All-Star Switching Gyms?

[THEJOEL]

In our experience, and many others, making friends at the new gym is easy compared to keeping friends at the old one


Please send money

#truth
You will find out very quickly once your colors change that your "friends" change theirs. People are petty.

 

[cheermomforever]

#truth
You will find out very quickly once your colors change that your "friends" change theirs. People are petty.[/QUOTE



The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

Think of time commitment also.
Sadly team mates and coaches can b cruel also to u on social media and at comps if u see them!

 

[FierceIsTheName]

What is it like switching gyms? How do you make new friends?

Switching gyms is kind of scary at first. At first you're nervous, because youre the "new kid". But as long as you be nice to everyone and be open to new corrections (this is a big one!! gyms have different ways of doing something). Making friends was actually easy for me. Just be positive and open to new people and new ideas. I mean, you'll be spending hours with your new team, so you're going to find friends! I still have really close friends at my last gym and they're sisters to me, and they still text me and ask how i'm doing!

 

[Cheer Dad]

Switching gyms is kind of scary at first. At first you're nervous, because youre the "new kid". But as long as you be nice to everyone and be open to new corrections (this is a big one!! gyms have different ways of doing something). Making friends was actually easy for me. Just be positive and open to new people and new ideas. I mean, you'll be spending hours with your new team, so you're going to find friends! I still have really close friends at my last gym and they're sisters to me, and they still text me and ask how i'm doing!

Good points on being nice and taking correction, even if from some teammates.


Please send money

 

[mecheermom]

In our experience, and many others, making friends at the new gym is easy compared to keeping friends at the old one


Please send money

So very true! Even as a parent, a number of parents we used to socialize with at cheer events have "unfriended" us on social media. My thoughts...well then they were never real friends in the first place...adios.

 

[Cheer Dad]

So very true! Even as a parent, a number of parents we used to socialize with at cheer events have "unfriended" us on social media. My thoughts...well then they were never real friends in the first place...adios.

I will say that not all gym switches are bad. Just this year cp switched gyms and most recent gym was fantastic. We still talk to the owners and coaches as well as a number of the parents and athletes.




Please send money

 

[CheerBank]

I will say that not all gym switches are bad. Just this year cp switched gyms and most recent gym was fantastic. We still talk to the owners and coaches as well as a number of the parents and athletes.




Please send money

Yes but he had to do a relocation to another part of the country to feel the love...;)


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[Helen uk uni cheer]

Personally for me I am moving so need to find a nearer team and I love my current team they were so welcoming and helped me so much. I am competing at a competition where 2 of the programs im looking at are competing also so im going to see how they perform but also what is their sportmanship like. Do they stay huddled and only cheer for their teams or do they cheer for others teams and socialise?

 

[Cheer Dad]

Yes but he had to do a relocation to another part of the country to feel the love...;)


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

But id like to think the reaction would have been similar had he stayed local and changed gyms.


Please send money

 

[Dixie]

Sometimes people unfriend because it's too painful to see the daily reminders. They might send a friend request when time has healed them a bit.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[CharlotteASMom]

I've seen more people switch gyms and keep positive friendships than I've seen of the bad ones that have been described here. People like to post the bad experiences but rarely do they post the good ones. On Facebook I've seen parents post new skills videos of their CP's at the new gyms and most of the congrats comments and "likes" are from former gym friends.

How you leave is important. Did you make a scene before leaving? Did you keep making unrealistic demands of the gym and disrupt the team to then turn around and leave? Did you go to social media and bash the former gym when you left? Well is so then of course people are going to un-friend you.

Secondly, of course you are going to lose touch with some people. As we all know cheer takes a huge amount of time. You often see your gym friends 3-4 times a week, usually including dinners out or drinks. Then traveling together for comps gives you even more time to spend together. Once you change gyms that amount time changes. It's harder to get together simply because you are physically at two different gyms. When my CP left cheer it was a big awakening. We left the gym on good terms but it was hard to see cheer friends. They were busy with cheer!!

Bottom line, yes I think there have been some bad issues with people switching gyms but many of these were caused by the person leaving and the rest were just crappy friend issues.

 

[12stepCheermom]

I've seen more people switch gyms and keep positive friendships than I've seen of the bad ones that have been described here. People like to post the bad experiences but rarely do they post the good ones. On Facebook I've seen parents post new skills videos of their CP's at the new gyms and most of the congrats comments and "likes" are from former gym friends.

How you leave is important. Did you make a scene before leaving? Did you keep making unrealistic demands of the gym and disrupt the team to then turn around and leave? Did you go to social media and bash the former gym when you left? Well is so then of course people are going to un-friend you.

Secondly, of course you are going to lose touch with some people. As we all know cheer takes a huge amount of time. You often see your gym friends 3-4 times a week, usually including dinners out or drinks. Then traveling together for comps gives you even more time to spend together. Once you change gyms that amount time changes. It's harder to get together simply because you are physically at two different gyms. When my CP left cheer it was a big awakening. We left the gym on good terms but it was hard to see cheer friends. They were busy with cheer!!

