The Decibel - Inside the sparkly, hard-core world of competitive cheer

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

It’s sparkly, athletic and enthusiastic. But it’s grittier than you might think. Competitive cheer is a fast-growing sport in Canada that requires the skills of a gymnast and the agility of a dancer. Recently, almost 8,000 athletes from around the country gathered in Niagara Falls for the national cheer championship.The Globe’s feature writer, Jana Pruden was at the three-day competition where she spent time with athletes, parents and coaches. She’s on the show to explain what she learned and why she thinks we’ll be hearing a lot more about this sport in the coming years.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Do you believe in you? Do you believe in this team? Do you believe in this routine? Do you believe that we will hit? Yeah! That's the sound of a coach pep-talking her team at a Niagara Falls cheer competition. Globe feature writer Jana Pruden recently went deep into the world of competitive cheer. It's a sport that's growing in Canada for myself and they're like what does that

even mean and I like show them a video and they're like oh I've never even seen this before I'm like yeah it's pretty awesome SOS. Refresh. Competitive cheer is not about being on the sidelines for a team. These athletes are the team. The sport requires the skills of a gymnast, the agility of a dancer, and sometimes the strength to throw your teammates 20 feet up into the air. Today, Jana is on the show to share what she learned about the sparkly and extremely hardcore world of competitive chess. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Jana, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much for having me on. You recently spent time in the world of competitive cheer. And to do that, you went to a three-day-long cheer competition in Niagara Falls in Ontario. Can you just take us there? Like, what was that atmosphere like of a cheer competition? A cheer competition, walking through the doors, is like, well, I think a phrase I used at the time just with my colleagues was gloriously unhinged. Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to World's Face-Off! Welcome to an amazing night! Are you ready to have a good time?

Are you ready, everyone? And it just is totally wild and in a really wonderful way because it is, by its nature, extremely cheerful. So it is a real vibe. Wow. Yeah, I can imagine. And this is a little gross for the top of the show, but I want to bring it up anyways. I heard that the competition has a vomit guy. Can you tell us what that's about? Okay, of all the things that have surprised me about the world of cheer, the amount of vomit was like very top of the list.

There's a few different reasons. I think one is nerves. There's a few different reasons. I think one is nerves. There's a lot of pressure and people are really nervous before they go on. There's a lot of kids who compete, sometimes quite little kids. You could also be, say you're competing, you're already not feeling super well

and then you go on and you're going upside down and doing flips and that kind of thing. And someone comes out later. This was Mario, the barf guy. And he cleans and disinfects the mat. And I remember this one moment when Mario was out there cleaning up the mats because someone had gotten sick on stage. And they were blasting the song Mambo No. 5. And everyone was, like, dancing.

And they were chanting Mario's name. And I just thought like, what world is this? Where am I? Where am I? That's amazing. I wonder, like, what initially drew you to this world? This is not usually the kind of thing that you generally report on. So what started this?

I just really was very intrigued by this atmosphere, by this subculture, by this sport that was almost entirely women and girls. And this idea that it didn't exist to cheer for anything anymore, that it was now cheer for cheer sake. You know, also, I would say we have a problem in the news business that sometimes what we do is really depressing. And this is like literally the happiest story I could imagine, but also with some really important things going on in it, too. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And we're going to get into some of these things. I think before we actually start to dive into the sport, let's go through some basics because there's a lot of terminology, I think, in this world that a lot of us are not familiar with. So let's just do a quick speed round of cheer

terminology, Jana. To start, what is a base? A base are the athletes that are literally serving as a base or supporting other athletes. So they may be the base of a pyramid. And yeah, they're the support and the structure. So this is related, I think. So what may be the base of a pyramid. And yeah, they're the support and the structure. So this is related, I think. So what is a flyer? Yeah, flyer are the athletes that are often at the top of the pyramid, literally flying through the air. They're the ones getting tossed up by the bases. Okay. And baskets? Baskets are when a group of athletes put their arms together to form like a basket and they throw another athlete, a flyer, up in the air and catch them also in their baskets. A clean. What is a clean? Yeah, a clean is a thing where the cheer athlete will sort of snap their arms to their sides.

It's kind of a, you know, arms coming to your side in tight little fists. You know, it symbolizes, I guess, the end of a move and just kind of resets, snaps in place. Hitting zero. What does that mean? Well, hitting zero is a big one. Hitting zero is, it's almost in a way like the most important goal of a lot of cheer athletes. And it means that you went through your routine with no deductions. And it doesn't always mean that you win. But it does mean that you did that routine as perfectly as you could.

And so it's really meaningful. And sometimes there's special pins. And so often you'll see a little pin that says hit zero. Oh, okay. Go out there and do your best. That's nice. I like that. Okay.

