Taking One For The Team

I had the ultimate mom retreat this weekend, with 10,000 of my not-so-closest friends - and a couple of very good ones! Appropriate timing as it was mother's day weekend...not so appropriate in that neither my mother, my husband or 3/5ths of my children were with me! I didn't say it was the ultimate mother's day - just a really cool opportunity to do some hard core mommy-watching, solve every parenting issue in the world over a bottle of wine - and genuinely count my blessings!
I'm sure that, by the end of Saturday night, my friends and I could have written a way better version of the Psych 101 book that students pay far too much money for in first year university - and ours would have been a much more entertaining read, with a forgiving Merlot as our editor !!!

The event was the National Championships for All Star Cheerleading. An unlikely venue for psychoanalysis - but some of those crazed cheer moms were ideal subjects! Those living vicariously and wishing it were them shaking the groove thing (honey, your a 40 something year old woman, lose the 4" heals and cropped shirt!) ...others cracking under the pressure of Nationals and creating drama to rival the Sopranos! One by one, we watched as events unfolded and brought out the absolute best and worst in the cheer moms of Canada...but at the end of the day - our girls, our team, our moms rose above the raging hormones and raw emotions that can consume such an intense environment - and simply enjoyed the ride!

Granted, the ride was no horse and buggy....it was a high-speed, terrifying roller coaster with all of the gut wrenching highs and lows! The sickening anticipation as the train clicks up an endless and steep hill...(will they fall...will they stick) the heart-in-the-throat thrills as it soars down 90 degrees (they're doing it!!!!) to "thank God it's over" emotions...that last until ya line up and do it all again the very next day!

But what was really cool about our experience this weekend was the way the girls undermined drama rather than exploiting it...God knows they had legitimate cause for "excuses"- cause for ladies to freak out, cause to melt down...from the head coach sitting in the ICU on a ventilator in Ottawa - as the team busses pulled out to the venue in Toronto, only to have him appear at the hotel door during the Saturday evening team meeting (Tears flowed and shreaks could be heard throughout the building when he turned up)...to tumblers with broken fingers and sprained necks...to "I lost my skirt...I lost my shoes, I lost my tumbling"!!! There were girls with the flu, mono and nervous jitters...so why no drama??

That's what we moms explored...nooo we weren't ONLY there to cheer on the cheerleaders, we were there to figure this stuff out!!! And we did. Our team is coached by a few people who get it! And by that I dont JUST mean cheerleading - of coarse they are among the best choreographers and cheer coaches in the country - but they also get what makes a team work! They keep the girls togther - bonded - united...away from crazy cheer moms, parents with boundless enthusiasm and advice - and they make these young ladies accountable to each other! They ride the bus together to all competitions - near or 22 hours far...They keep them together for meals - they have team sleep overs - they make these girls stretch the boundaries of a sports team - and create a sisterhood - where all of their hopes and fears are shared and accepted...There's no animousity if someone forgets something...they ALL go back to get it! If someone gets a tumbling block - they ALL band together to get her through it...and that connection is the antedote to drama! We're all in this together - we'll get through it together - not by freaking in the halls, running to mom or storming off - but by drawing from the bond these coaches forged all season long! When things are rough - the girls turn inward to each other. They've grown so committed to NOT letting each other down - they can overcome any obstacle! One girl literally swallowed vomit and carried on with a dance during their performance while another fought through her block and nailed an awesome tumbling line...Broken limbs, sprained neck, and even an escape from ICU were proof that the strength in the positive message of unity and accountabilty moves mountains! The genuine desire to come through at all cost and to OWN every minute is the most powerful lesson a club can offer - and yet, it seems to be the one most clubs leave out...When other teams fail - the spiral of blame starts - "the base dropped me, the coach messed up..." In our world - that's simply unacceptable. Our girls "bring it" when it counts - they do whatever it takes, they pour 100% in and refuse to let each other down...

My hat goes off to anyone who teaches my daughter this critical life lesson - that many folks in business and in sports are still trying to grasp! No matter how much hardware we brought home on mother's day - there is no better gift than knowing my daughter gets the whole dedication and accountabilty thing.

So we watched other team's drama unfold around us as the competetion heated up...and we marvelled at the composure that accountability brought to ours. By the end of the weekend - we had three National Champion Banners, and a group of ladies who were heading home even closer than they were when those busses pulled out of Ottawa 2 days before - They arrived at the largest competion in the country ...and they left it all on the floor - for each other, for their coaches and because they decided for themselves that failure was not an option...we can write about it - but can we bottle it up and sell it??? That's a discussion for another competition weekend.