How Much Do You Have To Weigh To Be A Flyer?

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You are definitely the perfect sized flyer! Hold yourself in the air and do your part and you bases will feel like they're holding nothing!
 
As long as your doing your part by squeezing and holding your weight and the bases are using good technique your size shouldn't matter. In stead of trying to lose weight take stunt privates. They will be of a better help, cause I've based girls who weighed 85 pounds and it all be dead weight. Some of the best flyers I've based were the older, and bigger girls because they had more expertise and could hold there weight.
 
Okay, so I will go out on the limb and give a different and realistic point of view. First off, I do hate the question, as it should not matter, but it does!. While your weight should not matter, as many above indicated, as long as you know how to hold your weight. However the reality is 1. taller flyers look better in the air, so if the option is to pick the taller not so stable flyer or a short stocky girl that is tight, the likelihood is that the taller girl will get the first shot. 2. There are teams/squads that have set weight limits......no I absolutely do not agree, but it is a reality.
So do not give up on your training as a flyer, and most certainly do not purposefully try to loose weight, it may not make a difference. Work on your skills, flexibility, and learn how to hold your weight which is not difficult, but there are many that try and can not.
I know someone who is 4"11" and flew all her life since 1st grade and is now a senior and is basing for the first time ever. There is a flyer currently in the air that is not as flexiable or nearly as good but she is taller and looks better in the air because of her body structure. This young lady also wanted to loose weight, she is normally about 115 and is now 110. she wanted to try to loose the weight, but I forbid it. I encouraged her to keep up her skills and learning another skill is in her best interest as it will only help. 2 skills are better than 1. I have no doubt that she will end up flying because things are not working out very well with the other flyer, but as I indicated earlier, they had to try because taller flyers do look better in the air.
So good luck and while you are working on your flying skills, give basing or even backspotting a shot so you will have more than one skill.
 
All comments above are true. The last one even more so and here's why. If you ever plan on cheering in college you need to be a well rounded cheerleader. College coaches don't care if you were a flyer, they want the best cheerleaders they can get.

My CP flew her first three all-star seasons and it wasn't till she took a stunt class with a worlds team last year that she started learning how to base. It made her a better flyer because she knew what the bases where looking for. Plus this year her team needs her to base so she's basing, still working her stretch and stunting skills in classes but basing in her routine. She knows one day she will get to fly again and figures basing this year will just make her a better flyer.

Good luck
 
I can tell you right now that the smallest flyer can be the heaviest flyer if they're loose. If you're completely tight and hold yourself up there, there is not reason you should have to lose weight to fly.
 
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this picture is really just my favorite.:)
this is indeed an awesome pic!!! Thanks for posting.
 
your perfectly fine im 5'5 and 108 and i fly half of the time and if you keep yourself tight youll be fine im on a competitive pro team and theres a really good 9 year old on our team but the rest of us are 13 through 15 and shes based me befor and said i was like nothing and were not that far off from diff weights and shes 82 pounds and shes all loose so shes heavier so the main key is just keep yourself very tight
 
I tend to hold the (less than popular) opinion that size does matter... when all else is equal. That means that given two athletes, both have the same level of experience, flexibility, strength, body awareness, explosive power and nerve; the smaller, lighter one will have more overall success with stunting, especially co-ed style.

However, life isn't like that and you can rarely, if ever, make such an apples-to-apples comparison between two athletes. There is nothing you can do about your height and aiming for a body that is athletically fit is far preferable to try to hit a specific number on the bathroom scale.

In my ideal world I would be significantly taller and bigger. That would be of significant advantage when partner stunting. Again, I can't do anything about my height but I can hit the gym and get as strong as possible for my size and frame, so that's what I do.

I've included a video clip of me doing a rewind with Victoria. She's actually taller than I am but after practicing with her 1-2 times a week since September we can do a fair number of decent skills; rewinds, full-ups, switches, double-downs, hand-in-hand, etc. That's the dedication and focus. She really works hard at being centered over my hands and lets me do my part in keeping her up there.



