I have a cheer question and would be so grateful if someone could help me. :) I coach a rec level 1 under 8 team. I have 15 girls on my team and most of them are newbies but have a lot of spirit and will to cheer! In our routine I have 12 of them doing standing 2 mans with a back spot and 3 in the front doing a knee stand to front rolls and looking cute. Someone told me that the entire team has to be doing the two mans in order for us to get any points for the difficulty. Is that true? If so is it worth it for me to keep that in the routine or should I change it to them all doing two mans on there knees? Please help!! Thank you so much!!!!!
I had a huge post typed up and my iPad crashed on me just before I posted it, let me see if I can remember it for you...
I mainly do JamBrands competitions, and the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to study those score sheets and scoring grids like crazy. I like JamBrands as everything is laid out very clearly for you and you can email them with any questions and they will always get back to you :) Think of a stunt sequence in your head and then look at how it would score, print out score sheets and go through your routine section by section and 'mark' it and see how it stands up. Oh and they mark within bands, I try to get my choreography hitting the top of the difficulty band as much as possible. Obviously I wouldn't choreo skills that my athletes can't do as execution deductions are worth more than difficulty gains. Your 2-mans don't quite max out the difficulty although they score pretty high up.
When I am choreo-ing a routine I make sure I have different sections and in the stunting I have Elite stunts, Quantity stunts and Show-Off stunts (if there is time). Elite stunts have all the difficulty in them (the highest level appropriate skills my athletes can do) and as many skills as possible all linked together. I would usually have fewer stunt groups in this section due to the difficulty - in my S2 of 15 I only have 3 stunt groups for the 'Elite section'. In the Quantity stunt section I try and get as many flyers up in the air, doing level appropriate skills, as possible. This can be a much shorter section than the Elite stunts; in my S2 routine 5 flyers (of 15) literally go up for 5counts in a prep level lib. For my J1 routine I had 8 flyers (of 16) go up into a gut level lib and then I transitioned into the Elite stunt straight out of the Quantity stunt. For my S2 Show-Off stunt I had them handspring into a stunt which then links into the basket section. For my J1 I had a nice Teddy Bear sit, that traveled, linking into the pyramid.
Just because I'm a sadist and I enjoy playing around with choreography, I thought about what I'd do if I was you and came up with this (disclaimer: I don't know your athletes skills and abilities).
ELITE 3 stunt groups to include: 2-leg prep level, 'stag' holds, teddy bear sit at ext (it's not classed as ext but the bases arms are extended), 1-leg lib at gut, 2-3 body positions, fake tick-tocks/switch-ups, creative transitions between skills (shoulder sits etc), unique load-ins not a straight jump in and up, and a cute dismount.
QUANTITY 7 stunt groups to include: gut level lib (body positions if there is time, if not hold for a few counts then dismount).
SHOW-OFF 6 stunt groups doing the standing 2-mans.
TUMBLING to include: full squad syncronised BWO/FWO, I mixed cartwheels in with my BWO as a few couldn't do them or you can have full squad cartwheel or F Roll, something that is all of them in sync. ALSO: combination passes - RO/CWheel/BWO/BWO, Ext Roll/RO/CWheel/BWO are to name but 2.
I don't know Prep rules at all I'm sorry, other than you're limited to 2:00. To cut down on time you can have your Show-Off stunt linked straight out of the Quantity stunt and that could be done in 2.5-3x8cts.
Feel free to PM me and ask any/all questions, there are no stupid ones. This board helped me out SO much when I was first starting out - I'd still be a complete mess now if it wasn't for all the help I got ;)
