High School Having A Non-tumbling Division For Scholastic Cheer Teams

[Official OWECheer]

I just wrote about this on my blog (Obsessed with Everything Cheer: Bye Bye, Backflips) and I plan on making a video to go more in depth into this topic. I want to hear what everyone on the Board thinks. I know that this is already a practice in Florida, but is it in your state?

I'm cringing at the fact that I actually used the word 'backflips', but I had to for the sake of alliteration.

 

[brennanez99]

Our school competes in the non-tumbling division, and it's really the only way we could ever be competitive. Every student at our (very small and private) school has to play a sport, so we have to take everyone on the squad.

However, at competitions with grand champions with all scholastic divisions, the tumble divisions have a much greater chance. With almost all-squad BHS and a few girls with running tucks, they can easily surpass our score (even though stunting for an entire routine is arguably more difficult)


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[vannahlexis]

I went to a small public school (400 kids) and we usually had a small team (the most we ever had was 12 girls). We had no JV, no middle school, no feeder programs at all. Being far away from bigger cities, we only had one girl who had a gymnastic background.

Most new cheerleaders came in with zero tumbling, if we were lucky maybe one or two girls would try out w a handspring.

In the last three years we have been competitive teaching our athletes from scratch. Team springs the last two years and team tucks last year. We had running passes ranging from bhs multiples to tucks to layouts and a even a full. Skills were Always very clean and nothing took the mat until it was solid

There's a school in my state that placed second in the state last year with only a team back walkover and a few running passes because they were so clean.

I feel like if we could teach our girls to tumble from nothing, everyone else should be able to do the same. I don't think Id want to cheer on a team that couldn't tumble



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[Official OWECheer]

I went to a small public school (400 kids) and we usually had a small team (the most we ever had was 12 girls). We had no JV, no middle school, no feeder programs at all. Being far away from bigger cities, we only had one girl who had a gymnastic background.

Most new cheerleaders came in with zero tumbling, if we were lucky maybe one or two girls would try out w a handspring.

In the last three years we have been competitive teaching our athletes from scratch. Team springs the last two years and team tucks last year. We had running passes ranging from bhs multiples to tucks to layouts and a even a full. Skills were Always very clean and nothing took the mat until it was solid

There's a school in my state that placed second in the state last year with only a team back walkover and a few running passes because they were so clean.

I feel like if we could teach our girls to tumble from nothing, everyone else should be able to do the same. I don't think Id want to cheer on a team that couldn't tumble



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That's amazing! However, think about the resources that you had that allowed you to build up your program over the years. Some districts lack those very resources. By no means am I saying that a non-tumbling division should replace the normal division, but rather supplement it. For a school that is just beginning to build itself, having that option is great because it would allow that program to work on tumbling without being immediately forced to utilize it. This would help to avoid kids rushing to get skills.

Plus, you live in Michigan, where technique is revered above all other things. You just don't see that type of cleanliness from other states.

 

[vannahlexis]

That's amazing! However, think about the that you had that allowed you to build up your program over the years. Some districts lack those very resources. By no means am I saying that a non-tumbling division should replace the normal division, but rather supplement it. For a school that is just beginning to build itself, having that option is great because it would allow that program to work on tumbling without being immediately forced to utilize it. This would help to avoid kids rushing to get skills.

Plus, you live in Michigan, where technique is revered above all other teams. You just don't see that type of cleanliness from other states.

The Michigan thing is definitely very true! Lol I'm so thankful to have grown up in MI cheer.
I can definitely see where youre coming from.

 

[lisa G]

i think it is a great idea because we are a small school in a small town and we have one tumbler on our squad of 30 with anything more than a roundoff. We are thinking of competiting this year and will be looking for a non-tumbling division as there is no way we can compete with only one tumbler.

 

[Official OWECheer]

I'm thinking, this would be great for all-star as well. Think about how many programs rush kids through tumbling skills in order to be competitive, And for someone starting a new gym in an area with a shallow talent pool, they would not have as much trouble putting teams together. But could they do experimental stunting during tryouts to determine the level on which to place each kid.

