Spotting Advice

[wescardinals]

I started cheering my freshman year of college and my team doesn't have any tumbling (or a coach eek). I just made captain (as a junior) and my co-captain and I want to add tumbling so we can eventually become a competitive team. We're planning on taking classes as a team, but I'd like to be able to safely spot my team so we can practice skills outside of the tumbling gym. We do have mats and things like that in our practice space. What is the best way to learn how to be a good tumbling spot?

 

[Official OWECheer]

I started cheering my freshman year of college and my team doesn't have any tumbling (or a coach eek). I just made captain (as a junior) and my co-captain and I want to add tumbling so we can eventually become a competitive team. We're planning on taking classes as a team, but I'd like to be able to safely spot my team so we can practice skills outside of the tumbling gym. We do have mats and things like that in our practice space. What is the best way to learn how to be a good tumbling spot?

Honestly, this doesn't sound like a good idea. I know you desperately want to improve your program, but you can't just learn to spot and have everything be okay. Cheer programs, especially collegiate cheer programs, typically have to operate on eggshells. That means any injury you get, any money you cost, will be treated with thrice the gravity. That means that any serious enough injury that any of you suffer in practice could be used as grounds to completely ground or even eliminate your program. The practices of athletes spotting athletes doesn't sound very safe to me, but I don't feel I have enough knowledge or experience for you to take that without a grain of salt.

IMO (and anyone more knowledgable can correct me if I'm wrong) your best bet would be to get certification (I recommend USAG certification, complete the online certification program and then get further hands-on training under the tutelage of a more experienced coach) to teach tumbling, and get your AACCA to coach college cheer. Not only would you be better able to instruct your teammates, but you would be better able to cover your butt if something happened (i.e. 'an athlete was injured while tumbling during practice, but it was under the instruction of someone with proper certification'). This isn't to say that getting certified will insulate your program from the risk of elimination, but it will increase your program's likelihood of success.

I'm not sure that this'll be possible while you're a student, and perhaps it might be better to get all of this lined up so that you can coach after graduation.

 

[Michael White]

I started cheering my freshman year of college and my team doesn't have any tumbling (or a coach eek). I just made captain (as a junior) and my co-captain and I want to add tumbling so we can eventually become a competitive team. We're planning on taking classes as a team, but I'd like to be able to safely spot my team so we can practice skills outside of the tumbling gym. We do have mats and things like that in our practice space. What is the best way to learn how to be a good tumbling spot?

I'm with the above poster, while I have never gone the route of certification, I had almost a dozen hours of training shadowing and spotting with a more experienced spotter on back walkovers and handsprings before I even spotted them alone/in tandem. Then, I started with young (read small :P) athletes that I could better control if things went wrong, and helping them to correct issues in their handsprings and walkovers (there are an incredible amount of things to worry about, in just these "beginner" skills). Then as I became more comfortable with spotting handsprings and ensuring I knew how to correct technique, I slowly moved on to tucks, again with supervision. Jumping right in, even after a certification, can be daunting. Learn from the best tumbling coaches and instructors you can find is my advice.

 

[cheer25mom]

Don't do it. It isn't worth the potential legal issues, much less worth risking injury to a squad member. My kid doesn't tumble with any coach not trained and certified. If they want to send you to be trained and lay you to coach, that's different but without training a certification you open yourself up to all kinds of legal issues.


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