All Star Cheerleading

I was wrong. Boy was I wrong! I went to my first All Star Cheerleading event expecting to be bored out of my mind. My only frame of reference to cheerleading was what I encountered in Junior High and High School. Primarily a select group of schoolmates who led pep rallies, cheered on the football teams and cheered at other selected sporting events for our schools. While they were great people, never would I have even considered them to be great athletes. It was more of a social club for the pretty and cool girls.

All Star Cheerleading is not your mother’s cheerleading or mine for the matter. It is a cross between WWE Smackdown match, high stakes gymnastics meet, Cirque du Soleil, and So You Think You Can Dance all rolled into a 2:30 second performance that keeps you on your feet not believing what you just saw. Fast paced seemingly effortless performances with a variety of different formations and movements leaves you wondering how on earth did they just get 36 kids to all do the same thing at the same time like that?

You will not hear the familiar school cheers of “Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah” or my personal favorite “Be Aggressive, Be More Aggressive” at an All Star Cheer competition. You will more likely hear a creative voice interject in the middle of the routine’s music asking for jackets, rings, trophies, banners or respect. A cheer, if a team has one, is short and quick…for in All Star the action never stops!

The music is loud…very loud. A mix of music styles from Country to Rap to Rock and Roll seem to weave in and out of each teams performances. Beware however…the music will leave you singing it over and over again well after the event is over. I admit I even got my friend whose daughter was competing to get me a copy of some music so I could listen to it while I drove home.

I was amazed to see the ages represented in All Stars. I saw children as young as four competing in their own little division. They stole the show! All Star athletes are categorized by their ages first and their skill level second. They compete only against teams in their division to see who can get the highest score or “performance” of their division. This way the athletes are performing against children of like age and skill, which makes it a very fair competition. There are five Main Age Divisions in All Stars: Tiny, (5 and under) Mini, (8 and under) Youth, (11 and under) Junior, (14 and under) and Senior. (11 – 18) I was even amazed to see some parents get out on the floor perform an Exhibition routine.

All Stars currently has 8 Levels of performers. Level 1 is the beginning level. Level 5 is the most advanced All Star level. Level 6 is reserved for College Level athletes. There are also divisions for International Performers and Special Needs. The higher the Level of performance, the more confident I noticed the teams were. They not only did a routine, they performed it like an actor on stage. Bright facial expressions, animated movements and large doses of cheer attitude were on display as they confidently moved from one part of the routine to the next.

No matter the age, I came away from my first All Star cheerleading event knowing I had witnessed athletes come and perform amazing routines. This was nothing like High School cheerleading. It was competitive, exciting, fun and flashy. I cannot wait to my next competition. No longer as a skeptic, but as a fan!