Trust the Process

Posted: 10/10/2018; Last Edited: 10/10/2018

By Coach Ryan

“Trust the process!” As a coach, there are countless times when you preach the importance of progression, but so often it becomes a hard lesson learned for the student-athlete. A clear system of progression eases the process of skill development because the system is built upon the fundamentals. The best athletes in the world will often attribute their success to their dedication to the fundamentals. Kobe Bryant, one of the best NBA players of all time, said, “Why do you think I’m the best player in the world? Because I never ever get bored with the basics.”

Every student-athlete will hit a plateau. In cheerleading, it is not uncommon to see a student-athlete hit multiple plateaus across a season. Most of time these plateaus can be avoided with a clear understanding of progression. Progressions are meant to ease the process of achieving high standards. If you skip ahead, you may learn one difficult skill but you will miss out on the opportunity to learn many other skills. Cheerleading has become such a special sport because the evolution of skills is seemingly endless. When one skill is accomplished their appears to be another skill to conquer immediately after. Many of these skills can seem daunting at first, until you realize every skill builds upon itself. Meaning, there is a natural progression to follow.

Last week’s blog, Raise the Bar, discussed how to set standards for your team. Every standard requires a series of objectives. If designed correctly, those objectives should serve as a system of progression that seamlessly leads the student-athlete to their end goal. Giving your team a solid understanding of progression is key to helping your team raise the bar. No matter their level, every skill can be broken down into basic parts. If you encourage this behavior from the start, the student-athlete will begin to do it on their own and they will approach every skill in terms of the fundamentals.

As many of us have experienced, “trusting the process” can be boring and slow. To combat this mentality, I would like to discuss an idea mentioned in last week’s blog, Raise the Bar. As you may recall the “elite” level idea is a system that rewards student-athlete’s individual abilities. This concept can be applied to professional, academic, personal and athletic standards. It is equally important that you are setting up multiple systems that encourage development in not just one but all the areas that help the team fulfill its ultimate purpose. Assuming every team has academic goals, be sure create a reward system that compliments academics as well. This will give a feeling of equal opportunity. As many of us have seen, one student-athlete might be especially talented in the classroom but not as skilled on the mat. If you do not reward achievement for every team standard then you will be subconsciously communicating to the team what you truly value.

For this week’s blog, we will focus on athletic standards. By rewarding everyone’s athletic skill level, it is easy for each student-athlete to see where their skills currently reside and more importantly, where they can eventually be. So as to encourage progression, I have taken the “elite” level idea and expanded on it. Essentially, I have created four different levels of skill for co-ed partner stunts; Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Elite.

Every level should be rewarded AND every student-athlete should be given equal opportunity to achieve each level. This is very often the break down in systems similar to this one. Student-athletes will strive for the the highest level but will find none or only a few resources to help them achieve those standards. If the coach does not provide equal opportunity for achievement then the team will automatically separate itself into factions. Resulting in a negative team environment. As a coach, be sure that you are providing feedback and instruction to everyone equally. As an extra benefit to the coach, giving feedback will become a lot easier when you can accurately identify the student-athlete's skill level via a system of progression.

Key Points:

A clear system of progression eases the process of skill development because the system is built upon the fundamentals
Every level should be rewarded
Every student-athlete must be given equal opportunity to progress
Every team standard should have a system of progression

As always, before performing any stunt:

Have an AACCA certified coach present
Review the most up-to-date AACCA rules
Have a spot present when mandated by AACCA rules and/or when working any new skill

http://www.cheerrules.org/

Co-Ed Partner Stunt Progression System

Creating this comprehensive list was a lot more complicated than I originally thought. Mostly, because it is so difficult to classify the wide variety of skills found within cheerleading. I have done my best to create levels based on progression so their is a clear understanding of how to reach each skill level. This concept should be adjusted to fit your team’s standards.

