OT Why So Much Hate?

[FlexyTumblerMom]

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Gym is more about being fluid, controlled and graceful, whereas cheer is about being clean, sharp and tight.

Actually - you do need to be tight in gymnastics. This was probably my CP's number one correction she always heard as a gymnast - vault and bars are almost impossible if you can't keep your body tight. You need tightness in beam too or you will fall right off after almost any trick or skill. It is for this reason that Gymnasts make really good flyers because they are very used to keeping their body tight in the air even though they don't really look all that stiff.

 

[Just-a-Mom]

My opinion is the reason gymnasts have that attitude is the poor form in cheer tumbling. These are kids that have spent years of their life making their back handspring absolutely perfect w/ ankles and knees glued together, straight legs and arms, perfect timing and arch - etc. Most of them won't be allowed to even think about attempting a full until their 4th or 5th year of a sport to which they devote 20+ hours a week of practice w/hard core conditioning. These girls see a cheer tumbler doing a back handspring that would give their coach a heart-attack, along w/ a janky full that looks downright dangerous, they think "omg!" and want to poke fun. They see it as a form of validation as to why they work so hard to get their form perfect, cause they don't want their full to look like that "twisting ball of death" they just saw.

If cheer doesn't want gymnasts to hate on them, they should start really scoring hard when it comes to form in tumbling, but then that would really slow down a kid's progression through the levels, and there would be a lot less level 4/5 teams. It would probably hurt enrollment in the sport too, cause most kids don't have it in them to drive for the kind of perfection that good tumbling form requires.

I don't think there is any hate when it comes to stunting though - or jumps. Now regarding the dance - lol - cheer would get some dancer hate when it comes to that one, but I guess that's another thread .

Hahaha yes! Every word of this is perfect. A shimmy wasn't enough.

 

[tumbleyoda]

My opinion is the reason gymnasts have that attitude is the poor form in cheer tumbling. These are kids that have spent years of their life making their back handspring absolutely perfect w/ ankles and knees glued together, straight legs and arms, perfect timing and arch - etc. Most of them won't be allowed to even think about attempting a full until their 4th or 5th year of a sport to which they devote 20+ hours a week of practice w/hard core conditioning. These girls see a cheer tumbler doing a back handspring that would give their coach a heart-attack, along w/ a janky full that looks downright dangerous, they think "omg!" and want to poke fun. They see it as a form of validation as to why they work so hard to get their form perfect, cause they don't want their full to look like that "twisting ball of death" they just saw.

If cheer doesn't want gymnasts to hate on them, they should start really scoring hard when it comes to form in tumbling, but then that would really slow down a kid's progression through the levels, and there would be a lot less level 4/5 teams. It would probably hurt enrollment in the sport too, cause most kids don't have it in them to drive for the kind of perfection that good tumbling form requires.

I don't think there is any hate when it comes to stunting though - or jumps. Now regarding the dance - lol - cheer would get some dancer hate when it comes to that one, but I guess that's another thread .

The sad problem is to use your example, until the execution of skills is judged consistently across the board the same exact way by every judge and every EP without bids or bid money on the table, this won't change.

 

[Official OWECheer]

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Gym is more about being fluid, controlled and graceful, whereas cheer is about being clean, sharp and tight.

Actually - you do need to be tight in gymnastics. This was probably my CP's number one correction she always heard as a gymnast - vault and bars are almost impossible if you can't keep your body tight. You need tightness in beam too or you will fall right off after almost any trick or skill. It is for this reason that Gymnasts make really good flyers because they are very used to keeping their body tight in the air even though they don't really look all that stiff.

I meant tightness as well, very important. And I completely understand and agree with the anger they feel seeing bad tumbling. Also, maybe because my focus is on school cheer rather than allstar, I tend to notice more of the "all they do is shake poms and yell for boys/try to become popular/are superficial comments". I know it seems like I'm fishing, but I had to get that off my chest.

 

[Official OWECheer]

The sad problem is to use your example, until the execution of skills is judged consistently across the board the same exact way by every judge and every EP without bids or bid money on the table, this won't change.

I have the feeling that getting cheer to that point will be a rocky process.

