Image from Digital Artist Jonas De Ro
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The year is 2022. The cities are quiet and the streets are empty. A SafeEntry poster floats and lands onto the ground. A humanoid police drone patrols the street as a street lamp flickers in the distance. In a dark corner, by a dilapidated, abandoned playground, the faintest sound can barely be heard: ... 5 6 7 8.......”
Police Drone: “PEE PU PEE PU... YOU ARE VIOLATING SECTION 532a MANDATORY STAY HOME NOTICE... STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND STAY ON THE GROUND... RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!” ...
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Okay, let’s not worry about this unlikely, almost 100% impossible future. Let’s talk about now.
The year is 2020.
COVID-19, Circuit-Breaker, Safe-Distancing; these words are no stranger to our daily news feeds, amongst other (related) news. Every day: “Singapore reports XXX cases of COVID-19, with XX community cases.” We are all keeping our fingers crossed for the day we see a consistent dip in XXX and XX, but we’re not there yet. We’re working towards it, but not there yet.
No doubt, COVID-19 has impacted our lives in many ways. Some, more than others. Our lives as we know it have changed drastically, and many of us are still trying to adjust.
Cheerleading, has come to a grinding halt in the face of the pandemic. The postponement and subsequent cancellation of CASNCC and ACIC 2020 was testament to that. Since then, all forms of cheerleading has been disallowed as the country implemented drastic measures to break the circuit. Only until recently, physical conditioning and tumbling training was allowed, in line with the nation’s reopening.
Jokes, we all know it’s a necessary decision.
PRE-COVID-19 CHEER SCENE
Let’s be honest. Before 2020, it’d be stretch to put cheerleading in the Top 100 growing, up-and-coming booming industries. Actually, probably not even Top 1000 perhaps. The point is, even before COVID-19, Singapore cheerleading was not what it was before.
Back in the day, youth in Singapore polytechnics had the option to pick up cheerleading as an extra-curricular sport, recognised by the educational institute. However, current circumstances dictate that this shouldn’t be the case anymore. SP Gusto, TP Blazers, RP Rexaz, NYP Grizzlers, and NP Magnum have since closed down, all of which had rich cultures that produced many talented cheerleaders. Currently, youth are able to pick up cheerleading in universities, which forms the main bulk of the fresh batch of cheerleaders every year and even then, hall and school teams face tremendous difficulty in recruiting new members.
So people started to question: Where else can we find young athletes to replace the ageing cheer population? (Cheerleaders typically have a relatively short lifespan. 98% of cheerleaders retire after the age of 30 [unverified and unconfirmed statistic - don’t take our word for it]) Because let’s face it. It’s not easy for a team to juggle training the competition team and nurturing completely new cheerleaders at the same time. (How should a team prioritise? …But this is a whole other conversation for another time). There were definitely more efforts by some teams to recruit and groom the next generation of cheerleaders… but the question is... is it enough?
Let’s look at why this pandemic has worried many cheerleaders about the future of the sport.
1. No Training
As of the time of writing this article, physical conditioning and tumbling training is allowed. Due to the extremely close contact nature of the sport, it is unlikely that stunting (partner stunts, group stunts, pyramids) will resume anytime soon, without the risk of transmission to everyone on the mats. But we hope it will resume soon. We really do. Maybe if we wear masks, gloves, face shields... who’re we kidding.
Stunting has always been the highlight, and backbone of cheerleading, something unique to us. An individual interested in tumbling might turn to gymnastics, tricking, or even parkour. But if you’re interested in stacking humans onto humans and maybe stacking even more humans, while spinning, twisting and flipping, cheerleading is the place to be (with the arguable exception of acrobatics, that is not as well-established in Singapore at the moment).
How many people have set personal goals and invested so much time in stunting, only to find their passion slowly erode? #stayhome. One can only wait so long, before starting to think about other life goals. 👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻
2. No Team Competitions
So CASNCC and ACIC 2020 has been postponed, and cancelled. What about CASNCC and ACIC 2021? CAS explained in a post that CASNCC and ACIC will resume sometime in 2021. But does anyone really know when that will be?