Co-Ed Partner Stunts (1 Base & 1 Flyer)

Level Descriptions

Beginner - Toss hands level, Straight pop downs

Intermediate - Toss to extended level, Intro to spinning stunts and flipping stunts, Spinning pop downs

Advanced - Addition of flipping stunts, spinning stunts, body positions and dismounts

Elite - Addition of flipping stunts, spinning stunts, flipping and spinning stunts and body positions

Bold skill indicates progression

Last Edited: 10/10/2018

Beginner

Load-In

1) Purdue-up

2) Walk-in

Toss

1) Shoulder Sit

2) Prep

3) Toe Touch

4) Chair

5) Hands

6) Shoulder stand

Flipping

1) None

Spinning

1) Walk-in

Flipping & Spinning

1) None

Body Position

1) Shoulder sit

2) Chair

3) Hands

4) Shoulder stand

5) Extension

6) Platform

7) Right/Left Liberty

8) Torch (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

9) Arabesque (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

Dismount

1) Purdue-down

2) Forearm pop down

3) Straight pop down

4) Toe touch pop down

5) Straight pop down to cradle

Transition

1) Forearm pop

2) Press

3) Give’n go

4) Pop adjust

5) Pull

6) Step out

7) Low to high

8) High to high

9) Retake

INTERMEDIATE

Load-In

1) Purdue-up ->

2) Walk-in ->

3) Cannonball ->

Toss

1) Shoulder sit

2) Prep

3) Toe Touch

4) Chair

5) Hands

6) Shoulder stand

7) Extension

8) Platform

9) Immediate

Flipping

1) Round off up

2) Hand in hand (hands level) pop thru

Spinning

1) Walk-in

2) Cannonball

3) Toss half-up

4) Toss full-up

Flipping & Spinning

1) None

Body Position

1) Shoulder sit

2) Chair

3) Hands

4) Shoulder stand

5) Extension

6) Platform

7) Right/Left Liberty

8) Torch (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

9) Arabesque (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

10) Right/Left heel stretch

11) Right/Left Cupie

12) Torch (True Grip) – Flyer ¼ turn

13) Arabesque (True Grip) – Flyer ¼ turn

Dismount

1) Purdue-down

2) Forearm pop down

3) Straight pop down

4) Toe touch pop down

5) Straight pop down to cradle

6) Skater catch -> Cartwheel out

7) Twist down (360 spin down to ground)

8) Full down (360 spin down to side cradle)

9) Funny cradle (90/270 spin down to front cradle)

Transition

1) Forearm pop

2) Press

3) Give’n go

4) Pop adjust

5) Pull

6) Step out

7) Low to high

8) High to high

9) Retake

10) Pop thru

11) Half-around (180 spin)

12) Full-around (360 spin)

Advanced

Load-In

1) Purdue-up ->

2) Walk-in ->

3) Cannonball ->

4) Cartwheel-up ->

Toss

1) Shoulder sit

2) Prep

3) Toe Touch

4) Chair

5) Hands

6) Shoulder stand

7) Extension

8) Platform

9) Immediate

10) Gravity Toss

Flipping

1) Round off up

2) Hand in hand (hands level) pop thru

3) Hand in hand (extended level) pop thru

4) Back handspring up

5) Cartwheel up

6) Rewind

7) Front handspring up

8) Front handspring up (base ½ turn)

9) Round off Rewind

Spinning

1) Walk-in

2) Cannonball

3) Toss half-up

4) Toss full-up

5) Toss one & a quarter up

6) Toss one & a half up

Flipping & Spinning

1) Front handspring ½ up

2) Back handspring full up

Body Position

1) Shoulder sit

2) Chair

3) Hands

4) Shoulder stand

5) Extension

6) Platform

7) Right/Left Liberty

8) Torch (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

9) Arabesque (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

10) Right/Left heel stretch

11) Right/Left Cupie

12) Torch (True Grip) – Flyer ¼ turn

13) Arabesque (True Grip) – Flyer ¼ turn

Dismount

1) Purdue-down

2) Forearm pop down

3) Straight pop down

4) Toe touch pop down

5) Straight pop down to cradle

6) Skater catch -> Cartwheel out

7) Twist down (360 spin down to ground)

8) Full down (360 spin down to side cradle)

9) Funny cradle (90/270 spin down to front cradle)

10) Double down (720 spin down to cradle)

Transition

1) Forearm pop

2) Press

3) Give’n go

4) Pop adjust

5) Pull

6) Step out

7) Low to high

8) High to high

9) Retake

10) Pop thru

11) Half-around (180 spin)