 

[tumbleyoda]

I have the feeling that getting cheer to that point will be a rocky process.

It will be. It is hard to be so demanding on tumbling execution when for years that was the one area it was advised to use lower cost staffers to handle so that more money could be spent on choreography, camps, uniforms, etc. I can't tell you the amount of times I have been told form and execution don't matter, the scoresheet says I need to have it. Well then I question how you put your teams together in the first place. But I digress for that is a conversation for another day...lol.

 

[Official OWECheer]

It will be. It is hard to be so demanding on tumbling execution when for years that was the one area it was advised to use lower cost staffers to handle so that more money could be spent on choreography, camps, uniforms, etc. I can't tell you the amount of times I have been told form and execution don't matter, the scoresheet says I need to have it. Well then I question how you put your teams together in the first place. But I digress for that is a conversation for another day...lol.

Agreed... we need to stop treating cheer like a backyard activity.

 

[tumbleyoda]

Agreed... we need to stop treating cheer like a backyard activity.

But you mean because I can do a BHS in my yard with a 10% decline slope of the yard and my arms bent in the Atlas shrugged position that I can't be point? That video got 15 likes on Instagram yesterday!

 

[Official OWECheer]

But you mean because I can do a BHS in my yard with a 10% decline slope of the yard and my arms bent in the Atlas shrugged position that I can't be point? That video got 15 likes on Instagram yesterday!

Pssh please! I finally did more than one rotation in my double full! AND it was caught on video. #cheerlebstatus

 

[FlexyTumblerMom]

But you mean because I can do a BHS in my yard with a 10% decline slope of the yard and my arms bent in the Atlas shrugged position that I can't be point? That video got 15 likes on Instagram yesterday!

Lol - see, we even have the "elitist" gymnast attitude amongst ourselves .

 

[tumbleyoda]

Pssh please! I finally did more than one rotation in my double full! AND it was caught on video. #cheerlebstatus

LOL! You sit on a throne of lies! #creativeeditingsequence #isawthatgifalreadyanditaintyou

***I am just joking y'all!***

 

[FlexyTumblerMom]

I heard a gymnastics mom say about a cheerleader who was doing a tumbling private: "she's good but you can see she's not a gymnast obviously, she doesn't have the FORM". I think that means that certain way gymnasts move and hold themselves. That would look a bit ridiculous in cheer I think?

I can tell you that the "form" of gymnasts is most of the time something that is created w/ countless repetition and correction of a skill. My CPs very first unspotted backyard back handspring was just as janky as the next guys, I called it a "frog spring" cause her legs were so bent and apart it looked ridiculous - fast forward to 1000+ repetitions and corrections later, over the course of a year or more, and her handsprings eventually looked like you see gymnasts do on TV. I guess I want to say don't let that attitude about your CP's form make you feel like your CP is missing something or less of a tumbler. It is all mostly a function of time and correction, and gymnasts just invest a lot more time on form than cheerleaders. That mom who said that, her daughter is probably in class 16+ hours a week, and 8 of it is being spent doing countless repetitive exercises where her legs and feet need to be poker straight or they don't count. My CP used to have to do dozens of back handsprings on a trampoline each practice w/ her legs literally tied together at the ankle, then after so many she could take off the ties and see if she could keep her legs together - and then if she messed up, the ties would go back on again - lol - you'd never see that in cheer! The SMs would go nuts!

 

[mecheermom]

But when you clearly try and compare dance and cheer or gymnastics and Cheer, gymnast get up set because all they do is strictly tumble. May do a few stunt tricks here on the beams and such, but it's still tumbling only. Maybe with a little dance when it comes to floor routines.

OMG?! Have you ever watched the Olympics? I- Just -Can't ... WOW.

 

[Official OWECheer]

There are lots of reasons for the hate, although I wish there wasn't. The mindset they had when I coached and judged gymnastics was that cheerleaders were gymnasts that couldn't cut it being gymnasts. That if they had just stuck it out they could of gotten over their dislike of beam, mental block of a vault or not able to get a kip on bars. It was never that they wanted to do something different, it was that they quit to do something different. Then when they look at what they have to do versus what many cheerleaders have to do and to both be called the same thing, I see where some of their irritation comes from.

