Jamz All Star Nationals

Date: Fri Dec 21 10:25 AM, 2007

RE: Jamz All Star Nationals

Date: Fri Dec 21 11:23 AM, 2007

Anonymous wrote:

AllieM wrote:

OC usually goes to this one.... I think American goes as well. Jamz is just a bad competition all around. They need to work out their time difficulties. Having awards at 12am is not respectful to the families.

Allie, you must not have attended last year because if you did you would know the awards were much earlier. We loved it last year and we're looking forward to it this year! I do agree about the high admission prices, they need to do something about that, they are ridiculous.

Yes prices are high, but it's vegas! we go there for our kids anyway. That right there to see my child perform for 2 1/2 minutes is priceless. Who cares? Admission is probably what the Orleans is setting, maybe Jamz, who knows, who cares?

Date: Fri Dec 21 11:56 AM, 2007

i dont like how you only compete one day. You go all that way to vegas and only get to compete 1 time. That was a bummer. Also, i think the problem with admission is that it was like $30+ last year. I know our teams parents didnt pay both days because the second day they just sent all the girls who competed the previous day to watch. It was really a shame.

Date: Fri Dec 21 1:14 PM, 2007

Anonymous wrote:

i dont like how you only compete one day. You go all that way to vegas and only get to compete 1 time. That was a bummer. Also, i think the problem with admission is that it was like $30+ last year. I know our teams parents didnt pay both days because the second day they just sent all the girls who competed the previous day to watch. It was really a shame.

you compete twice i think in the sr.coed level5 division for the worlds bid. but how manys time do you want to compete,2,3,4 times? have your kid compete in other divisions i.e. hip hop! you'll be spending more money if your kid does that!

Date: Fri Dec 21 1:28 PM, 2007

Anonymous wrote:

i dont like how you only compete one day. You go all that way to vegas and only get to compete 1 time.

I am sooooo glad that we only compete one day at JAMZ. Only one day of paying for admission, and only one day of hair, makeup and uniform, and only one day of waiting for your competition time and then hanging around for awards.

Any other days that you want to be there in Vegas can be for FUN! biggrin

Date: Fri Dec 21 2:33 PM, 2007

Anonymous wrote:

I am sooooo glad that we only compete one day at JAMZ. Only one day of paying for admission, and only one day of hair, makeup and uniform, and only one day of waiting for your competition time and then hanging around for awards.

Any other days that you want to be there in Vegas can be for FUN!

Spoken like a true Level Negative 3. And we wonder why cheerleading has trouble being recognized as a sport. Why would you look at all of those things as a burden. Outside of paying for admission, you listed things that make our sport fun and memorable!

OC Mom · GURU

OC is attending with all of their teams

Diva Coach Melissa · Senior Member

I don't think it's fair to call a kid a "true level negative 3" just because he or she is excited to have the opportunity to experience some of the destination they are traveling so far for! I think the one-day competition in Vegas is actually a nice compromise for most families - they get to compete at a big competition with lots of other teams (rare these days), AND they get some time to go out and see Las Vegas and they get to do all that without breaking their parents wallet with an extra day or two of hotel in order to get it all done.

And there are soooooo many kids that hate makeup, or hate waiting hours for awards - they are KIDS! Heck, most of us as adults get impatient waiting all day for the awards.

One of my favorite cheerleader stories is a girl who cheered for us for several years. Her first year, the uniforms arrived and we had a rally before the first competition and the girls were all really excited about the new uniforms and getting all done up. Well this girl was something of a tomboy, but a fantastic tumbler and great base and loved to compete. I asked her right before they went to perform for the rally, "Don't you LOVE your new uniform??"

She looked me square in the eye and said, "I HATE skirts, and I HATE pink."

biggrin

Love to tumble, loved to base, loved to COMPETE. Not a huge fan of all the fluff that goes along with it, and I can hardly fault her for that! Just not her personality.

Anonymous wrote:
Spoken like a true Level Negative 3. And we wonder why cheerleading has trouble being recognized as a sport. Why would you look at all of those things as a burden. Outside of paying for admission, you listed things that make our sport fun and memorable!

Date: Fri Dec 21 6:45 PM, 2007

Diva Coach Melissa wrote:

I don't think it's fair to call a kid a "true level negative 3" just because he or she is excited to have the opportunity to experience some of the destination they are traveling so far for! I think the one-day competition in Vegas is actually a nice compromise for most families - they get to compete at a big competition with lots of other teams (rare these days), AND they get some time to go out and see Las Vegas and they get to do all that without breaking their parents wallet with an extra day or two of hotel in order to get it all done.

And there are soooooo many kids that hate makeup, or hate waiting hours for awards - they are KIDS! Heck, most of us as adults get impatient waiting all day for the awards.

One of my favorite cheerleader stories is a girl who cheered for us for several years. Her first year, the uniforms arrived and we had a rally before the first competition and the girls were all really excited about the new uniforms and getting all done up. Well this girl was something of a tomboy, but a fantastic tumbler and great base and loved to compete. I asked her right before they went to perform for the rally, "Don't you LOVE your new uniform??"

She looked me square in the eye and said, "I HATE skirts, and I HATE pink."

