A Wonderful Cheer Experience with a Few ChallengesOur daughters spent a year at Cheer Extreme Sanford, and we had such a positive experience with the incredible coaches, staff, and especially the Cheer Mom, who was so kind and welcoming. She always celebrated the various holidays for the kids with fun necklaces, spoiled them with adorable bags with the gyms logo and all the things. The sense of community here is truly special, and its clear that everyone involved is passionate about creating a memorable and special environment for the athletes.One aspect that stood out was the structure of Baby Teal, the team for younger athletes (ages 3-7). With so many little ones, I feel that having an additional Cheer Mom or Co-Cheer Mom would have been beneficial in managing the needs of the team. She is handling so many messages, and putting out so much information, in charge of taking all the photos at the competitions and practices it too much for one person with such a large team. About halfway through the season, parents were asked not to stay during practice, which makes perfect sense for helping the kids focus. However, for younger children who may still need assistance with the bathroom, like one of my two daughters on the team, it made me slightly anxious but the season went without incident.A big challenge for us was the tumbling schedule. Tumbling is a separate class with its own fee and takes place on a different day, which unfortunately didnt align with our schedule due to our commitment to Gary Taylor ballet. Because of this, my girls didnt receive tumbling training this year, which I feel hindered their skill development during these critical early years. Ideally, I would love to see a program that integrates tumbling into regular cheer practice, even if it meant a higher monthly tuition cost.One thing that made me a little sad was that siblings were not always able to attend certain events. As a working mom managing four kids with different activitiesincluding piano, travel soccer, cheer, gymnastics, and balletit can be difficult to navigate a schedule that works for everyone. I completely understand the need to keep events focused on the athletes, but with the demands of a military family and a busy household, it would have been nice to have more flexibility for siblings to be included. Perhaps with additional support for the Cheer Mom, there could be a way to accommodate families with multiple children in the future.Despite these challenges, our experience was overwhelmingly positive. The dedication of the staff is evident, and the private lessons we took were helpful, though with multiple athletes at different skill levels, it was understandably difficult for the coach to divide attention equally. That said, Gracie is absolutely amazing, and we are so grateful for her efforts!This gym was our first choice, and continues to be our first choice and we deeply wanted to be part of the Cheer Extreme family. While we may need to step away for now to focus on tumbling so they can move up to the next team, we truly hope to return in the future. Thank you to everyone at Cheer Extreme Sanford for such a wonderful year!
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