12) Full-around (360 spin)

13) One & a half-around (540 spin)

14) Pop over

Elite

Load-In

1) Purdue-up ->

2) Walk-in ->

3) Cannonball ->

4) Walk-in (base ½ turn) ->

5) Cartwheel-up ->

6) Worm-up ->

7) Diamodov ->

8) Kettlebell swing ->

Toss

1) Shoulder sit

2) Prep

3) Toe Touch

4) Chair

5) Hands

6) Shoulder stand

7) Extension

8) Platform

9) Immediate

10) Gravity Toss

Flipping

1) Round off up

2) Hand in hand (hands level) pop thru

3) Hand in hand (extended level) pop thru

4) Back handspring up

5) Cartwheel up

6) Rewind

7) Front handspring up

8) Front handspring up (base ½ turn)

9) Round off Rewind

10) Right/Left handski pop thru

11) Right/Left one arm rewind

12) Front punch rewind

13) Front punch rewind (base ½ turn)

14) Walk-in

15) Walk-in (base ½ turn)

16) Side sumi

Spinning

1) Walk-in

2) Cannonball

3) Toss half-up

4) Toss full-up

5) Toss one & a quarter up

6) Toss one & a half up

7) Toss double-up

Flipping & Spinning

1) Front handspring ½ up

2) Back handspring full up

3) Front handspring 1 ½ up

4) Front handspring 2 ½ up

5) No handed front handspring ½ up

6) Back handspring Double up

7) No handed back handspring ½ up

8) Full-twisting rewind

9) Full-twisting rewind

Body Position

1) Shoulder sit

2) Chair

3) Hands

4) Shoulder stand

5) Extension

6) Platform

7) Right/Left Liberty

8) Torch (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

9) Arabesque (Lib Grip) – Base ¼ turn

10) Right/Left heel stretch

11) Right/Left Cupie

12) Torch (True Grip) – Flyer ¼ turn

13) Arabesque (True Grip) – Flyer ¼ turn

14) Free stretch

15) Bow and arrow

16) Scorpion

17) Needle/Straight leg scorpion

18) Scale

Dismount

1) Purdue-down

2) Forearm pop down

3) Straight pop down

4) Toe touch pop down

5) Straight pop down to cradle

6) Skater catch -> Cartwheel out

7) Twist down (360 spin down to ground)

8) Full down (360 spin down to side cradle)

9) Funny cradle (90/270 spin down to front cradle)

10) Double down (720 spin down to cradle)

Transition

1) Forearm pop

2) Press

3) Give’n go

4) Pop adjust

5) Pull

6) Step out

7) Low to high

8) High to high

9) Retake

10) Pop thru

11) Pirouette

12) Half-around (180 spin)

13) Full-around (360 spin)

14) One & a half-around (540 spin

15) Double full-around (720 spin)

16) Pop over

17) Full-over (360 spin)

References a.k.a. Thought Influencers

https://www.lakersnation.com/lakers-legend-kobe-bryant-never-got-bored-with-the-basics/2017/02/14/

Thanks for reading!

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In my never ending quest to better both myself and others, I decided to start this blog to analyze various topics and skills surrounding coaching and cheerleading.

I will be posting blogs biweekly on Wednesdays.

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Trust the Process

Co-Ed Partner Stunt Progression System

Co-Ed Partner Stunts (1 Base & 1 Flyer)

Level Descriptions

Beginner

Load-In

Toss

Flipping

Spinning

Flipping & Spinning

Body Position

Dismount

Transition

INTERMEDIATE

Load-In

Toss

Flipping

Spinning

Flipping & Spinning

Body Position

Dismount

Transition

Advanced

Load-In

Toss

Flipping

Spinning

Flipping & Spinning

Body Position

Dismount

Transition

Elite

Load-In

Toss

Flipping

Spinning

Flipping & Spinning

Body Position

Dismount

Transition

References a.k.a. Thought Influencers

Thanks for reading!

Subscribe & Follow

In my never ending quest to better both myself and others, I decided to start this blog to analyze various topics and skills surrounding coaching and cheerleading.

I will be posting blogs biweekly on Wednesdays.

Champions reflect