Maybe where I disagree is that I think our sport IS comparable to gymnastics or at least should be in regards to judging, legalities, sportsmanship and the like. Soccer, football, golf, hockey...all those other sports are won or lost based on a score that you cannot contest (unless of course the refs are making bad calls) but you know what I mean. Cheer is very much like gymnastics and figure skating where our judging is more subjective and involves the "opinion" of the judges more so than an actual fact based score. I personally would like to see us get away from that. I want to see our scoresheets be more objective and fact based (which I think the new Varsity scoresheet is TRYING to somewhat make that happen). But anyway, I think one of the reasons the world LOVES gymnastics and figure skating is because it is elegant and professional in nature. The girls are looked at as "perfection" on the floor and they are expected to act as such at all times. I want our sport to go in that direction.
Those other sports are also not an all day long event where getting squads on and off the floor determines the success of the event itself. Like it or not, excessive celebrating/encouraging before and after a routine does make a day longer. And we all already argue that the judges have too much on their plates as it is...[/quote]
TOTALLY agree with you on that..(bolded) and i think the excessive celebration is redic as well, BUT, i don't think that these rules and changes are fully thought out and won't have the desired effect. i'm afraid it's near impossible to change the cheer culture to fit within most of our comfort zone. Esp when you look at the vast diversity there is in cheer. in gymnastics and skating we (most people are only exposed to the elite, the best. a few times a year. not saying that all gymnastics and cheer aren't like that (remember Tonya Harding, and Nancy Kerrigan saying disney 'sucks') i'm just saying we truely see the elite within those sports...and as we all know at Worlds, thanks to more bids than we know what to do with, we're not always seeing the 'elite' and sometimes the elite isn't what we think it should be