Team spirit
Twisting, tumbling, flipping, flying…Competitive cheerleading has a
strong foothold in the Bay of Plenty.
Words Hayley Barnett
Photos Quinn O’Connell
Cheerleading has always been known as an all-American cultural activity of sorts. A way to provide overly enthusiastic encouragement to sports teams and “cheer” them on to victory. But in recent years, the way we view cheerleading has completely changed, thanks in part to the highly-acclaimed doco-series Cheer on Netflix. Watching the agile young athletes twist and turn, we were all reeducated on what it means to make it as a true professional cheerleader.
Cheer, which premiered in 2020, offers a glimpse into the cutthroat world of pro college cheerleading and the sheer hard work and athleticism required to make it to the top. What you might not know is that, for the past 10 years, the Bay has been training its own cheer talent in the form of Bay Twisters Cheersport.
Offering competitive and non-competitive cheerleading from the age of four and up, the local club, based in Judea, Tauranga, has more than 140 students. Rebecca Grigson, alongside cheer champion daughter Anna, trains their students to compete both here and on the world stage.
“Anna started doing cheer in Auckland from a young age,” explains Rebecca. “Then we moved here to the Bay and there was nothing. I was worried she’d miss out on cheerleading, so one day I just said, ‘How about we try doing something on our own?’ It was crazy, but it worked!”
Today 22-year-old Anna, who has been doing cheer for 15 years, is on three cheer teams – two representing New Zealand and one being the
Top Gun All Stars team in the United States.
CELEB POWER
When Rebecca got in touch with US cheer team Action Cheer, the opportunity arose for Cheer Season Two star Jeron Hazelwood to fly in from Texas to train the young students of Bay Twisters. He was tasked with choreographing a competitive routine for 99 girls at Tui Ridge in Rotorua earlier this year.
Asked how our Kiwi cheer world differs from the all-American version, Jeron answers it’s not that much different.
“There are a lot of different rules and regulations around safety and that kind of thing, but all in all it’s not that much different,” says Jeron. “It would be good to see some more boys involved, but we have that problem in the States too!”
Jeron says the key aspects he loves about the sport aren’t just physical.
“Although I love being the show pony as much as anyone else, the best thing about cheer is that it teaches you not only physical strength but mental strength as well.
“Over in America, we don’t really care for crybabies,” he laughs. “It can be a bit of an eye-opener for some people.”
Rebecca insists Bay Twisters is not quite working to the same extremes as Cheer in terms of pushing the envelope.
“We haven’t had any serious injuries!”
Cheerleading has finally been recognised as an Olympic sport globally, but Rebecca says, in New Zealand, it still has a long way to go when it comes to recognising cheer for what it really is.
“To be officially recognised as a sport at the Olympics, after so many years, that was an amazing feeling,” she says. “People still think it's all about pom poms and short skirts at rugby games, and it does my head in. When people say it’s not a real sport, I say I'd like to see them go out on the floor for two-and-a-half minutes and do the routine that these kids do. We're slowly getting there, though.”