<p>missypie-one of the young women we know was a serious ballet dancer for many years. Jr yr she took up track and the high jump. That move to the high jump landed her a Div 1 track and field scholarship that came through late in her senior year at a school she had not even applied.</p>
<p>Mom60, that’s a great story but it made me LOL…for my D who would do all ECs and no school if she could, the last thing she’d need would be to play a DI sport!</p>
<p>D is committing to the cheer team today. She went back and forth but chose cheer. As I think I mentioned, she was a gymnast from pre-school through 6th grade. Last year she said she didn’t miss the actual gymnastics, but missed the commitment that it invovled. The cheer team will fill that void for her.</p>
<p>Goodness…cheer competitions…I’ve lived through years of gymnastics meets and dance competitions…but cheer competions…Is it rude to wear earplugs?</p>
<p>missypie- Good luck to your daughter. I hope she has a positive experience. If it doesn’t work out she can always do something else. Actually I can’t imagine that cheer competition will be that much louder than some of the dance competitions : )</p>
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<p>The beauty of the dance competitions (the private company ones, not the drill team ones) is that they are in auditoriums with soft seats and the house is dark…I have mastered the art of dozing during them (esp during the endless lyricals). I picture the cheer competitions being in brightly lit gymnasiums…maybe I’m wrong.</p>
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<p>Some of them have been like that. (I especially appreciated the ones with enough house lights on so that I could sit in the back and read). Others were very loud. We just returned from nationals held in a civic center ( hard plastic chairs on flat floor, bad acoustics, etc). There were a few studios that were yelling (cheering) all of the time.</p>
<p>Still, it was D’s last competition and one of her dances made it to the finals, which had not happened before, so it was a nice way to end the dance career.</p>
<p>I’m a survivor of 10 years of dance competitions. But at least with cheer there’s only one routine to watch (at least I’m assuming its that way), whereas with dance my D was in 6 dances or so, each 3 minutes long, that could be performing any time from 4pm Friday till 9 pm Sunday, and usually managed to be spread out so that we had to be there at least ALL day one day, if not multiple days. There’s nothing like being in an auditorium from 8 am till 10 pm, and your kid is onstage for a total of 18 minutes. So all in all, I think you’re better off with cheer. (Although I think you’ll be stuck with hard bleachers instead of soft auditorium seats with backs…) </p>
<p>Fall Girl, last year we went to a dance Nationals with studios that brought posters, and ran up and down the aisles waving their posters, yelling and blowing AIR HORNS before their numbers came on, then screaming all the way through them. I remember thinking, “This better be the best d*mned dance I have ever seen, if you’re being that obnoxious!” D quit dance this summer, she would have only had 1 more year anyway. She had a fantastic time doing it, learned a ton of things, and I don’t regret any of it. But neither of us will miss it, either. Time to move on!</p>
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<p>Were you by any chance at Showstoppers at Myrtle Beach? We went there last year and had the same experience - it was the teams from Michigan but mostly from Canada…it was funny for people to be talking about the rowdy Canadians.</p>
<p>We brought little Texas flags to wave and were worried that we’d be considered obnoxious…not compared with the airhorns and the running and screaming Canadians!</p>
<p>Fall Girl, is your D’s dance at Nationals going to be online? If so, I’d love for you to email me a link.</p>
<p>Missypie, YES! We were at Showstoppers in Myrtle Beach! We are a big studio, usually at Regionals we’re the biggest studio there, but at MB we were the meek quiet studio from New England, ha ha.</p>
<p>Is your daughter still dancing? That’s a lot to try to do along with cheerleading. My D balanced dance, a varsity sport, and being a class officer for 3 years, but enough was enough. She will be a senior, and people think she’s weird for leaving just before her senior year, but she and I are very comfortable with the decision. Like I said, dance was a great experience, but she’s gotten everything out of it that she’s going to get, and there are other things she wants to devote her time to.</p>
<p>Different D. The cheerleader will be in 8th grade, has taken dance for 10 years but has never been in company. The other D is a rising junior. She competed only Modern and Jazz this year and is now done with Company. She’s on an intense HS drill team that practices just under 3 hours a day, 5 days a week; with AP classes, testing, etc. she thought Company would just be too much.</p>
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<p>It was Starpower at Ocean City, they had dances from the finals on line, I just looked and they are no longer on…</p>
<p>I have to admit I never saw (heard?) airhorns at the dance competitions. Lots of yelling and hollering, though.</p>
<p>I know we aren’t allowed to post you tube links, but dance moms, google
you tube boot scootin baby</p>
<p>That was our Petite’s dance 3 years ago that won Nationals. The video is jerky but it’s worth watching. It’s my favorite dance ever and I didn’t even have a kid in it. It’s just a bundle of wholesome cuteness and energy to a really catchy tune.</p>
<p>Missypie, that IS cute! </p>
<p>FallGirl, the airhorns weren’t at Starpower. We went to Starpower in Las Vegas in 2005. What an eye-opener. We saw the most inappropriate dances I’ve ever seen at a competition. A lot of what was in that competition was sleazier than the stuff they were advertising on the strip. Seriously, some of it was just WRONG - practically soft-core, and done by teens and pre-teens! (example - a teen dance where a group of girls in scanty costumes flung their hair around and stripped a boy of his vest and shirt, all to the song “You Can Leave Your Hat On.”) I don’t know WHAT those dance teachers and parents were thinking! </p>
<p>The airhorns were at Showstopper in Myrtle Beach. Airhorns, and people waving posters running up and down the aisles and yelling between dances. But at least the dances were more age-appropriate.</p>
<p>Last year we went a Jump! convention and competition…after the dance that ended up winning, we all just looked at each other and said, “Just give those girls a pole.” I’ve seen dances where I expected the guys to walk up to the stage and put small bills in the girls’ costumes. And I always wonder what their dads in the audience think.</p>
<p>Of course, it nauseates me to see the tiny ones shakin’ it…but the crowd always seems to roar their approval and the dances do well.</p>
<p>Our studio is pretty darned conservative. When the girls were in 3rd-5th grade company, they had this one piece costume with the sides cut out of the midriff- no big deal because they were all built like Gumby…only during the year, one girl developed curves and the company director was so upset and offered to order different costumes if the girl felt too exposed.</p>
<p>I did not care at all for one of D’s dances this year, they clearly were supposed to be “hookers”. Ugh. The girls were all 17 - 18 and didn’t get why some of us (parents) didn’t like it. It was the only one of her dances that did not do well in competition. And yes, the studio knew how we felt.</p>
<p>Just for a laugh:</p>
<p>My 8th grade daughter and I just finished a couple of books that feature a high school cheerleading squad as secret agents. They were considered perfect for the job because they are small, strong, athletic, and underestimated for their intelligence. The book was written by a former cheer leader who later went to Yale.</p>
<p>The Squad: Perfect Cover by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.</p>
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<p>I can’t say much for CC girls, but my Taekwondo Instructor’s daughter (a black belt, I’m not sure what degree) was a cheerleader. She seemed fairly intelligent and quite nice, as well as very athletic. </p>
<p>By the way, I know a couple of rising juniors at my high school who did dance and gymnastics for many years that decided to try out for the cheer team at my school and they made varsity. I don’t know them very well, but they were definitely nice and smart at least in the class I had with them (Spanish).</p>