We’re back! We’re better! We’ve got a plan!
Welcome back to The Last Pass, where we’re kicking off content this summer with three “This Week” columns—one for All-Star, High School, and College cheer. These will be posted on Mondays and cover what happened in the cheer world during the week prior, plus highlight anything important coming up. But Monday’s not the only Funday here at TLP—while we’re living in the land of in-between when tryouts are over but the season isn’t in full swing, we’ll have fun features like Worlds + UCA Nationals division recaps, top-ten lists, opinion write-ups on things happening in the industry, and more! This week we’ll have a review of Lifetime’s Cheerleader Generation that includes some throwbacks to the OG Cheerleader Nation (#ImThisOld), and recaps of the Worlds Small CoEd, UCA College Nationals Small CoEd D1, and NHSCC Small Varsity CoEd divisions. Check back this week for all of that #content!
So. Let’s get down to business. We’re starting with This Week in All Star Cheer, which is a total lie, and will be more like This Month in All-Star Cheer. A lot has happened, videos have been swirling, and we want to give the people what they want. These columns won’t always be this long, but there’s a lot to cover today.
Think we missed something? Know about something we should include in next week’s This Week? Email us at lastpassblog@gmail.com with subject “This Week.”
Business Items
Before we get to what we really want—the cheerleading—let’s cover some matters of official #bizness.
Varsity needs Us
The Cheer Powers that Be want our help this week. It’s time for us to choose which gyms will be featured on Varsity TV this season, and the nomination period runs from today, July 15th to Friday, July 26th. While they aren’t super in-depth, Varsity does do a nice job with these features and it’s cool to get a behind-the-scenes look at teams preparing for and competing at high-profile competitions (see these previous features on Shooting Stars/F5 and Lady Lightning at NCA), so head on over and nominate your favs!
TLP Pick? We want the hit queens! Rain Athletics has enjoyed a well-deserved and quick rise in the Small Senior ranks over the past few seasons, and their consistent “hit zero” record has been impressive. What’s their secret? We want to know! They’re our nomination.
Summer 2019 National Meeting Contest
In other news, Allstars United had their first national meeting a few weeks ago and we are super happy for ya’ll (!) but we have some small questions such as… well… what is Allstars United? Why do you exist? What do you do? What was the national meeting for? Nothing big. Small clarifications. When you have time.
But still, we love seeing coachlebrities (you saw it here first) meeting up and hanging out and using their influence for what we can surely presume, based on the caliber of the attendees (Her Majesty Elaine Pascale was present), will be a positive change and a move in the right direction for all star cheerleading. Want the real who’s who? Check out this snapshot of meeting attendees shared by Cheer Athletics owner/coach Brad Habermel.
Finally, USASF wants grown-ups to do more grown-up things like attending their national meeting (#WhoDidItBetter) on August 5th-6th in Las Vegas. You can attend as an owner, coach, athlete, junior coach, other all-star professional, random man off the street, etc. They’ve got schedules for everybody. Check them out here.
This concludes our official business agenda.
The Cheerleading
Senior Elite Stunts
As we drafted this update, JTV blessed us all with a Senior Elite stunt session and we have feelings. (Such as stop the weird barbie-hand shimmy before the double-ups thanks we needed to get that off our chests okay moving on.)
We appreciate the updates always. Senior Elite is the queen. We are there. We just wish we could see some team updates that gave us even a liiiiittle inkling into what might possibly be in the routine come October. We know every stunt group on the team can kill a level 6 (still sounds weird) stunt sequence and like… that’s the expectation? They’re fun to watch but we are selfish! We need more! We demand to know if we’ll be honoring the 10th anniversary of the most magical Milkhouse moment with team ball-up 360s to the top and a pyramid performed to a live rendition of My Heart Will Go On from Celine hovering above the Arena stage. We’ll accept nothing less, CSP.
Hot Shots Happened
Hot Shots Camp also generously provided videos we’re glad to watch over and over again as we cry over execution standards we’ll never meet in our wildest dreams. BSB did this and this and gave us the below team double ups before they left. Thanks for existing, Brandon Senior Black.
The Shooting Stars can tumble (have ya heard?) and so can this guy from Ody and this gal from TGLC.
We remember lots more stunt videos from Hot Shots last year, though, so if we’re just not finding them this time around, send ‘em over and we’ll share!
Cheer Athletics Level 6 Camp
Panthers served us flexibility dreams.
Wildcats set the basket bar sky-high. We appreciate you! Now where are our 2019 program-wide Level 6 stunt and basket videos? We live for shocking our non-cheer friends with the sheer quantity of your perfection.
We also heard a rumor that Kittykatz were Level 1 camp champs and we wouldn’t be mad about video footage. Just saying.
Cali Camp
Ready, set, Smo. They’re back and they’re looking good, friends.
Also, Cali has a lot of athletes. A lot.
The Most Perfect Stunt Ever
Occured on July 1st. This is not up for debate. Good luck trying to watch less than 300 times before you can tear your eyes away.
More #content you shouldn’t miss.
Generals spinning and spinning. Diamonds doing tick tocks. JTV giving you lots of beach camp content (Senior Elite, Lady Lux, CoEd working on the same pyramid skill for 8 full minutes with a flyer from another team, Sister pyramids. We don’t know). But do take a few to watch the Lady Luxers doing rewinds! They look pretty darn good.
Things that actually happened this week.
We got a peek at Orange Rays! Hey gals!
Shooting Stars worked on the basics.
We loved this all-guy Cheetah stunt recreation.
We watched this transition skill from GT Fever over and over until we had to visit the comments to find out how it was legal. Once you see it it’s obvious but man is this a cool view of the skill!
The Last Pass
Midnight shows us not to doubt them in Medium CoEd. Spins on spins.
In Closing
For real, we’re glad to be back. Remember, if we missed something or you know of something that should be in next week’s column email lastpassblog@gmail.com with subject line This Week. Follow us on Twitter @TheLastPass! Join our mailing list to get our newsletter Coming Soon!
Also a fan of high school and/or college cheer? Check out This Week in High School Cheer and This Week in College Cheer, too.
THE LAST PASS 