Team Competition has always been the boss stage of a cheerleading career, for most. That is why most teams peg their season to CASNCC/ACIC. It gives cheerleaders purpose, a goal to work towards, and a key milestone for many to plan their retirement from the sport.
As discussed, cheerleading is a sport with extremely close contact. Currently, sports that allow for safe distancing measures, are allowed to carry on with 5 pax at a time.
How exactly would the shape and form of cheerleading look like when it is finally allowed to resume? Will we be limited to a 5 pax group? And how often are we able to change the members of the 5 pax group
CAS had previously shared that the readiness of individual athletes and the team is an important factor for them to decide whether to hold the competition or not. For good reason, of course. What is the minimum lead team that teams are allowed to train for a competition then? At this rate, CASNCC/ACIC April 2020 seems mighty unlikely. Thankfully, CAS is already in contact with local teams to gather feedback from the ground on a more feasible timeline.
OUTLOOK
So, the question right now remains: How will Singapore cheerleading look like in 1, 2, or 3 years’ time? The future is uncertain, and nobody will know for sure. But let’s try to make a good guess here.
The Positive Side.✅
Stunting will be allowed to resume soon, in small group sessions. Tumbling lessons will continue. Cheerleaders will slowly but surely, start to crawl out of quarantine. Some form of e-competition is created, video submission for partner stunt, group stunt, or small team cat is encouraged.
The social media presence for cheerleading begins to grow, on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The youth in Singapore is influenced and inspired, and new cheerleader recruits start to sign up. Existing teams (especially school teams) continue to maintain lifeline, allowing for newer teams to start up. Sg cheer survives.
The Not-So-Positive Side.❌
Stunting will be allowed to resume not-so-soon, in small group sessions. Tumbling lessons will continue. Cheerleaders start to crawl out of quarantine, only to be reminded how out of touch they are. They think about the future they have built during the circuit breaker period, and wonder where does cheer fit into it now. Some stay on. Most, crawl back. Teams struggle to keep sufficient members to piece up a team routine, and subsequently decided that it’s the end of the road... No happily ever after.
Possible? Nobody knows... the future, as ever, remains mysterious and unknown. It would be wiser for us to focus our attention on the present instead of worrying for the future.
WAY FORWARD
So what are some things that can save the sport that we love?
Individually, we’ve got to keep fit. Fit physically, and fit mentally. Everyone seems to be doing some form of #cofitnotcovid home workout program, which is keeping everyone on their toes, waiting for the day to finally cheer again. To keep mentally fit, is to find ways and means to keep the cheer passion alive. Dream stunt? Perfect routine? That flyer/base you’ve always wanted to impress? That coach you always wanted to prove wrong? There are many different reasons why people stay in the sport, we just have to find one that is relevant, and always remind ourselves why we cheer in the first place.
As a community, perhaps it is time to focus on perfecting basic stunts, instead of pushing for new stunts. It has been widely acknowledged that the outlook of cheer is widely dependant on how many new cheerleaders there are. As such, the priority should not be on pushing the difficulty of cheer in Sg, but instead focus on perfecting simpler stunts that are naturally more inclusive to new cheerleaders. This is of course, not mutually exclusive.
On an organisational level, one item on the to-do list should be to source for sustainable influx of new cheerleaders. DECS is a great example of such a solution. Perhaps private education institutions, collaboration with youth agencies, or partnership with government sports organisations might be the way to go. Of course, the cost and effort required may not be as simple as all of us think.
However, the moooooooooooooooooooost important of them all, is that all cheerleaders should respect current pandemic measures, implemented by the government and CAS. The last thing we want is for cheerleading to be thrown into the spotlight for irresponsible behaviour. If there’s only one thing you take away from this, is that we’re all in this together. We’ve got to work together to tide our way out of this crisis, for a better tomorrow.
Who knows when will an international vaccine save us from our current situation? Till then - Stay Home, Stay Safe.
Disclaimer:
This article was written and based on facts from Aug 2020. Any new information published thereafter might affect the validity of some statements in this article. This was written purely to share perspectives on the current circumstances, and harbours no intention to offend or smear the teams/organisations mentioned.