Love to tumble, loved to base, loved to COMPETE. Not a huge fan of all the fluff that goes along with it, and I can hardly fault her for that! Just not her personality.

Anonymous wrote:
Spoken like a true Level Negative 3. And we wonder why cheerleading has trouble being recognized as a sport. Why would you look at all of those things as a burden. Outside of paying for admission, you listed things that make our sport fun and memorable!

you are absolutely right!

Date: Sat Dec 22 10:13 AM, 2007

I thought winning a National Competition was special. Who would choose to attend a Jamfest National when it is no more than a qualifer. Are you aware that Jamfest holds eight Nationals? What kind of bragging rights do you have.

Date: Sat Dec 22 10:37 AM, 2007

Did I miss something here? I thought this was about Jamz Nationals, not JamFest Nationals. There's only one Jamz Nationals for all-stars, and it's in Vegas baby, yeah! JamFest Nationals, yeah, there's a bunch of them.

OC Mom · GURU

My husband made a comment to me the other day that got me thinking. It wasn't something that I hadn't thought of myself but I never thought of how it effected others.

He said, "I used to think that if a team, any team, claimed to be "National Champions" was a great thing. That was until I learned of competitive cheer. Now when a team says that they are a National Champion, I just think, "Which Nationals? How many did they actually hold? Were there more than two teams that you competed against?" I guess it's just lost it's significance to me. That's kinda sad.

I have to agree.

But it's not like I have any better ideas to solve this problem...

Date: Sat Dec 22 11:37 AM, 2007

I agree with this too. The best you can do in our sport is to place first at Worlds in your division, which means you have to be level 5. I recall there was another competition that was like Worlds, can't remember what it was called. Now that would be really sad, if it's all about money and businesses want in on that action too, so you would have to say you were #1 at a particular Worlds competition!

We need one superbowl for our sport, and we need something for the levels under 5. Maybe the closest to that would be Cheersport and NCA, but it cost money to attend, especially for those of us on the west coast. Typically gyms only take their higher level teams.

Less Nationals to choose from would help. Same with regional competitions... the less you have offered the more competition you will have in each division, meaning a truer reflection of how you stack up against other teams.

Diva Coach Melissa · Senior Member

I do, you have "Worlds" or whatever you want to call it for all levels/divisions. Top 10%, minimum of 1, teams in each division at each company's "Nationals" go on to compete at one big fat USASF competition somewhere.

Obviously, there's a lot more logistics involved than that, but that's the gist of it.

Date: Sat Dec 22 11:46 AM, 2007

In Vegas they have something similar to our "national chanpions".

Every where you go it seems as if every buffet is 'ranked #1 buffet in Vegas'

Date: Sat Dec 22 11:56 AM, 2007

lol! Like "World's Best Coffee" (Elf)

Agree with these posts. Less is more in our sport-- less competitions to choose from = more competition to go against. One big fat competition all levels in a top percent attend.

OC Mom · GURU

Good suggestion Melissa. It would be great if they held it smack dab in the middle of the country as well. Example: Kansas City. (I'm not looking at a map) but still, our governing body of cheer could hold it. Every competition could send someone. No paid bids, not partial bids. You have to win to go. All levels. It would be really cool.

Include HS and Youth and you could have something pretty big. And doing it in a city that is central could make it easier for most teams to actually go. It would really be prestigious (sp?) to attend so I am guessing most would.

-- Edited by OC Mom at 21:18, 2007-12-23

Diva Coach Melissa · Senior Member

It's not even really that complicated of an idea. You're going to have SOME overlap of teams across different companies, so that helps keep the field manageable (and honestly, who cares - back in the day when I competed, there were like 60 teams in our division at NCA), and you don't have to offer paid or partially paid bids (I actually hate that they do this for Worlds NOW, except for the fact that it causes program owners to really evaluate their teams on a TRUE national level if they don't have a paid bid and say "hmm, are we really good enough for this to be worth the $1500 per kid roughly that it's going to cost our families?"....which some programs are unable to do and really has hurt them, but that's beside the point).

But yeah, have it somewhere central - Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, whatever. Keep the registration fees reasonable (on par with a big Nationals, maybe a hair more), don't require participants to use your hotel - in other words, don't do something stupid to drive people away. No one can deny that currently Worlds is where everyone wants to be. Do it at all levels and you'd have a huge, really successful event. It's a no-brainer! Having USASF gives it the credibility that it needs to raise it above other "national" competitions. All they need to do is supply a venue and judges and collect their registration fee and walk away with the cash.

I don't know; it's an idea I've mulled over a lot of times, but USASF clearly has their hands full as it is, trying to evolve into whatever it is they think they should be.

Date: Sun Dec 23 11:45 PM, 2007

So Whos Going?

Date: Mon Dec 24 12:13 AM, 2007

Jamz All Star Nationals - Updated

Whos Going?

Airborne
Cheer Athletics (? can someone actually confirm or deny that?)
Cheer Odyssey
Cheer Xplosion
Epic Allstars
Legends
Oc All Stars
Pacific Coast Cheer
Pride Athletic Champions
Stars truck
Supreme Cheer