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Review content:
J&K gave me both good and bad experiences. I have been cheering for six years, but this was my first competitive gym. Let me start by saying, J&K's competitive teams shouldn't exactly be called ""competition teams"". The company competitions are all of the ""town teams"" competing against each other. This was a slight downside, as I didn't gain much actual competition experience for my first year at this gym. There were six or seven different teams there when this was my gym, and although their were multiple teams (grouped by age) per town team, it still was and is a much smaller competition pool than all-stars and competitive rec. have given me.\r
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On the note of all-stars and competitive rec, their ""allstar"" or ""rec competition"" teams are another story. For starters, the REAL competition teams are these ones. When I cheered there, I was an Elite Storm Senior, although now they go by ""Extreme Storm (junior varsity ""babies"", seniors, etc)"". This team goes by USASF guidelines, but competes with the IRCA. I found this a bit annoying that we didn't compete with [as many] USASF teams, yet the IRCA competitions are fun, and a bigger and more competitive challenge than the town team competitions ever were. Next to Storm, there's Lightning cheer, which actually goes to USASF competitions, yet only has a level one team. Their team members are as old as 14, and to be honest, being on a level one team at 14 years old would be slightly disappointing. I'm not saying I'm F5 material, but at my current point I'm at a level three and 14. Although I never cheered for Lightning, you could see where the dissapointment of this team could be. They also have a dance team, Thunder, which I think to be fairly good. My friends on the team love it, so it's definatley worth a shot.\r
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Oh, the town teams will now be requiring try-outs. They haven't released any further information, yet I'd guess that tryouts mean they're going to start competing under USASF, which would mean they'd compete for CSG, Jamfest, and many other competitions. I seriously hope they amp up their team's fundamentals if so. They'll get murdered in these competitions if they don't.\r
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All in all, J&K was a good experience. Would I of stayed here for all of my cheer career? No, but it was a great gym to start competitive cheer at. Having moved on to competitive rec (with USASF competitions) and allstars, I can say that J&K did help me prepare for my current cheer ""career"". Definatley try it or put your daughter (or son! The cheer world needs more male athletes!) in it if they're interested in cheer. This just isn't the gym you want to stay in if you or your child ever has hopes of going to worlds or bigger and better competitions.
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