With many gymnasts, perfection before progression is not a buzz word, catch phrase or something you tell the parents and other coaches but don't practice. It is supreme law. If you break it, you just may get kicked out of the gym and potentially blacklisted from going to other gyms. It is not unheard of to work on the parts of a back handspring for a year or two before actually attempting it without a spot on the floor. In most cheer gyms the parents would of pulled their hair out, weaved it back in and went to a new gym if Suzie wasn't doing it on the floor in 3 months tops.

In gymnastics you are out there all by yourself. Everyone sees you. Where in cheer you can be creatively hid, which makes many parents not understand why Suzie just can't try her new skill out anyway. After all they are not paying all this money for her not to compete it. In gymnastics you can't bribe, berate or threaten a coach with leaving to put that BHS in a routine so Suzie's grandmom who can only come to one competition in Suzie's career can see her grandbaby throw a BHS to her cranium.

Looking at the BHS in cheer we don't expect a Level 2 BHS to look like a Level 3 BHS, Level 4 BHS or Level 5 BHS. So we have mental allowances for age and level. If a BHS looks too good in Level 2 we start screaming that athlete or that team sandbagged and should be in a higher level. In gymnastics they train every BHS to look like it is an elite BHS, period. After all it that is what it should look like, make it look like that now, not later.

In cheer we take kids that are good at tumbling and have them teach tumbling classes, open gym to work off tuition and scholarships to our World's team. In gymnastics that usually never ever happens and if you are not properly certified and credentialed you might not even get on the floor, except in a smaller, newer program. ***The using of athletes and calling them coaches to pay off a bill you created is a pet peeve of mine***

In gymnastics a handstand in California is the same in Maine. A back handspring in Florida is the same in Washington. The training methodologies, expectations, and outcomes don't change much, with the exception if the gym follows a particular training regimen developed in other countries. In cheer a janky BHS in one gym that is not put in a routine is thrown into the routine immediately in the gym across the street. Made Level 2 team and you want to be on Level 4? You don't have to work harder just change gyms! After all it was the gyms fault that did not recognize that Suzie would work way harder if she was put on a team where she had to have a skill, instead of a team where she could actually perform the skills she currently has.

The skills are judged exactly the same no matter the competition. The value or influence or subjectivity of the skill never changes - only the execution. Where in cheer it changes from week to week depending on where you are competing, who is judging, whether it is a stage or on the floor, the lighting and if they were out of dipping dots before your team performed.

The higher you go in gymnastics the more hours you train - in some cases upward of 25 hours a week just in training. In cheer we want to be on the highest level teams and spend the least amount of hours possible in the gym. Conditioning is mandatory - every practice no exception. Many gymnasts condition for 30 min to an hour BEFORE they even start their practice, where in cheer it is optional if we can fit it in because we have a new pyramid piece we just have to work on tonight. And some parents complain if you condition more than 5 minutes.

In gymnastics the younger you are, the better and the more opportunities you are given for better training. If you start gymnastics late usually by a certain age, the best you can hope for is some rec training, unless you are just that determined. In cheer you can start at any age - which I love.

Personally I love both, but wish cheer was a little more form based and gymnastics was a little more fun.

Did they realize that cheerleading is first choice for a lot of kids, and that it is possible to like a sport involving tumbling but not want to do gymnastics? Not because they think it's too hard, but because it really doesn't interest them? I don't bear a grudge against gymnasts, I just don't understand the mindset you described.

 

[tumbleyoda]

Did they realize that cheerleading is first choice for a lot of kids, and that it is possible to like a sport involving tumbling but not want to do gymnastics? Not because they think it's too hard, but because it really doesn't interest them? I don't bear a grudge against gymnasts, I just don't understand the mindset you described.

I am in agreement with you. I started gymnastics in the mid 70's up thru college and coached exclusively in gymnastics programs up until 2004. Even in recent years when we shared a program location with a gymnastics program, that mindset was there. One of my drawing points is because I have the gymnastics background and I am allowed to run the tumbling program how I want, we draw in quite a few gymnasts that want less time in the gym but not less emphasis on technical instruction.