The Great Coaches Podcast Episode 024

Wed, 2/10 9:11AM • 48:39

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

sport, cheerleading, coaches, people, competitive cheerleading, joanna, athlete, safeguarding, cheer, element, person, team, skills, dance, young, gk, england, run, year, gymnastics

SPEAKERS

Jim Woolfrey, Paul Barnett, Transition, Joanna Gamper Cuthbert

Paul Barnett  00:01

Welcome to the great coach's podcast.

00:05

To me, being perfect is not about that scoreboard after this is a chance

00:11

you can understand the person and you can then work towards a common goal. We

00:16

are all on the same team. Now you do it to the best your ability to focus on the fundamentals. We've gone over time and time again. great moments are born, and great

Jim Woolfrey  00:32

opportunity. My name is Jim Woolfrey. And you are listening to the great coach's Podcast, where we interview great sporting coaches to try and find ideas to help all of us lead our teams better. Our great coach on this episode is Joanna gamper. Cuthbert. Joanna is a trained dancer, a former cheerleading athlete, a head coach, and the current chair of the board at sport cheer England, the national governing body for competitive cheerleading. She is a founding member of parrot cheer International, where she was instrumental in helping develop the adaptive abilities division for the sport of competitive cheerleading. In 2017, Joanna led team England paronychia to their first gold medal at the ICU world cheerleading championships, Joanna has spent over 15 years working extensively as an Education Manager for dance companies and conservatories in the UK. She is also a freelance consultant offering safeguarding and Child Protection training. Joanna is an energetic and charismatic role model for young people looking to be involved in a sport that embraces diversity, promotes inclusion, and literally elevates participation. She speaks about the high energy of the sports competitiveness and the uniqueness of its parent athletes abilities to perform in perfect synchronization. As the sport makes great progress on its journey towards admission into an Olympic Games. You will hear her share a story about a young athlete that she was able to help achieve her dream and how coaches of young people are in a particularly unique position of trust and authority, working in an environment where they are physically interacting with children regularly and how it's Hermitian to ensure that there is a more formal and regulated approach to safeguarding and Child Protection within sports. I hope you enjoy it as much as Paul and I did the great coaches podcast. Joanna gamper. Cuthbert, welcome to the Great coach's podcast.

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  02:47

Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here.

Jim Woolfrey  02:50

We finally figured out how we could chat today. We've had a very interesting few minutes just getting our technology to agree with each other. And I think that's some skills that we're all learning over these interesting times while we're at it, if I could start off by just asking you, where are you in the world? And besides trying to connect with me, what have you been up to today?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  03:11

So I am speaking to you from England. I live in Kent, which is I'm about 40 minutes outside of Central London. It's about half past 11 here, but I've already been out and taking my son has swimming and then my daughter, Tiger has been taught ballet class. So I've kind of been ferrying people around this morning and doing all kinds of sports and kids activities today.

Jim Woolfrey  03:36

And your husband is just coming in from a long and invigorating run as well.

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  03:39

He's he runs marathons and he's just been out for for a quick run. So everyone's done something physical inactive today apart from me.

Jim Woolfrey  03:49

Physical activity is part of why we are chatting today. And so is getting to know a little bit more about not only your story into competitive cheerleading, but also your involvement as the owner of squad safe. And your role as the chairperson of the board at sport cheer England. Could you tell us a little bit about your role in both of these organizations?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  04:14

Yes, so sports in England is the new national governing body for cheerleading in England. It's been in existence for just over a year. It's about a year and upcoming up to a year and a half. And I've been in position as the chair of the board for the last year. Up until up until a year and a half when the board was was put into place. There was no sort of formal structure for a national governing body in the country in this country for cheerleading. And it might surprise you to know that actually, we've got around 89,000 competitive cheerleading athletes in the UK. And we were already taking a unified team England to the world cheerleading championships and we were doing pretty well out there. bringing home gold medals and they are stuff. Or they asked those that were involved at the time in team England to form a board because as I'm sure we'll go on and talk about the international governing body is now an Olympic member. And so they needed those that were bringing teams to the World Championships to be to have formal Federation's. So that's why sports England was was formed. So it's really embryonic stage of having a national governing body here and I've been kind of involved in in helping set up kind of policy procedure and structure and, and to help us get formal recognition. And I guess over that process, one of the things that has become so important to me as a reason for wanting a regulated board for it in this country when you consider especially how many 1000s of young people and it is predominantly youth sport that we have cheering here in England, is the need for formal regulated safeguarding and Child Protection within the sport. cheerleading and gymnastics is something where you are, you know, very physically hands on spotting skills, you're working in it in a way that that requires some real boots on the ground understanding of how how do you do child protection and safeguarding in that environment, I just became aware of how inadequate the current sort of provision was for training for coaches in this area. And while they while there are safeguarding and Child Protection courses that coaches could go on, they weren't directly speaking to the sport. There just wasn't that really specific kind of guidance for coaches. And so over lockdown, I wrote a course, I wrote a safeguarding course, which I got professionally credentialed, and I decided to launch a consultancy called squad safe. And I deliver training now to cheerleading dance and gymnastics organizations on how to create safe environments that protect young people. So that those are the two things that I do right now.

