High School Tryout Season

[JumpChannel]

Parent: I am concerned because Becky has not been taught the dance. When will it be taught?

Hearing the above convo in xtranormal video voices.

 

[cheerisloving]

Question: How do you all handle teaching dance during tryouts/clinics?

We have had open gyms, this is our clinic week and tryouts are this weekend.

I have had complaints from JV parents about how we do not explicitly teach every piece of the dance every day at clinics. The JV coach has them learn so much of it every day and reviews it over and over.

My system: The dance is posted to YT (private.) You are expected to learn it so that when you come to clinics, you can tweak little mistakes, get feedback, and focus on technique and getting it performance ready. Same with the cheer. We do not hold your hand and teach you every little count of it. Most of my girls have cheered long enough that cleaning it up and running it all the way through 2x or so for 30 min in clinics is enough.

Same with the cheer. The coaches and outgoing seniors are there to give feedback but we do not hold your hand every count of the dance and teach it ad nauseum every day of clinics. I'd rather you learn it outside of clinics so when you come in, we can help you get it ready.

Also, there are so many other areas of focus for clinics like stunting and time to perfect jumps and tumbling.

Learning material is the ice breaker/warm up part of our tryout, the very first thing on the first day. I've been teaching the material since I graduated 3 years ago, usually with the help of one or two other alums w. This is good because it allows our head Coach to watch how quickly people are learning. We always have someone miss the first day. I don't teach it after that, so girls are forced to find the video or met up with another girl who is on time.

I'm sure we could post it and make girls learn it, but considering the accessibility disparity for some girls, I don't mind teaching it. Some girls don't have internet at home, or a computer (although soon every kid in the district will have a laptop). Sally might have all the time to go over the dance 500 times but Susie who works all summer until cheer starts back up might not.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

Learning material is the ice breaker/warm up part of our tryout, the very first thing on the first day. I've been teaching the material since I graduated 3 years ago, usually with the help of one or two other alums w. This is good because it allows our head Coach to watch how quickly people are learning. We always have someone miss the first day. I don't teach it after that, so girls are forced to find the video or met up with another girl who is on time.

I'm sure we could post it and make girls learn it, but considering the accessibility disparity for some girls, I don't mind teaching it. Some girls don't have internet at home, or a computer (although soon every kid in the district will have a laptop). Sally might have all the time to go over the dance 500 times but Susie who works all summer until cheer starts back up might not.

I'm just curious about the purpose of learning these tryout dances. We use our fight song for no other reason than I don't want to spend any time in practice teaching it. Do you ever use the tryout dance again; or is it strictly created for the tryout, learned for the tryout, and then forever forgotten? These are questions posed from a coach at a school whose "pep" band showed up for exactly 2 regular season basketball games last year.

 

[coacha]

I'm just curious about the purpose of learning these tryout dances. We use our fight song for no other reason than I don't want to spend any time in practice teaching it. Do you ever use the tryout dance again; or is it strictly created for the tryout, learned for the tryout, and then forever forgotten? These are questions posed from a coach at a school whose "pep" band showed up for exactly 2 regular season basketball games last year.

I can only say that right now I am still in the process of ditching the band dances at my school. They were horrible 70s style messes that we mostly cut our first season here, leaving us with little sideline material. So I teach a new band dance to one of the songs that I know the band will play at football games this year, and it becomes part of our repertoire. (We learn no other new dances during the season for sideline purposes unless I like material from camp.) In another year or 2, I may continue to replace a dance we learned in the last few years to keep our material fresh or I might switch to teaching our fight song. If we had no use for a tryout dance, I would not bother choreographing and then wasting time teaching a new dance.

 

[cheerisloving]

I'm just curious about the purpose of learning these tryout dances. We use our fight song for no other reason than I don't want to spend any time in practice teaching it. Do you ever use the tryout dance again; or is it strictly created for the tryout, learned for the tryout, and then forever forgotten? These are questions posed from a coach at a school whose "pep" band showed up for exactly 2 regular season basketball games last year.

When I was on the team we used the dance for pep rallies/non routine performances. We do the freshman pep rally on the first day of school and typically the routine is not ready so we do this dance and the tryout cheer. We have no band for basketball but we have a lot of big games as state contenders so we always have half time material. We might use the tryout dance at a basketball game too.

Our band dances are not hard at all. They also evolve during the season and are called kind of like HBCU stand dances so it's not the biggest thing to focus on. Our band is average and going through a rebuild period so they play the same 3-5 songs every football game. And they do not come to Freshman/JV football games and seeing as though most of the new faces at tryout are freshman who will not make varsity there's no point in teaching it at tryouts.

The handful that will make varsity are expected to pair up with a vet and learn it in their own time at sideline practice. Sideline practice is about 30 minutes before actual practice and only for members who are new and need learn material.