Well, let's talk a little bit about then what this looks like. So when you're actually watching a routine like this, I know you talked to one of the coaches of one of the teams called the Golden Girls. The coach's name is Jess Montoya. You talked to her about what's required in a routine. Standing, tumbling. of one of the teams called the Golden Girls. The coach's name is Jess Montoya. You talked to her about what's required in a routine. Standing tumbling, running tumbling, a partner stunt, a pyramid, and it's your choice how many skills you put in all of that. Oh, and a dance.

Right. And choreography throughout is also a mark, so those are all the categories, and they count how many people do them. They count what they do. They count what skills they do. And there's a set of elite skills on a chart. So we all know what skills to shoot for to get that highest score. Right. It is a lot. The whole environment of a cheer competition is a lot. And a cheer routine is a lot. They're environment of a cheer competition is a lot and a cheer routine is a lot. They're two and a half minutes long. The highest energy that you can possibly imagine.

Constant movement, constant motion and and that you can have up to 32 athletes on the stage at once. Wow. All working in unison. It's like a machine and it can be very overwhelming. And for that reason, there's multiple judges who are watching at the same time. Yeah, one person can't keep track of everybody. No, no. And so what about the age range and the gender breakdown? You said it's mostly female, but how does it play out? Yeah, so in Canada right now, it's an estimated at least 98% female. Athletes can start, I think, as young as about five.

And there is no upper age limit. So, in fact, Jess told me you could have an athlete in their 80s if they wanted to. And I guess weren't too afraid of breaking bones in this incredibly rigorous form of exercise. Yeah. Wow. How big of a deal is cheer in Canada, Jana? Like how many athletes are we talking about? Yeah, it is growing really quickly. And this is something that I've noticed just anecdotally. Some of my Facebook friends, their daughters are doing it. Their nieces are doing it. My cousin's daughter is doing it. That you just start to

hear about it more and more. There was 8,000 athletes at this nationals competition from around the country. We also know Allie Moffitt, who was another coach that I talked to, and she's the owner of a gym called Cheer Sport Sharks. She has gyms opening up all the time across the country. She currently has 700 kids just at her gyms alone. Everybody that I spoke to said it is growing, and I think we're going to see a pretty big explosion of cheer. We'll be back in a moment. One person you talked to was Maddie Hickey, who we heard from off the top of the intro. She's a 19-year-old competitor.

Can you tell me a little bit about her, Jana? Yeah, so she's a base. She's on a team called PCT Legendary, which is a co-ed team in level seven, which is the highest level in cheer. She has been doing it for about nine years. I met Maddie and her mom actually in line when we were going for breakfast on the second day of competition. The photographer and videographer and I, we were all suffering a little bit from something that's called a cheer hangover. And this is a real thing. And Maddie, a cheer hangover. Yeah. So on the first day of competition, you know, we arrived at like eight in the morning.

We were there till I think 1030 at night. We're on our way back to the hotel. And I was feeling like really, really sick. So in the morning, we got up, I was feeling better. We went for breakfast and we ran into Maddie Hickey and her mom. She said, Oh, have you had a cheer hangover yet? I was like, I think I did. I felt so sick last night. And she said, yeah, that's, that is a real thing. And it's from the noise, the energy, the whole experience. So we met, we met them when we were just suffering our first cheer hangover. Trying to cure this cheer hangover, yes. And there, you know, Maddie is a really interesting young woman.

And I think she also sums up in a lot of ways this kind of grit and determination that so many of the athletes I talk to showed. Because I keep getting hurt and, like, my like my body like I have fibromyalgia so it's like definitely painful like to continue and like I probably shouldn't be doing such a hard on your body sport for someone who has like chronic pain but I don't know it brings me so much happiness like I love love love it like there's nothing I sound rather do. Like I'm so excited. It brings me like so much joy. And I think there is something to be said.

We see this in, you know, male athletes. It's almost taken for granted that, oh, you have this grit, you get injured on the football field and you go right back out there. And I actually think girls like Maddie and a lot of these other athletes, they're proud of that grit.

They're proud of that strength, that it isn't easy. And yet they keep doing it and they keep doing it for their team and for themselves. And there's one young woman that I talked to who I think she was about 12, Alyssa. And, you know, she told me like that has taught her that you just have to keep smiling. Even if you get kicked in the face by a girl, you have to keep smiling. And I think a lot of these young women and girls are really, they're really proud of that, of their tenacity and their resilience. What about the, like, what kind of commitment does cheer require from the athletes?

Like, how much time, how much money are we talking about here? Building that team spirit, I think, requires this major commitment of time. And also that, you know, you can't do pyramids when a bunch of people didn't come to practice, right? It really is about every part of the team having a really important job. So you may have, say, three practices a week, plus you have maybe private tumbling lessons, plus you have competitions. And it's not a cheap sport. And like anything, I think there's ways to do it more cheaply.