Jim Woolfrey  07:12

I'm looking forward to talking to you more about a number of those topics you mentioned there. But I actually want to step back a little bit. Because your career story is very fascinating. Can you share your own life experiences that have led you to become involved in these organizations?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  07:30

Yeah, so I am trained professionally as a dancer, that was initially what I thought I was going to go and do to be become a performer. While I was coming towards the end of my professional training, I sustained an injury, which kind of made it quite clear to me that I wasn't going to be professionally, dancing on it the whole time. And actually, I took a little detour, I did go, I went back into dance. But I took a little detour, working in film and television. And when I was working for one of these organizations, I was working as a researcher, we were working on a show where we wanted some cheerleaders and the rest of the TV production team said well, your your dancer, could you go along and go and try some some cheerleading and see if it's any good. And if we think the team's right, then maybe we could use them on a TV show. And we never ended up using the cheerleaders on the TV show, but actually, they asked whether I would be interested in coming and being part of their team and training with them. And so that's how I kind of got into, into cheerleading. And then simultaneously at the same time, I moved back into dance and developed a real interest in community dance practice. I went and actually did a postgraduate specifically in working with community groups, how to how do you teach dance and choreograph for a whole range of community groups, from older people to preschoolers to young people in hard to reach communities, people with disabilities. And so I was kind of, in tandem. Being an athlete in a program were in a cheerleading program where I was seeing the incredible benefits of this sport that taught teamwork and raised aspirations. And, you know, some of those young people in that program were winning national championships. And it was so inspirational for them that they realized they could go and go off and do you know, whatever they put their mind to in their lives. They were going and being like the first in their, their generation to go to university or they were starting their own businesses. I choreographed the receiving of the Olympic flame along the Thames at the South Bank, I was involved in doing that and various kind of Olympic cultural Olympiad stuff for the 2012. And so I did those two things in tandem. And then when I had my kids and I moved out of London to Kent, because that was all very London centric, everything I was doing there. I decided to set up my own cheerleading program here for young people, but kind of using that cheerleading almost like a Trojan horse, I had developed a real passion for how we use sports and dance to raise young people up into leadership, and how you can use the qualities of that. And the things that I'd seen. I just wanted more of that for the for young people. And so I set up a cheerleading program here in Kent called inspire all stars, and I ran competitive cheer programs. But alongside that there was a mentoring scheme, a leadership program, we were running workshops in nutrition in stress management, essentially kind of using using the sport as a way to help develop and support young people in their growth in all areas of their life. And that kind of led me to the point where I, where I am now, really,

Jim Woolfrey  10:52

I found this great quote from you said, I believe in the transformational power of the sport of cheerleading, to develop skills like teamwork, and trust, raise aspirations, develop grit, determination, and empower young people to become leaders in all walks of life. Can you tell us how you achieve this through your role as a coach?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  11:17