So, if you look at our physical stats they are something like this:

Me 5' 7" (67") and 180lbs
Victoria 5' 8" (68") and 120lbs

relative height: 100%
relative mass: 66%

That's fairly unusual for co-ed stunt partners. A more typical example (at the elite levels) is shown by kingston in his video with Katie that he has in his sig. Not trying to call you out or anything there big guy, just trying to make an example. So, from looking at his video I would guess their stats to be something like (if you want to provide more accurate numbers that would be great but not necessary of course):

Kingston 5' 11" (71") and 215lbs
Katie 5' 1" (61") and 95 lbs

relative height: 86%
relative mass: 44%

For me to match their elite awesomeness I would have to try to find a partner who is 4' 9.5" (57.5") tall and 80lbs to match the relative size/mass. I actually know someone that size and she's a lot of fun to stunt with but she prefers to cheer all-girl (sigh). I can do rewinds to cupie, one arm rewinds, double ups and all kinds of crazy stuff with her -- and that's just stunting with her a couple of times a year. I can only imagine what we could hit if we actually worked at it.

Alternately, we could see how easy it would be for him to stunt with a partner who is 5' 11" and 140lbs. I'm not saying they couldn't stunt together, just that they would be more limited in what they could achieve.

It's not popular to say, but we can't be everything we want to be; no matter what the motivational posters and our mom's tell us. We CAN be that which we work at diligently and for which we have some natural aptitude/talent. In some respects we can make up for the lack of natural skills by working extremely hard but there will be limits. At my size I would never have been a pro basketball player no matter how long I trained or how dedicated I was to the cause.

let's go back to the original poster's question... is 5'4" and 120lbs too big to fly? No, but you may be more limited in what you can achieve than someone who is 4'10" and 85lbs. Take a realistic assessment of your build; are you athletically fit and strong or soft and flabby. Change what you can, improve flexibility and body awareness and decide to what extent you can dedicate yourself to becoming the best you can be in this activity. And it never hurts to look for big, strong bases to put you up in the air. And for every girl in the air that thinks she should be smaller, there are bases on the ground that think they could be bigger too.
 
I tend to hold the (less than popular) opinion that size does matter... when all else is equal. That means that given two athletes, both have the same level of experience, flexibility, strength, body awareness, explosive power and nerve; the smaller, lighter one will have more overall success with stunting, especially co-ed style.

However, life isn't like that and you can rarely, if ever, make such an apples-to-apples comparison between two athletes. There is nothing you can do about your height and aiming for a body that is athletically fit is far preferable to try to hit a specific number on the bathroom scale.

In my ideal world I would be significantly taller and bigger. That would be of significant advantage when partner stunting. Again, I can't do anything about my height but I can hit the gym and get as strong as possible for my size and frame, so that's what I do.

I've included a video clip of me doing a rewind with Victoria. She's actually taller than I am but after practicing with her 1-2 times a week since September we can do a fair number of decent skills; rewinds, full-ups, switches, double-downs, hand-in-hand, etc. That's the dedication and focus. She really works hard at being centered over my hands and lets me do my part in keeping her up there.



So, if you look at our physical stats they are something like this:

Me 5' 7" (67") and 180lbs
Victoria 5' 8" (68") and 120lbs

relative height: 100%
relative mass: 66%

That's fairly unusual for co-ed stunt partners. A more typical example (at the elite levels) is shown by kingston in his video with Katie that he has in his sig. Not trying to call you out or anything there big guy, just trying to make an example. So, from looking at his video I would guess their stats to be something like (if you want to provide more accurate numbers that would be great but not necessary of course):

Kingston 5' 11" (71") and 215lbs
Katie 5' 1" (61") and 95 lbs

relative height: 86%
relative mass: 44%

For me to match their elite awesomeness I would have to try to find a partner who is 4' 9.5" (57.5") tall and 80lbs to match the relative size/mass. I actually know someone that size and she's a lot of fun to stunt with but she prefers to cheer all-girl (sigh). I can do rewinds to cupie, one arm rewinds, double ups and all kinds of crazy stuff with her -- and that's just stunting with her a couple of times a year. I can only imagine what we could hit if we actually worked at it.