 

[AScheer]

Our state offers non-tumbling. I think it's a great option for those interested in it. If anyone has ever watched non-tumbling teams at NHSCC, it's no joke! Those teams can stunt. If they could tumble as well, they wouldn't have any problem placing very high in the traditional division.

 

[Official OWECheer]

i think it is a great idea because we are a small school in a small town and we have one tumbler on our squad of 30 with anything more than a roundoff. We are thinking of competiting this year and will be looking for a non-tumbling division as there is no way we can compete with only one tumbler.

30 girls? That sounds amazing, I bet your pyramids look spectacular!

 

[lisa G]

they are going to be even better this year with more advanced stunts, but it is really nice to put up 7 stunts in a pyramid. This is only my third year at the high school (rec before that) but each year the girls are getting better and better. This is probabaly going to be our best year ever as three weeks into practice we are already better than we were when we left camp last year and we don't have camp this year for another three weeks.

we will probably get smaller by the year after this year because i have 15 seniors and i have only been getting 2 freshman each year for the last two years so our underclassman are about 8 versus 22 upperclassman but i'll worry about that next year

 

[MHSCheercoach]

Being a coach of a small school cheer team who has competed in the past, a non tumble division would have benefited us immensely. Last year on a team of 10 I had one girl who could throw a full, one who inconsistently could throw a bhs and the rest were lucky to do cartwheels and roundoffs. In Illinois, you must have more than half the team complete a skill for it to count as a score which left us getting low scores for tumbling. Take out the tumbling score and we would have been in the top 5 each competition. Now this year, ICCA is offering non-tumbling but unfortunately I have a super small squad this year and competition is out of the question. I hope they continue to offer it as some super small schools don't have the resources available to train athletes each season. Plus, our school is so small that all my cheerleaders are on other sports teams as well which creates issues with arranging tumbling sessions.

 

[Official OWECheer]

Being a coach of a small school cheer team who has competed in the past, a non tumble division would have benefited us immensely. Last year on a team of 10 I had one girl who could throw a full, one who inconsistently could throw a bhs and the rest were lucky to do cartwheels and roundoffs. In Illinois, you must have more than half the team complete a skill for it to count as a score which left us getting low scores for tumbling. Take out the tumbling score and we would have been in the top 5 each competition. Now this year, ICCA is offering non-tumbling but unfortunately I have a super small squad this year and competition is out of the question. I hope they continue to offer it as some super small schools don't have the resources available to train athletes each season. Plus, our school is so small that all my cheerleaders are on other sports teams as well which creates issues with arranging tumbling sessions.

At least being small will make things a bit easier, you can focus more on each girl.

 

[AScheer]

they are going to be even better this year with more advanced stunts, but it is really nice to put up 7 stunts in a pyramid. This is only my third year at the high school (rec before that) but each year the girls are getting better and better. This is probabaly going to be our best year ever as three weeks into practice we are already better than we were when we left camp last year and we don't have camp this year for another three weeks.

we will probably get smaller by the year after this year because i have 15 seniors and i have only been getting 2 freshman each year for the last two years so our underclassman are about 8 versus 22 upperclassman but i'll worry about that next year

It goes in waves. So funny how it works! One year we had 22 seniors, so the next season was a huge rebuilding year! My last 4 seasons we've only taken 2 freshman each year, then this year we have 8 on varsity and 7 on JV! Just depends on the class. I've also noticed that the entire grade is either more talented in all sports or not. The years we have very few newcomers to choose from are the same years football, baseball etc also have limited incoming talent.

 

[ohar0021]

The NHSCC has had non-tumbling divisions for years. It's getting more common in MN. In 2013 the National champs in Small and Medium non-tumbling were both from MN and both are large schools. My team competed non-tumbling last year but we continued to work on their tumbling skills throughout the year.

 

[Hscoach10]

I think the non-tumbling division is a good option for some schools, but I question the JV non-tumbling division. While it makes sense because a lot of JV teams have weak tumbling, it also could be holding back athletes who want to go on and cheer on the varsity team (assuming the varsity is in a tumbling division). They may still have time at practice to work on tumbling skills, but they will never have chance to preform the skills at a competition. One year we had weak tumbling on our JV team (2 tucks, only a handful of back handsprings) but I would not drop to non tumbling for this reason.