 

[Official OWECheer]

It is frustrating how a principal who has no idea what is going on and who is just tired of drama is going to slap a bandaid on it. 2 of the kids that complained were asked to not help middle school this year bc all they did was yelled..... and were negative. They will tell you, I don't raise my voice. With that being said, they would come into my practice talking about how much they hated everything, and it was known... yet they are graduating and I get to go.. PEACE OUT.

Look on the bright side: you can start fresh somewhere else.

 

[CheerItFullOut]

Ideal parent-
Just uses common sense...is polite, considerate of the "bigger picture" & appreciative ...
Really very simple

 

[SparkleSpankies]

Look on the bright side: you can start fresh somewhere else.

Thanks! I do think it is for the best, although pretty sure I am not in the place to start fresh, but maybe work with an established program just coaching would make me happy!

 

[coacha]

Thanks! I do think it is for the best, although pretty sure I am not in the place to start fresh, but maybe work with an established program just coaching would make me happy!

I vaguely recall you being in Pa...are you anywhere near the Easton area? We're looking to add a coach to our program. (Mind you, the program is only in its 3rd year of competing but we have some tremendous strides and looking to continue taking it up a notch).

 

[AScheer]

I'm just curious about the purpose of learning these tryout dances. We use our fight song for no other reason than I don't want to spend any time in practice teaching it. Do you ever use the tryout dance again; or is it strictly created for the tryout, learned for the tryout, and then forever forgotten? These are questions posed from a coach at a school whose "pep" band showed up for exactly 2 regular season basketball games last year.

We do a tryout dance. It is used later in the season at pep rallies or other community performances. The main reason for it though is so I can see them learn it. I watch to see whose picking it up fast, who struggles, who comes back the next day looking like a new kid. Their ability to pick up material quickly is important on varsity. It can be the difference between kids sometimes.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

We do a tryout dance. It is used later in the season at pep rallies or other community performances. The main reason for it though is so I can see them learn it. I watch to see whose picking it up fast, who struggles, who comes back the next day looking like a new kid. Their ability to pick up material quickly is important on varsity. It can be the difference between kids sometimes.

That's valid. We wouldn't do that, so it doesn't make sense for me to have a dance made up. As I've posted before, I typically use tryouts as a means to capture any "surprises" that decide to come out of the woodwork and tryout that I haven't met before. Maybe they're transfer students who I didn't know transferred in because I don't work in the building, or whatever, but they are pretty rare. I could almost always walk in to 8th grade practice and just hand uniforms to the kids from feeder schools who are going to make the team before their season is over. I don't do it because it would be awkward, but I could.

 

[AScheer]

That's valid. We wouldn't do that, so it doesn't make sense for me to have a dance made up. As I've posted before, I typically use tryouts as a means to capture any "surprises" that decide to come out of the woodwork and tryout that I haven't met before. Maybe they're transfer students who I didn't know transferred in because I don't work in the building, or whatever, but they are pretty rare. I could almost always walk in to 8th grade practice and just hand uniforms to the kids from feeder schools who are going to make the team before their season is over. I don't do it because it would be awkward, but I could.

We have too many surprises lol. Our community has been growing faster than we can keep up with for the last decade. Three new elementaries, a new middle and a new high school are all currently under way. Houses pop up fast, and families are just pouring in. While it's terrible for the traffic, it gives us a huge pool of kids to look at. Rough estimate is that for every 1 kid I know, there are 3 I've never seen. The dance is one of the ways I can easily weed through kids. It's more valuable to me to watch them learn the dance than for them to actually perform it a few days later. In a different scenario where I knew all the kids, I might handle it differently.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

We have too many surprises lol. Our community has been growing faster than we can keep up with for the last decade. Three new elementaries, a new middle and a new high school are all currently under way. Houses pop up fast, and families are just pouring in. While it's terrible for the traffic, it gives us a huge pool of kids to look at. Rough estimate is that for every 1 kid I know, there are 3 I've never seen. The dance is one of the ways I can easily weed through kids. It's more valuable to me to watch them learn the dance than for them to actually perform it a few days later. In a different scenario where I knew all the kids, I might handle it differently.

Yea, your area is one of the fastest growing in the country. I can totally see that.

 

[CoachTamara]

We've done open practices this off season and its been AWESOME. I'm gettting to know the girls, can see who is really committed and improving and I think it's weeded out some girls that realized cheer isn't for them. Really casual, but I think it's going to really help the try out process this year.

 

[OldskoolKYcheercoach]

We've done open practices this off season and its been AWESOME. I'm gettting to know the girls, can see who is really committed and improving and I think it's weeded out some girls that realized cheer isn't for them. Really casual, but I think it's going to really help the try out process this year.

I don't know how you structure your actual tryout, but I have become a firm believer that having kids SEE who they are trying out against goes a long way towards cutting out tryout drama based on team selections. We let them watch each other do their skills and their cheer/fight song. Once people can see that they are outmatched by some of their peers, they sometimes remove themselves from the tryout, or they at least know going in that they are a long shot.