For those who are a complete third party to the world of cheerleading, you may also be completely unaware of what All-Star cheerleading is. All-Star cheerleading is just another form of cheerleading, but it only consist of the competition aspects. Basically it gets rid of tradition, and adds something different. Those who have never seen an all-star cheerleading performance are probably the people who still believe that cheerleading is an un athletic activity. Those who have seen performances have hopefully adapted new judgements. All Star cheerleaders represent an entire new community of athletes, these men and women perform at the elite level. Being a part of an all star cheerleading team is a huge commitment, probably more then any sports team based off a school. All star cheerleaders can be compared to elite gymnast, with the vigorous hours of commitment and strenuous work. They bust their butts to put on the performances that they do, which are truly astonishing. They are able demonstrate cheerleading skills that people do not even know exist. All star cheerleading brings out the enthusiasm and entertainment, something truly enjoyable for an audience to see. Much different then watching cheerleaders chant at football games. Unlike school cheerleading teams who divisions are separated by state, size of school, and size of the team; all star teams are separated by level. These levels are crucial in order to conduct a fair competition. Between level one through six there are different restrictions and rules that each section has to follow. Each level has different requirements to make the team, a difference in the difficultly of skills, and sometimes have age restrictions. These levels are put in to place to have teams compete with other teams equivalent to them, therefore there are no strong advantages to certain teams. There are multiple differences between all star and school based cheerleading below the college level. The safety rules between all star and school based cheerleading have the most significant difference of all. Some of the skills all star cheerleaders are allowed to perform are restricted at the high school level of cheerleading because of the level of difficulty. There are also many other stunting and tumbling restrictions placed on school based cheerleading that is allowed in All Star. Another blog post with specific rules and examples will help give my audience a better understanding of what I mean by safety restrictions. Also, all star cheerleading does not involve an actual cheering segment. Typically, a high school cheerleading competition routine consists of stunting, tumbling, a dance segment, and a cheer segment. For all star cheerleaders they omit the actual cheer portion in the routine. The uniforms are even different between all star and high school, for example high school cheerleaders contrary to what people see in movies are not allowed to have their stomach showing. They are required for a full torso top. Also, all star cheerleaders do put on more of a performance then most school based cheerleading teams, so they have to show it. They go all out, what you see all star cheerleaders look like before competition is not similar to school based with the hair, the style, and the make up. Also as previously stated all star cheerleaders have much more of a commitment to the sport then school based teams, although their commitment level is still equivalent to that of any other athlete on another sports team. All star cheerleaders travel all over the united states, just for weekend competitions, not even for title holding championships. To think that these ladies and gentleman continue to participate in cheerleading without being recognized as true athletes, only goes to show how much love and passion cheerleaders hold. Cheerleaders work hard because they want to, they love what they do, and how hard they work reflects on the titles they earn. It is a complete different world then what everyone imagines it as. It's not all about the drama and being popular, its about the sport!
Below is a link of The Top Gun Large Coed Level 6 team performance at the Worlds 2012 Championship
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugC9bcJChKc
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