I am no Worlds Judge or any judge at any cheer competition for that matter, but this is my personal opinion. I will also add in the fact that many of these routines are most likely watered down and will be upped in difficulty in the following months. This is gonna be a lengthy one, so I apologize in advance.. lol. I'll start off with the big 3 in the the order of how big of a fan I am of those teams.. I hope that made sense. :confused:
F5- Just to throw it out there, I am a die hard F5 fan. Those ladies give me life and despite the mistakes, I was thoroughly impressed. At first. After reading through this thread and others, I'm still impressed, but I have to agree with what others are saying. They're lacking something.. and I just can't put my finger on it. I'm really hoping it's just the music that's throwing me off and the changes they made to fit that music for the first comp and when I see them hit with the new music, I hope that I will roll around on the floor, sobbing in a ocean of tears because they are so perfect. I haven't had that reaction yet, but wouldn't doubt that I'll get the to that reaction eventually.
Stars- One of the main reasons I love Stars so much is because of their energy. Those ladies are performers and they just have that "oomph" like someone said earlier. Their routines are always enjoyable to watch, regardless of whether they hit or not, they just give it all to you. There's no doubt about it, these are very talented girls and I'm glad to see their stunting skills are getting up there, but something that's always been an issue with me for them is they do tend to be on the sloppier side when it comes to this area. Tumbling wise, they're beasts, of course.
SE-Stunting is their specialty and we all know this. Their routines typically revolve around their stunting and with that kind of talent, I can't say that I mind too much.. but I still wish there was a little bit more to their routine. Glad to see their tumbling is gaining difficulty as well. However.. as amazing as their stunts and pyramid are this season, I feel like they're past the limit of showing off how incredible they are and I agree, it almost seems like too much and it feels cluttered. Let me just tell you, their stunt sections and pyramid isn't doing my anxiety a favour because I can't decide where I'm supposed to look... and it feels a bit overwhelming, but you might just have to thank my anxiety for that one. I'm typically not a fan of their dances, but this year's is better than the previous ones.
New additions
Panthers- I love Panthers. Actually, I'm just a huge Cheer Athletics fan. That program continues to wow me. I love the choreography, I think it's very different and innovative, at least to me. I do feel like they're lacking that energy that they had last season as well and I wouldn't say they're boring because they're not, but they don't look as amped as I'm used to them seeing. Hope to see their stunts and pyramid increase in difficulty as the season progresses. I'm actually hoping that they pull through and win.. we all know they work hard and it would be awesome to see a team win yet another division.
Peach- Clean, clean, clean. The skill isn't quite there yet, I'll admit. Hopefully that'll change as the season progresses, but I can definitely appreciate a clean routine when I see one and they are SHARP.
As for Cheertyme Love, their coach is one of my old coaches from Ultimate Athletics, Earl Lambert. He has also coached Prodigy for the past three seasons. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I've actually never seen or heard any talk about them other than from his facebook statuses and tweets. Stunting is one of this specialties though, so I can just assume that they will possibly have some great stunts and a great pyramid.
