Observation: Execution Wins

Coaches often ask me 2 questions, what they should work on and what wins. I assume this is because I judge a lot of cheerleading, have judged for a long time, and watch even more cheerleading when not judging, giving me a pretty wide and long term view of what works. The short version of my answer is Execution.

In my opinion, executing cleanly and preparing in a way that allows your teams to execute cleanly, is the best thing you can do for a couple reasons. A team that executes cleanly has worked on the skill enough to move past the larger picture of just hitting the skill toward the finer details of exactly how the skill is being hit. This requires the group, coach included, to be confident the skill will hit and this confidence will show on the floor. Plus, once you get to the point that normal is hitting a clean routine, a bad day becomes having a couple bobbles. If normal isn’t having a clean routine, a bad day becomes falls and collapses.

Finally, I’m going to draw the unscientific conclusion that skills and routines that are executed cleanly and have fewer falls and collapses lead to fewer injuries. Fewer injuries are not only good for the athletes, but also the coaches that don’t have to replace the athletes in the routine, the programs that don’t have to explain the injury to the parents, and the industry for not making the news due to injuries, all wins in my book.