a lower weight spread over less area (more dense). to actually know who would make a "lighter flyer" we should be calculating the total gravitational force that is acting on each flyer by first finding her mass and the total volume of her body and dividing mass by volume to find density. the less dense girl will feel lighter to the bases, it's just simple physics.

 

[cheerspirit]

????????

 

[cheerspirit]

***

 

[Beans100]

Just because a smaller flyer is easier to base doesn't mean that she is instantly a better flyer, the better flyer is the one who looks better in the air. If we only allow the lightest and "easiest" flyers to be in the air, we also make it much easier for bases to have bad technique.

and if you want to talk about physics, then it wouldn't be the smallest flyer who's lightest, but the least dense. first we should take into account that more mass over more area (less density) creates a lighter object, when compared to an object with a lower weight spread over less area (more dense). to actually know who would make a "lighter flyer" we should be calculating the total gravitational force that is acting on each flyer by first finding her mass and the total volume of her body and dividing mass by volume to find density. the less dense girl will feel lighter to the bases, it's just simple physics.

I knew I went to high school for a reason. Lemme just pull out my handy graphing calculator...

 

[cheerisloving]

Physics being used in cheer conversation on FB...I'm shocked.

Just to add more to what has been said. Make no mistake small doesn't always mean the lightest. But size matters. I've been in situations where I struggled basing a bigger girl. Being averaged sized myself, basing girls significantly bigger than me (weight and height) is impossible and very uncomfortable. Could I base a girl who is a little taller sure, but not bigger. A 120 pound girl is going to have a hard time basing a girl who is 130 and 5'6 no matter how great her technique is.