Bottom line, yes I think there have been some bad issues with people switching gyms but many of these were caused by the person leaving and the rest were just crappy friend issues.

Well I can't speak for anyone else, but we've changed gyms here and there and had some pretty ugly fallout from people that were either unkind to us or unkind to our kids. Some of those people were coaches. That was especially true the first two times we moved, this last time has been better and I attribute that to being part of a larger program where one kid (or two) are inconsequential to anyone/any team anyway so there's no need for people to get sideways when you're irrelevant (I seriously don't mean that bad, it's just how it is and that's fine, I sort of liked being invisible quite honestly). Our kids weren't important/skilled enough for people to care if they left. They were easily replaceable. That wasn't the case in smaller programs that had less kids....which is where I think you get more drama, at least in our experience we did.

Any time we've changed programs we ensure we 1) complete our commitments all the way through to the banquet 2) leave silently and 3) be nothing but positive in social media if we say anything at all. So I can say, without any question whatsoever, that while I agree that burning bridges on your way out will cause friendship issues...we most assuredly did not do that at any point and were even told by two of our former coaches that we "did it right" and they respected the way we changed programs last season. However, we still had drama to the point I had to post a public statement on Facebook to stop the madness. I said (essentially), "this was our decision and we have no ill will against anyone and cherish all our friends regardless of uniform color. This decision reflects on no one but what's in the best interest of my kids and the decision was theirs. However, at this point, I'm not going to tolerate being subtweeted, vague booked and my kids being approached at school. For that reason I'm unfriending everyone associated with our now former program. If you can handle being friends with our family that wears a different color, please request to reestablish that connection. I will gladly accept. If not I wish you and your children well and the best of luck next season."

I would say about 66% of the people I unfriended requested back. The ones that never did....I've never missed...and they were obviously a great deal of the issue since after that post I never saw another nasty word about my family or my kids.

 

[CheerBank]

I've seen more people switch gyms and keep positive friendships than I've seen of the bad ones that have been described here. People like to post the bad experiences but rarely do they post the good ones. On Facebook I've seen parents post new skills videos of their CP's at the new gyms and most of the congrats comments and "likes" are from former gym friends.

How you leave is important. Did you make a scene before leaving? Did you keep making unrealistic demands of the gym and disrupt the team to then turn around and leave? Did you go to social media and bash the former gym when you left? Well is so then of course people are going to un-friend you.

Secondly, of course you are going to lose touch with some people. As we all know cheer takes a huge amount of time. You often see your gym friends 3-4 times a week, usually including dinners out or drinks. Then traveling together for comps gives you even more time to spend together. Once you change gyms that amount time changes. It's harder to get together simply because you are physically at two different gyms. When my CP left cheer it was a big awakening. We left the gym on good terms but it was hard to see cheer friends. They were busy with cheer!!

Bottom line, yes I think there have been some bad issues with people switching gyms but many of these were caused by the person leaving and the rest were just crappy friend issues.

I think it's more caused by coaches and owners whose egos were bruised by kids leaving and then with them having no problems instigating things with their current kids so that it looks like the kids are doing it on their own rather than it stemming from the actual program. We've witnessed this countless times.
As for people (cheer parents) dropping friends when they change gyms, I have found there are two reasons for that. Either the one you mentioned - people's lives are just too busy and without the constant intersections at the gym and comps you just naturally drift apart - or the fact that some parents are just more tied to their child's cheer program than to their own personal lives.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[retiredl5cheer]

As a coach, I have unfriended/unfollowed kids or parents that switched gyms, but not because I suddenly hate them or have ill will against them. It's really painful to see a kid gushing about their new program when you did so much for them at their former one. Sometimes the heartache is too much. Other times I'll unfriend/unfollow people because they decided to trash talk their former gym. I don't have time for that nonsense, especially when they were praising that same gym a few months before.

 

[cheermomforever]

As a coach, I have unfriended/unfollowed kids or parents that switched gyms, but not because I suddenly hate them or have ill will against them. It's really painful to see a kid gushing about their new program when you did so much for them at their former one. Sometimes the heartache is too much. Other times I'll unfriend/unfollow people because they decided to trash talk their former gym. I don't have time for that nonsense, especially when they were praising that same gym a few months before.

Agree with u on this, an athlete at our gym had decided to leave our gym before Worlds, so she threw it and either came down or bobbled EVERY time she was up and watered down all her tumbling! Now she posts how amazing her coaches r and loves her gym. Our coaches helped her out soooo much over the past few years! That kind if $&#%^. Athlete definitely needs to be unfriended!
On The other hand an athlete switched and came to us due to her coach putting her down and being mean to her and now thru social media he and other gym members r still cruel to her!
So it can go both ways!


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android