I think and I think some of it can maybe came from the fact that I had come from a completely different background, too. I didn't grow up doing sports, I didn't do gymnastics as a kid, I didn't have kind of outside historical kind of influences that were influencing the way I was, was coaching. And so I approached the idea of running the sports team, as I would have done any kind of community dance project, which was that, you know, we welcome everybody, we, we have an honest and open environment. And we find a role and we include everybody in it. So I think my, my initial starting point was perhaps a little different from some others that may have a have a sporting background that's around, you know, like, when I first started the program, I didn't even have competitive tryouts, I was like, Come, we will find a place for you, we want you to feel welcome. We want you to love this sport. And, you know, so it really started from a place of, like, compassion. And, and, and a love of the sport that was was more important to me than winning. I wasn't actually at that point, you know, we actually developed a program over the years that was great in terms of the success that we were having a competition. But that actually wasn't my end goal, I had a bigger picture, or a bigger reason for wanting those young people to be involved. And I saw the value of them not doing well at competition as much as I saw the value in them doing well at competition. And you know, when we would come back from a competition, perhaps where we hadn't done well, we'd talk about, what does it mean to fail? What What does that look like? What does it feel to us? What can we learn from it? How do we move forward? You know, and what are the life lessons that we can take from that. So I think it just may be the angle that I approached it as a coach, and then all of those other things that we were doing alongside it, all of the workshops, the managing stress, the nutrition, the social elements, and things that we were doing, which actually, you know, from a sports psychology, perspective, and a mental health and well being perspective, we now know from, you know, research that's being done in sports science fields by incredible people like Dr. Mr. Ross, who is at the English Institute of Sport, you know, we know that these things actually feed back into what creates a great team, and then that does translate to success on on the mat at competition. But that was never, I guess, my, my main goal in having that program because I think at the end of the day, young people, you know, not everyone will go on to a very few people, in fact, will go on to a professional sports career. And in fact, in cheerleading at the moment, there isn't a professional pathway in the same way there is for things like football, soccer, things like that. And so if we if we're saying that this is predominantly a youth sport, so someone's dedicated, you know, there may be dedicating 15 years of their life in that sport. At the end of the day, unless they you know, a winning a world championship or perhaps the Nationals they don't necessarily remember the winning and the losing what they remember is the lessons and the experiences that they had within that sport because the skills will be lost over time. You know, what you will remember is those life lessons that you took away from your experience on a team.

Jim Woolfrey  14:52

Joanna, is there a moment you can share with us where you feel you have made a difference to a person's performance and perhaps The life through your coaching.

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  15:03

Yes, I did actually ask the athlete whether I could share her story knowing that this question was coming up before and I've actually shared gks story before but when I started in spire given the the history that you now know that, you know, I started it as a kind of come on come on, I had no idea in Kent, there wasn't any kind of culture of cheerleading, you know, in some in some areas, if I was to start a cheerleading program in Manchester, for example, in England, there are lots of cheerleading teams in Manchester. And so if I had advertised one, there would have been a whole range of young people who would know what I was advertising and what it was I was inviting them to come along to. Whereas in Kent, there was no cheerleading in my local area going on. So I was having to do some advocacy for what even the sport was. And I had a bunch of young people who were kids of my friends who kind of got coerced into coming along to a couple of my first sessions, basically, to kind of make up the numbers. I think people felt a bit sorry for me, they were like, Well, my kids will come along to your first workshop to try it out, you know. And one of those young people was a guy called Gk Gk wasn't by her own admission, sporty, she was she had never really had an interest in it, her dad had been really keen for her to do something because he thought she should be doing some physical exercise. But she, she had not really been interested in it. And she wasn't like, particularly enamored by school, she was quite a tall girl. And she made the most fantastic blackspots. So when you have a stunt group, there's like four people throwing one of them up in the air, the person on the back is called the back spot. She was just such a fantastic back sport, she fell in love with the sport. And she said to me, this is going to be my sport. Now, this is what I want to do. This is my dream. And you know, I didn't quite build the program around her. But I was like, You know what, I have one person who says, This is their dream. So I'm going to keep pursuing this, we're going to build something great. And in that first year that I had the program, one of the coaches, he came in to work with me, she was doing a film at university and she asked if she could make a short film about us starting out as a team. And one of the people she focused on was Gk and she asked me Can we have it on this beautiful video her as this young kid saying, you know, what's, what's your dream? What's your vision, and she said, Our My dream is one day to, to go to the World Championships, you know, even if that's just to watch them, I really want to go to the World Championships. You know, as the years progressed, and Gk went from being an athlete in my kind of like senior lower levels team to my senior high levels team to being an assistant coach with me to being a coach with me. At that point in my career, I'd been involved at that point for a couple of years with running the para team for the for our national team. So team England parity, which is our adaptive abilities, disability team that goes to the World Championships. And she was like Gk was looking for a new opportunity. And I asked the coaching and management staff for Team England, whether they would take her on as an intern, they agreed. And so she went and was involved as an intern, supporting the team with their training. And she ended up flying out to the world championships with them in Florida. And I wasn't there that year. But I was watching on the live feed. And when team England adaptive abilities won a gold medal. And she was up there on stage with the world team with, you know, all the streamers coming down. And then we'll like hugging each other. And I was just like, Wow, I've just like, helped see this, this young person's vision through like a series of like that was, you know, kind of almost a 10 year process from never having done this sport to being on that world stage as a support for for a national team that had just won gold. And that was quite a sort of special moment for me.

