Parents Anyone have kids that have moved from gymnastics to cheer?

[JBS]

Anyone have kids that have moved from gymnastics to cheer? If so... how did it go?

 

[Empowered]

My daughter did a year of high school cheer after retiring from gym. Skill wise the transition was easy. She could memorize cheers and had more than enough skills.

Personality wise it was another story. She was used to being serious and competing. Standing on the sidelines cheering for sports she had no interest in was hard for her.

I think had she done competitive cheer she would have liked it more. Except for the bows. She always hated the bows

 

[Aussie_coach]

Hehe, I am not a fan of the bows. Banned then from my gym years ago. Mainly because of the giant clip that digs into their head when they roll.

 

[bogwoppit]

My youngest did cheer after gym. She liked it, didn't love it. Lots of chucked skills and bruises when you are a base. A running shoe to the face is not fun.

She has gone back to gym as an adult and loves it.

 

[3cats]

My daughter does middle school cheer and started after she stopped artistic gymnastics. For her, it's a low stress, fun, social activity. She doesn't take it as seriously as she did artistic gymnastics. When she stopped gymnastics she sadly and very suddenly lost a built in friend group. And she only had a couple school friends so this was a great way for her to get back to the full day school scene and make instant friendships. She also transitioned to golf and Tumbling and Trampoline (T&T). I think school cheer is a whole other ballgame than competitive cheer. Which would have a lot of that intense training and competition. So if your child is still craving that, I would point her to a cheer club other than (or in addition to) school cheer.

 

[Faith]

Mine has. She is a “comfort zone” athlete and once she got to a certain point where the gymnastics skills got scary it got difficult to learn new stuff. Which was fine, but of course found herself steadily moving down from the elite groups, to the club squad, and ended up with younger kids and kids who just wanted to play around and got no coaching (and fees got no cheaper!). She was still doing well in comps and competing, but just doing the same routines.

So she tried out for competitive cheer. Unfortunately it was at the beginning of lockdown, but she should get the chance for travel meets, including to different countries, and still compete.

Mainly it’s keeping her active and getting her out the house

 

[Deleted member 18037]

One of my daughters BFF did, loves it. My kid would never.

 

[Eleven sol]

Mine is combining school cheer with Xcel. She’s social and a good dancer. She is considering pursuing cheer in college.

 

[raenndrops]

Lol, it seems like half of our 7th-12th graders on team do cheer in addition to gym. Some only do "sideline cheer" while others do "competitive cheer" for their school.
We have had other girls who choose to focus on cheer instead of gymnastics (or do cheer and high school gymnastics team).
They all do well in cheer ... even though more of them get injured in cheer than they did in gymnastics.

 

[JBS]

Ok... so quite a bit of cheer cross over.

 

[mndl]

DD switched to competitive All Star cheer a few years ago, and loves it! As she said it had all the things she loved-tumbling, dance and performing to a crowd. She practices about 9 hours a week total, so it keeps her busy but gives her time for other activitit’s, she also very much enjoys the team aspect of cheer. It was a much better fit for her honestly

 

[MuggleMom]

I did cheerleading after I quite gym (many moons ago) and we have had several girls who quite DD's gym and went on to cheer and love it. The tumbling, flexibility for jumps and spacial awareness for stunts really help in cheerleading.

 

[californiagymmom]

I found this thread when I was about to post a question about cheer--my daughter (currently level 7 JO) is thinking about switching to cheer-the competitive/stunt team at her high school. One concern she has is that it might be too much "sassy" dancing and posturing for her. She loves the tumbling. Is there a role on these types of cheer teams for girls who tumble well but don't do as much of the front-row dancing?

 

[mndl]

I found this thread when I was about to post a question about cheer--my daughter (currently level 7 JO) is thinking about switching to cheer-the competitive/stunt team at her high school. One concern she has is that it might be too much "sassy" dancing and posturing for her. She loves the tumbling. Is there a role on these types of cheer teams for girls who tumble well but don't do as much of the front-row dancing?

 

[mndl]

Absolutely! There are several girls on DD team who are amazing tumblers but not “sassy” dancers. They are highlighted for tumbling and are happy to be in the back row for dancing

 

[txgymfan]

Has she thought about try to get on a Acrobatics and Tumbling team at college? They have scholarships and look like a lot of fun.