Cheerleading is a Sport

It’s weird. It’s almost like you wrote that argument without reading anything I wrote. I’m not sure who you are debating. Hey, young lady, “eyes up here”. I Can't Rebut a Rebuttal of an Argument I Didn't Make. Paragraph 1: I agreed that there are competitions, it requires athleticism, and know how it is judged. I have a kid that dances competitively. I’ve been to many, many competitions. Many have included cheer and acrobatic categories. I know how they work. Paragraph 2: I acknowledged cheerleading competitions. I’m well aware of them. I equated them to dance competitions in format and judging. That doesn’t make dance a sport. It’s still an art. Paragraph 3: I already conceded the physical aspect, even pointing out the AMA’s call for better protection and care for the athletes participating. Paragraph 4: I have no issue, nor did I ever state an issue, with judging. Judging is critical in many sports like figure skating, gymnastics, and diving. Did you copy your argument from a paper you wrote previously? All-Star Cheerleading I went to the Varsity.com page and read the opening. "All star cheerleading is different than school cheerleading in more ways than one…”[1] I googled another one, and found World Cup All Star Cheerleading. [2] "All Star cheerleading is an athletic activity that combines elements of gymnastic tumbling, dance, acrobatics and traditional cheerleading skills such as jumps and arm motions." "All Star teams are purely competitive and do not perform any traditional team support or crowd leading duties for sports teams or schools." Here’s what I conclude from visiting multiple sites. They all make a distinct effort directly up front, on their home page, to differentiate themselves from traditional cheerleading. They each go out of their way to say, “We don’t cheer.” and “We are different.” “We are a combination of many, many disciplines.” It's no longer traditional cheerleading. It's something else. I’ve drawn the parallel that dance competitions are a subset of a much broader genre of dance, which include ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, numerous street styles, swing, flamenco, hundreds of cultral applications, salsa, rhumba, and even yada yada yada. Competitive characteristics of one small subset of the genre do not make the entire genre of dance into a sport. Competitive dance is an offshoot from traditional dance, which is an art. You are asserting that Cheer competitions are a subset of a much broader genre of Cheerleading. You are asserting that the application of the “sport” label applies to the competitive “All-Star” category and therefore the “sport” label applies to the entire genre of cheerleading, which the governing bodies define as an "athletic activity". Even if you could convincingly describe the All-Star subset as a sport, you cannot apply the label to the entire activity category. You’ve changed the purpose therefore you’ve changed the activity. Your argument should have started with “All-Star Cheerleading, a specific application of cheerleading skills, is a sport.” It might have been more effective. National Yoga League Let me provide a hypothetical parallel. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I love Yoga. Yoga is awesome. It’s physical. It takes strength and flexibility. It takes years to master. It’s really hard. Look at me, I can put my feet behind my head. Football players can’t do that. I’m an athlete. But hey, Yoga is not a sport. It’s primary goal is health and wellness. And everyone agrees. Nobody ever says “Yoga is a sport" Now, I love Yoga sooooo much that I got a bunch of my Yoga friends together from my Yoga class, and I made a Yoga league. We found a Yoga master to rate our yoga poses. He gave us points and we tallied scores. We formed teams and did these insane Yoga formations like some freaky act in a Cirque du Soleil show. We even put them to music and it became a wildly popular with yoga enthusiasts. A few people paid some of the best Yoga athletes and we made the insanely exciting National Yoga League. What I’ve created is some new event with characteristics of Yoga, but in reality, it is no longer considered traditional Yoga. It’s a sub-genre that acts like a sport. It’s like an abomination of Yoga principles for the sake of providing a new experience for people tired of just listening to sitar music. () However, I would lose every debate I ever tried that said “Yoga was a sport."But I would include attractive people on the side of the mats yelling, "Gimmie a 'Y'!" "Gimmie an 'O'!" ... [1] http://www.varsity.com... [2] http://www.worldcupallstars.com...