We had our first Cheer comp of the season. And we got FIRST!

He said

Well, out of no where we found ourselves in the week leading up to Emelia’s first Cheer comp of the season in the Fall Classic at the CAA Centre in Brampton. It was a one-day competition and only Sov was going as Valour’s first comp will come in January. The girls have really looked good in practices leading up to the comp the only wrinkle in the week leading up was the down-to-the-wire arrival of the new uniforms on Wednesday and then to add to that some hiccups around sizing that cause some extra running around. But, by Friday we were all sorted for uniforms and all sorted out for the comp.

In Emelia’s five years of competitive Cheer the first comp has always been a thorn in her side as they have had some rough performances and as much as that is a fairly common occurrence, the last few years it’s been tough for the team to rebuild and come back from that. Last year there was a couple of teams that dominated their division all season so long. And one of those teams they were up again this weekend so they definitely had their work cut out for them. But they have a new head coach this year with a pretty stellar Cheer career of her own as well as impressive record as coach and choreographer. And Sov was looking really good in practice leading up.

Their schedule was really quite perfect – coaches meetup 2pm, perform at 3pm, awards at 5pm. Only in Brampton and only one day. it meant we could make it a down and back and we wouldn’t even have to be up that early to be on the road. We were down and ready, well ahead of time. Emelia seemed calm and ready to perform and before we knew it they were! As far as first comp performances go, in our five years of watching Emelia’s teams, this was easily the best comp performance we had seen. And shortly after they were done, we heard that hit zero to boot!

But the best part was yet to come—when it came time for the awards ceremony, Danielle & I were at the perfect vantage point to see Emelia’s face when they heard the second place team called (their nemesis from last year) and the whole team realizing that it meant they finished first! She had only ever been on a team that finished first (in an in-person comp) one other time, four years ago. Since then, a whole lot of disappointment and even tears. So, suffice it to say, as her parents there was nothing better to see than that moment. Especially considering this is likely her last season doing Cheer.

But, that wasn’t all for firsts this weekend. Earlier in the day before we left, of course I got in my daily bike ride. But with this ride, at 20.9km in I crossed a significant milestone: 10,000kms cycled this year! At the start of the year I had set the goal thinking I would see if I could get past last year’s 9,294km. Well, with 54 days and  almost 2 months early I managed to hit that goal early! It wasn’t until a friend of mine pointed out the the distance I have ridden is the equivalent of riding the Trans Canada Highway from coast to coast and then riding back home to London! And that was when it hit home just how much distance that actually is!

She said

The week leading into the first competition is always a busy one. This week was no different. The added stress for the athletes and parents was the delay in the arrival of the cheer uniforms. Much to the relief of the owners, the athletes and the parents the uniforms arrived just in time. On Wednesday Emelia drove to the gym to pick her uniform up, she happy was off and so excited to try it on, then came the tears. Her uniform did not fit, there were some issues this season for the first time in gym history with the uniforms. It was adding to the pre comp stress. Emelia’s uniform was fitting about 2 sizes too small. After a lot of stressful back and forth we had a solution for her thanks to one of the owners. The replacement uniform fit a bit better, not great but a massive improvement. We will have to do some adjustment before next comp but it is at least fixable.

With all of that sorted out Emelia could move her focus to mentally preparing for her first competition. As John has already mentioned the way that most first competitions typically they are a bit of a mess, they are sloppy, lots of falls and are the weakest performances of the season. Emelia’s teams have been victim of this before. But this year has felt different for Emelia at least, this is the most prepared she has ever felt leading into a competition, the routine in parts is very challenging and creative. The girls were feeling pretty good going in, especially the 5 girls that were on Sov last season. Last year the girls struggled, they had a lot of their team stripped down, not a lot of strong adjustments. This year has been so different, the new coach has a creative routine, lots of challenging the girls to be their best and encourage them because she believes they can do it. Leaving for Brampton yesterday Emelia was nervous but confident they were ready. We arrived at 1:00 so we could watch some of the other Royals teams, we met up with the coaches at 2:00 and the parents from there waited stressfully for their performance time.

The girls hit the floor and the girls had an incredible and entertaining routine, the best first run Emelia’s team has ever had in her 5 years of cheer. They put it all out there and all they could do was wait, the team that beat them at every competition they met them last season. Every single one. For the girls who were on Sov last year all they wanted was to beat them. After waiting what felt like a lifetime awards started, when they announced that the other team placed second Emelia and the girls realized right then that they placed first, John and I along with Emelia’s flyers mom had the perfect vantage point to see our girls reactions. The pure happiness was amazing, they never reached that goal all season and they were beyond happy. It was a great way to start the season.

Today we were back at the gym, as a mom who watches cheer but does not understand the whole scoring, what stunts are worth what I was shocked this time when Emelia came out of practice to find out how close the scoring was between them and second place. It was sooooo close, but what I love about their coach is that she won’t settle for that, she will make instant changes, she will look at the score and make the changes needed to up everywhere she can to make these girls to have every chance to win. What we love about Rayna is that she looks at where she can maximize, so example the girls are not the strongest tumblers as an example but the girls are incredible jumpers, they are high performers, strong stunners so she will maximize there and ensure where they are not strong that they are executing things clean. She did tell the girls today do not expect to beat this team easily all year, it was VERY close, one small mistake the results could go easily the other way.

After a busy weekend we are all tired, but next week will prove to be even more chaos, I will go into a lot of details next week but the big event for Emelia next week she has been waiting for 15 months for, she is going to Taylor Swift with one of her close friend Neeka, the girls have been waiting for this since the tour was announced over 2 years ago. It will be chaos and a long week but we cannot wait to hear all about it.