Just watch and you will see. This isn't cheerleading anymore. The first thing you will notice is more sport-like and athletic image. Watch an Acro and Tumbling meet and you will immediately be able to see the more focused and direct comopetition between teams in the meet style format. One glance at the skills being executed and you will know this definately requires physical strength, talent and ability.
With the full resources of athletic departments supporting Acro teams, each program is amassing a large number of highly skilled athletes. A&T athletes are trained and conditioned by professional strength and training staff who specialize workouts to maximize performance. Gymnasts, divers, cheerleaders and other types of athletes focus on very specific positions or skills much like a kicker in football or the setter in volleyball. The sporting culture of a varsity athletic team introduces the principles of starters, practice load, athlete safety and just a generally more focused accountable outlook to daily life as a student supported by a scholarship to solely compete for the university. These are a few of the things inherent with NCAA sports and characteristic of Acro teams.
As Acro and Tumbling grows and develops as a college sport, there is no denying it's evolution from competitive cheer. The hundreds of thousands of cheer athletes participating in traditional sideline and/or competitive cheer are the main pool of athletes from which A&T draws recruits. The sister sport of gymnastics which originated the basis of the acrobatic and tumbling elements of cheerleading is another source of athletes for the sport. The format of Acro and Tumbling finally focuses on the competitive and physical concepts of cheerleading and produces a sport consistent with the interests of young women across the country. Root it in gymnastics or root it in cheerleading...its irrelevant. The skill set is still the same, but the support, structure, athletes, mindset, format, training and the essense of it all is undeniable.
Just watch and you will see...this is sport!
With the full resources of athletic departments supporting Acro teams, each program is amassing a large number of highly skilled athletes. A&T athletes are trained and conditioned by professional strength and training staff who specialize workouts to maximize performance. Gymnasts, divers, cheerleaders and other types of athletes focus on very specific positions or skills much like a kicker in football or the setter in volleyball. The sporting culture of a varsity athletic team introduces the principles of starters, practice load, athlete safety and just a generally more focused accountable outlook to daily life as a student supported by a scholarship to solely compete for the university. These are a few of the things inherent with NCAA sports and characteristic of Acro teams.
As Acro and Tumbling grows and develops as a college sport, there is no denying it's evolution from competitive cheer. The hundreds of thousands of cheer athletes participating in traditional sideline and/or competitive cheer are the main pool of athletes from which A&T draws recruits. The sister sport of gymnastics which originated the basis of the acrobatic and tumbling elements of cheerleading is another source of athletes for the sport. The format of Acro and Tumbling finally focuses on the competitive and physical concepts of cheerleading and produces a sport consistent with the interests of young women across the country. Root it in gymnastics or root it in cheerleading...its irrelevant. The skill set is still the same, but the support, structure, athletes, mindset, format, training and the essense of it all is undeniable.
Just watch and you will see...this is sport!
No comments:
Post a Comment