Full Disclosure, I was on the team that got named 2010 Jamz Open Coed Level 6 National Champion. Fun! Go Rebel’s Elite!

That being said, I want to talk about the way the competition is run and why (sorry) I didn’t really enjoy the competition. I enjoyed my experience with my teammates, who are AWESOME! but the competition was lack luster for me. Here are some reasons why:

  1. Lack of consideration for crossovers. Rebel’s brought two level six teams to compete at this competition. The reason is because we had more than enough people to fill one team, so we have two. A coed and an all girl. While it’s great to have two teams, we don’t have enough (yet) to fill two completely separate teams. Not to mention the fact that injuries throughout the season has caused the need for cross overs. For those of you who don’t know what a cross over is, it’s someone who competes on more than one team for the same gym. Usually I frown on this process, but in our case it was absolutely necessary to do it.

    When we competed here, our teams almost piggy backed each other. What this means is that we didn’t get to go through the correct warm up for our second team, because during our time no the first mat, we had people on the competition floor with our other team. I feel like this really put our coed team (which went second) at a disadvantage. This was really not cool.

  2. Long and boring awards. The Jamz staff have some amazing skills. And while the awards were going on, they were showing off, in a good way. There was a ton of tumbling and some very fun stunting. One guy (famous John) even through a couple double tucks and attempted a double punch front. Despite the entertainment, the awards dragged on. I sat through two sessions of awards. They had the same musical act perform. Once they started announcing the awards, the distractions on stage took away from the announcer and while the energy was high, it was unsustainable and over time faded.

  3. Boring back drop. Some companies go all out with their stage presentation. UCA goes crazy. Jamz did a very simple back drop, which was all black just with some traditional lights. While normally I feel that it is a good thing to let the routines stand out, I felt that their approach was too little. I don’t need a ton of flash and smoke (in fact, I hate smoke, it makes the air harder to breath), I do like a little color. The result was a lack of excitement. The whole hall felt overly dark.

Rebels is, at this point, a three time national champion at the competition so I have a hard time believing we won’t return next year, but I’m hoping that Jamz will fix some things before that competition. We’ll see next year.