Alternately, we could see how easy it would be for him to stunt with a partner who is 5' 11" and 140lbs. I'm not saying they couldn't stunt together, just that they would be more limited in what they could achieve.

It's not popular to say, but we can't be everything we want to be; no matter what the motivational posters and our mom's tell us. We CAN be that which we work at diligently and for which we have some natural aptitude/talent. In some respects we can make up for the lack of natural skills by working extremely hard but there will be limits. At my size I would never have been a pro basketball player no matter how long I trained or how dedicated I was to the cause.

let's go back to the original poster's question... is 5'4" and 120lbs too big to fly? No, but you may be more limited in what you can achieve than someone who is 4'10" and 85lbs. Take a realistic assessment of your build; are you athletically fit and strong or soft and flabby. Change what you can, improve flexibility and body awareness and decide to what extent you can dedicate yourself to becoming the best you can be in this activity. And it never hurts to look for big, strong bases to put you up in the air. And for every girl in the air that thinks she should be smaller, there are bases on the ground that think they could be bigger too.


Might as well get her height right: Katie is 4' 10 1/2".

All rewinds though are benefitted by short guys and longer girls. The longer a girl and the shorter a guy the better the rewind can be (notice I didn't bring weight or strength into play).

My partner my senior year of college who I would do rewinds and fullups with on the basketball court (back when it was legal) was 135.
 
kingston can we go ahead and just pin StuntMonkey 's post for everyone to see? I swear it's the best answer to this age old question I've ever seen.

Great post monkey.
 
kingston, I'll consider it. Ideally it should be reworked a little (and fix the height -- Hmmm, off by a whole 2.5", damn. I'm slipping in my old age ;)) if it's going to be a stand alone post at the beginning of a thread.

And for the record, I never doubted that you can stunt with just about anyone at a high level and can probably toss anyone (many guys too) to hands and put them in a liberty, as long as they stay tight and don't freak out. I'm just pointing out that the bigger the size gap, Big Guy -> Tiny Girl, the easier it is to stunt at the elite level, e.g. multiple twists up, one arm stunts, combinations and transitions and many stunts done in a row. Let's face it, if your partner weighs 20% less then it stands to reason that you can do 20% more stunting in the same time period between rests. Heck, if she is small enough you don't need much of a rest at all. The more (good) reps you get in, the faster you both improve.
 
kingston, I'll consider it. Ideally it should be reworked a little (and fix the height -- Hmmm, off by a whole 2.5", damn. I'm slipping in my old age ;)) if it's going to be a stand alone post at the beginning of a thread.

And for the record, I never doubted that you can stunt with just about anyone at a high level and can probably toss anyone (many guys too) to hands and put them in a liberty, as long as they stay tight and don't freak out. I'm just pointing out that the bigger the size gap, Big Guy -> Tiny Girl, the easier it is to stunt at the elite level, e.g. multiple twists up, one arm stunts, combinations and transitions and many stunts done in a row. Let's face it, if your partner weighs 20% less then it stands to reason that you can do 20% more stunting in the same time period between rests. Heck, if she is small enough you don't need much of a rest at all. The more (good) reps you get in, the faster you both improve.

Oh I know. Fair or not at Georgia Tech the boys used to call all partner stunt comps girl finding contests. Those who won found smallest best girl.

Also high level stunting feels very different than what someone does in team competition. It's not quite possible for a lot of boys or girls just based on physical stature. It just helps if a guy is taller and a girl is smaller. (Except on a rewind, threw a girl who was 5'7" and throwing her was so ridiculously easy)
 
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