The most basic equipment is actually just a performance outfit and a pair of shoes. But if you are at a higher level and the outfits get more expensive they're about five hundred dollars each and you may only be able to use one for a year or two and then competition fees if you're traveling a lot I definitely heard from people you know up to eight thousand dollars a year they might be paying. And we talk about this with other sports too right how that can sometimes be a barrier for for people and certain groups of people to get into that sport. It sounds like cheer is still kind of in its early stages in Canada, but have we seen that kind of discussion about, you know, that barrier for probably start to see more opportunities where people with lower incomes could be competing. There is the Cheer Abilities Program, which is really wonderful. And many of its athletes, they have a wide range of disabilities potentially.

And they're able to compete sometimes with other cheerleaders who are on stage with them to help them with the moves. There's also an interesting gender diversity happening in cheer as well. We talked about how cheer is extremely female in Canada, and most of the teams at nationals are all girl teams. But there's some co-ed teams, but it's one of the few or maybe the only sport in which elite athletes who are male and female could compete together. And the expert that I was speaking to in the States, that's a point she made that because you can have males and females on the same team, and you don't have to have a specific number of males and females, that's also a very inclusive space for trans athletes. So I

think it has the potential to be a highly inclusive sport, and it will be interesting to see as the culture continues to develop in Canada, I guess what that population of athletes looks like. Yeah, yeah. An element of cheer is, of course, the aesthetic, right, which is the sparkles, the big hair, the smiles that we talked about, right? And I guess that can have some people outside of cheer maybe not looking at it as a serious sport. What are the people that you spoke to say about that?

Yeah, that's a really interesting part of cheer, that you have this incredibly hardcore athletic sport, and then it sort of has an aesthetic that's sort of pageant-y in a way. And in some cases, and people will remember this if they saw Netflix's cheer, the Navarro poof, really big backcombed hair, sometimes very showy makeup, you know, spray tans, things like that. So it definitely has a look, although that look is changing in Canada. I think Canada, too, is trying to, like, do more athletic. Right.

Because we were trying to get it in, like, the Olympics and stuff like that. And we used to have, like, full-blown, like, crop tops, like, stomach showing, like, huge hair. And I think with, like, the nature of the sport and, like, especially all the stuff that's going on right now, especially, like, RC and stuff, Canada wants to, like, tone that down and make it look more athletic so that people would kind of accept it as a sport more, I think. Which, like, I don't mind at all.

I think it looks a lot, like, cleaner. Yeah. That's why I always find it funny that they don't think it's athletic. Whereas I'm like, wimps lift weights, cheerleaders lift people. So that last part is hard to hear. Can we just go over what Maddie's mom said there? Yeah, that's Maddie's mom, Tanya, saying wimps lift weights, cheerleaders lift people. I mean, I think the aesthetic issue is an issue that everyone in cheer sort of

recognizes and thinks about. It's definitely something I talked to Jess Montoya about. I know, there is definitely a stereotype with that. And with with people who don't understand cheerleading. It's not all about that. If you go into a cheer practice kids are sweating sometimes crying bleeding like this is intense it's a hardcore sport so when you walk into a practice you'll understand and appreciate but I feel like all that hard work and and once you've learned how to polish and perform the skills I don't know I think sparkles make everything look bigger so then here we are these coaches sparkles make everything look bigger. So then here we are, these coaches. Sparkles make everything look bigger. This has been my whole thing all the way along is like, what's wrong with sparkles anyway?

Can something not be serious because it's sparkly? And, you know, I think that's an undercurrent that runs through a lot of cheer and a lot of this story is, you know, things being able to be discounted or taken less seriously because it's girls doing it, because it's women doing it, because there's makeup in it or sparkles in it. And, you know, don't let the sparkles fool you. This is serious. It's hardcore. Hardcore. So cheer is getting recognition.

Will we see it in the Olympics one day? It has been greenlit to potentially be in the Olympics. But I think even opening the door to it is a way of acknowledging that there is something worthy here. I think whether or not it ends up ending up in the Olympics, that it's undeniable that this is a kind of competition we're going to be seeing more and more. And when you see it, you can't not respect it. It's true. Like you see it and you think, wow, that is just unbelievable. And those are true athletes that are doing that. So, I mean, just to bring this all back to the big competition in Niagara that you went to, Jana, and to practice my newfound cheer terminology. Did any of the teams in Niagara hit zero? Yes, many of the teams hit zero. There were some amazing performances.

Was there anything that you remember, like any specific moment, I guess, of a performance that maybe stood out to you? Some of the times that stood out to me were the times where things went wrong. I mean, one of the teams that I followed through the weekend had a real heartbreaking performance on the final day. And the way cheer is structured is that everything rests on two, two and a half minute performances. You've worked all year and you do these two performances, the same routine performed twice. And, you know, how small of a mistake can have such a large consequence. And so I found some of those moments, you know, really pretty heartbreaking thinking about how much time and effort people put into that. And then also, like quite inspiring when I saw how resilient the athletes were and the coaches were. And, you know, you feel bad for a day and then you pick yourself up and get ready

to start training again. Yeah. Jana, this has been a fantastic, fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our summer producer is Nagin Nia. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.