Jim Woolfrey  19:02

Thank you so much for sharing that story. I'm sure Gk will be listening to this. And so Gk thank you for allowing Joanna to tell us your story. In times that we're living in, we can take a lot from the small moments of inspiration. So thank you so much for sharing that. I want to zoom in a bit on the sport of competitive cheerleading. It's best known for its American college roots. But why is the sport growing so quickly? In the UK, and many other countries?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  19:33

Yeah, so it's probably a good idea to maybe let people know a bit more about what the sport is because you're right. A lot of people if they've had no connection into the competitive cheer world, they will think of what we call sideline cheer, which is what you would see a you know, maybe a basketball game or a football game. You might even they might even you know they might be thinking of kids with pom poms. They might be thinking about the Laker girls, and neither of those is what we call competitive All Star cheerleading. So competitive cheerleading is a routine that comprises two and a half minutes of group tumbling. So that's the kind of gymnastics elements or the backflips back talks running tumbling skills that you'd see jumps, dance stunts. So that's kind of the group work where there's kind of that's akin to what you might see in an acro routine, where you get four or five people working together to, to put on one of them up in the air, and then pyramids, which maybe if you have a stereotypical view of of cheer, you might think of a pyramid, which is where you might have two or three layers, high kind of acrobatic type skills. It's a sport that encompasses it's an interdisciplinary sport, it encompasses lots of things. And so the appeal is much greater to people that want to get involved. So you might come from a dance background and start from a place of like, I love dance. And this gives me a chance to challenge myself, but I also know that there's an element I can already do, or, you know, a lot of teenagers come into check via gymnastics. So maybe they've done gymnastics till they were about 1415. And that's kind of the age in gymnastics where either you start to age out, because you perhaps realize that it's not going to be a professional career route for you, in girls, your body starts to change, and maybe some of those skills are not skills that you feel comfortable performing anymore. But there's a place within cheerleading because tirone comprises the tumbling element of gymnastics, and some people come with, with no skills before and just want a new challenge. And it's, I think it's an exciting, dynamic sport. And of course, it also is synonymous with that sort of youth culture of films and television, which, which makes it kind of cool. You know, it's, it's, it's a cool sport to be involved in. It's fantastic in terms of kind of the team elements. So it's growing not just in gyms around the country, but it's also becoming popular in schools, and particularly in high schools in the UK. And for engaging young women at the at young girls at the age at which they traditionally are dropping out of sports around that 1415 year age, there is good data to suggest that girls are dropping out sports. And cheerleading is one of those kind of sports that is picking those girls back up again and retaining them within physical activity.

Jim Woolfrey  22:26

When I was preparing for today, I watched videos of cheer teams competing against each other. And besides learning a lot about the sport itself, it was really great to see how teams and squads not only supported each other. But you know, what really stood out for me was that when teams were watching each other compete, they're not just watching them run the routine. They're almost in the routine with them, and actively supporting their competitors, actively encouraging them and recognizing the skills that each other has. And this leads me to what I actually want to ask you about when we spoke leading up to today. You said something that really resonated with me about cheerleading, you said, cheerleading is a unique team sport, helping rapidly build relationships and confidence. Can you explain how you've built these into your coaching philosophy?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  23:17

Yeah, so I think the when you join a cheer team, obviously, part of what you're learning is the the stunt skills, which you know, you only have to see somebody being thrown up in the air and caught. So you realize that very quickly, you need to develop trust within your team with the person in the air has to trust that the people below them are going to catch them. But also, and I used to be as an athlete, a cheer athlete, I was a bass, so I was one of the people that threw them in the air. And I will tell you, you also have to trust that the person in the air is going to do what they say they're going to do. Because, you know, if they freak out, or they, you know, decide to twist a certain way that you weren't anticipating, you may have to, you know, move quite quickly in order to catch them. And also you can get hurt underneath the skill of it comes down, and they've done something crazy. So there's a media element of trust, there's also a social barrier that to be got over in that you have to physically touch each other. So you know, if you're a back spot on the stunt, you're going to have to put your hands on the waist of the flyer, the person going up in the air, the top person because you're going to have to lift them into the skill. And so there's kind of relationship building, there's physical contact, there's trust, and the communication that has to happen between them as well because everything about cheerleading, is about synchronization. So all the tumbles will happen at the same time. All of the jumps will happen in synchronization and you get scored on your synchronicity but also, when you're putting up a pyramid. You know the timing of that. everybody's having to be in exactly the same timing. So you you nominate people who are responsible for shouting out the counts, and everybody's kind of To be listening to each other your pre perception in terms of what's happening behind you what's happening in front of you, if you've got lots of stunt groups that are very tightly close together, and very rapidly builds that sense of trust and teamwork with each other, because there is no one striker scoring the goal in a, in a pyramid, every everybody works together. And if if they're not, it doesn't happen. And then the pyramid comes down. And when it does go up, and everything hits, it's the most incredible feeling. And, you know, I think you did, it's a really great observation that when you've watched cheer routines that you've seen other teams cheering for them, because yes, there's that recognition of their skill. They know what's gone into that. And I think particularly if you ever watch teams in the UK at competition, they are also cheering one another on because above and beyond still, that desire to win is also the desire for cheerleading to be recognized as a sport. And so we want people to be doing well, because we want to showcase what this incredible sport Can, can do. And I think that's a really great kind of positive environment that's created at a competition. And I understand like, the more professionalized the sport becomes, you know, the winning and losing becomes a thing and but I think in this country, particularly, we're still at a, you know, a young stage for the sport. It's been going for about 30 years in this country, we have an opportunity to kind of do it right. We have, you know, British way of doing things and we are very supportive of each other and long may that continue.

