Watching the world championships

Three athletes from our gym, Ultimate Canadian Cheer, are members of the Canadian national cheer teams (two on the all-girl team, one on the coed). They were competing this weekend at the International Cheer Union's second annual world championships, and both teams placed first in the "Elite" (Level 5) division. I was able to watch all the performances (with a slight tape delay), interviews with the athletes, opening and awards ceremonies; they are still all available at varsity.com, and at cheerunion.org. May daughter (who is almost 10) and I were inspired by the power and athleticism, and it was wonderful for her (and, I imagine, young cheerleaders around the world) to see just how far she could progress in this sport. Like young figure skaters watching the Olympics and young hockey players the Stanley cup, this was a chance for the world to see the best.

Almost.

There is also an International Open Coed Level 5 team representing our gym competing in the International All-Star Federation's world championships, the Ultimate Canadian Cheer Jags. This competition took place this weekend as well, at the same location (Orlando, Florida) and with many of the same athletes competing (all three of our national team athletes are on the Jags, and that's pretty typical). Yet this is a competition I cannot see online, not without paying a $30 fee for the privilege. Eventually, of course, amateur videos will leak through to youtube, but it seems odd nonetheless.

You see, at least in Canada, the national team athletes are sent the routines by video and have to practice on their own for weeks before they finally are physically in the same place at the same time, for perhaps a total of three weeks in advance of competing. The All-Star Teams, by contrast, are practicing together for months, tweaking and honing every details of their routines. Their performance level tends actually to be higher than the national teams for exactly this reason; the same, incredibly gifted athletes, but teams that have had more time to prepare together, and cheerleading is nothing if not a team endeavour.

I appreciate that putting on these events is an enormously expensive undertaking. Each of the athletes on the Jags had to raise $2,500 on their own to travel and compete in the IASF World Championships. Yet it strikes me as short-sighted not to offer the same video coverage to the IASF Worlds as to the ICU Worlds. Aspiring athletes don't see the best of the best compete, and that is disappointing.

If the IASF website easier to navigate to follow the results (and the logic behind the results including, for example, why a 12th-ranked team advances to the finals when a 5th-ranked team does not), this would be somewhat less critical. But it's not.

I suspect that were the cost of seeing the videos brought down, to say, $5, they would sell many more viewerships. I suspect, more, that if they entered into an agreement with Varsity TV, that their fan base would grow even further.

Provincials!

Competed at the provincial championships today.  There were two other parent teams there.  One was huge, they must have 50 people out there!  And a lot of them are pretty obviously people who used to cheer in university or at all-star Open levels, because they've got all sorts of tumbling and stunts going on.  The other team was more like us, they had a couple of folks with their back hand-spring (we only have one, so far), and the funny thing was that the women actually wore outfits with the cute little skirts!  After all my explaining to my daughter that grown-ups don't wear those things.  Oh, well.

We did pretty well, a couple of little bobbles but everything went up that was supposed to, and came down when it was supposed to (and not before).  It was a lot of fun, finally felt like we had done as well as we can do.

An Injury!

I have a sports injury.

This is so weird. Weirder even than signing myself up on all these forms that asked for "athlete's name."

I was doing a basket toss (one of three people tossing a woman into the air and then catching her again), and the catch was off and my thumb bent in a bad way.

Maybe broken, maybe sprained, wrapped in a Tensor and iced regularly.

Hurts.

But mostly... weird.

I have a sports injury.

Back at it

Our second competition was not so good. Five minutes before we went on, we discovered that something had messed up with the recording of our music.  With no time to change it, we went out there and didn't do too badly.  But our timing was really thrown, so a lot of things we were really good at ended up looking sloppy.  It was kind of depressing, knowing how well we were capable of doing and not getting to put it out there.

Apparently parents at competitions don't get to actually compete.  We get marked, but the marks aren't compared.  I don't think that's fair; we pay the same entry fees as every one else.  I mean, the only other levels like this are the special needs team and the 4 year olds!  Honestly, I think we can take it...

Anyway, we were back to practice tonight and it was a blast, great to see everyone after two weeks off for Christmas break.  Nice practice, just trying out some new stunts and some work on tumbling....

First competition

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged!

Well, we won the first competition.  No biggie: we were the only parent team entered.  Still, we did OK (You can see the video here)

I couldn't believe how much I was shaking, though.  The nerves were really bad.  I was worried that I might actually drop a flyer I was so bad, but I made it through.

Next competition is in three days, and again they've changed a whole lot of the routine.  I'm pretty confident I know the steps and the timing, we'll see.  And there are 2 other parents teams registered, so this will actually be a competition!

10 days...

... until the first competition.  We did three full run-throughs tonight, with music, and it's looking like we're not going to totally suck, so that's good.

I was away last week from practice (silly job!), and they changed a fair bit of the routine for me, because someone else has quit and so other places needed to be filled.  I think I've got it, but I wish it would stay the same two weeks in a row!  (They promised not to change it again before the competition.)

One more practice...

ready to go...

well, no, we're not.  But we know the entire routine that we'll use at the first competition in three weeks.  And it looks like I can do it all, so that's good....  

It's been a rough week at work, and having this release is great!  

At the beginning of the year, each of us were asked to name three goals we wanted to get by the first competition.  I said a solid double base, a dive roll and a round off (fairly modest goals, I admit, but I knew it was only a couple of months away...).  Tonight I got my round off, I think my double base will be solid enough by next week and my forward roll is solid enough that I'm ready to try the dive roll soon, too.  yay me!