Jim Woolfrey  26:37

Joanna, your family connections with sports spend countries, the one gamper trophy is an annual friendly football match held in August, before the start of FC Barcelona's La Liga season. It carries the gamper name in honor of one who was a club founding member, a player and later president of the club. And so my question is, how has your family influenced your coaching journey?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  27:04

Fan gampo was my great, great uncle. I'm very, very proud of my connection to Barcelona Football Club, and I go almost every year out for the gamper trophy, it's, I mean, we go sometimes at other times to go and watch the matches. But the gamper trophy is particularly special, because number of my relatives will come from wherever they are in the world, the last couple of years, one of my uncle's has come from Canada, to come and to come and watch. And we will get to sit in the President's box. And it's just like a really great kind of opportunity to remember our history and to be together as a family. And I remember the first time you know, when I was growing up, my dad would show me he has some memorabilia. And in fact, one, although he founded Barcelona Football Club, he was a Swiss player, and he was kept for Switzerland. And he played for SFC Basel, and we have some of his memorabilia and one of his Swiss caps. And, and, you know, so I knew this history, but it wasn't until I was kind of my early 20s, when I went out to Barcelona FC and saw the museum for the first time and I was like, Whoa, this is like, there are all these photos that I was like, these are like family photos, we have versions of this photo, like in our house, just replicated in frames and kind of the reality of that history in reading in the museum about, you know, the the philosophy of the club and mesquite on club. And, you know, we're, we're more than a club, that it's about nurturing the whole person in that community in that connectedness. And, of course, you know, that's also full for Barcelona that's rooted in their castle and politics. But, you know, I became really inspired by the the philosophy of that idea of more than a club and wanted to take that back in and make that part of what I was doing, you know, to just be really inspired by them really. And at that point, you know, they hadn't had a sponsor on their, their shirts before and that then then they chose UNICEF, that also inspired me inspired to start like a charity and social activism elements of the work that we were doing. So we became involved with a local charity here. So like, we were doing it on a micro level. And obviously, it seems like a macro level, but, you know, that really inspires inspires me. And yeah, I'm very, very proud of these roots.

Jim Woolfrey  29:24

I'd like to go back a little on something you started talking about a bit earlier. And that is the mission that you are on, to have cheerleading included in the Olympics. Can you tell us a little bit about this?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  29:37

Yes. So at the same time, as England started taking a national team out to the world cheerleading championships, the ICU, which is the international to Union, the international governing body for cheerleading, they were applying to the IOC for provisional Olympic membership status. And that application process is a three year process. Why wait? by an international governing body, we'll be awarded provisional membership. And they then have three years in which to undertake all of the kind of additional necessary development that the ICC deems required by a sport in order to then have membership status. And once you have that membership status, which cheerleading now has, it makes you eligible for inclusion in the Olympics. And one of the items that is a requirement in that process is also looking at the provision for Paralympic track as well within a sport. And I was really privileged to be involved with some, some other athletes here, who have gone on to be coaches and now run a charity called parity international in developing what became the first ever para team in the world. And we showcased in 2016 at the world cheerleading championships and we had a bit of a weight on our shoulders because the ICU asked Rick Rodgers from parrot to international who's a wheelchair using athlete who was already exploring how do you do cheer in a wheelchair, asked him whether he would go away and create a team that we could kind of test, test out whether this was even possible with and Rick asked me whether I would with not only my background in working in dance and disability, but I'd also been Rick's coach before his just before his accident that that left him using a wheelchair I had been Rick's cheerleading coach. So we had a history together. And he said, would I come on board and help create a team to showcase it at Worlds and they ICU had said to us, you know, if this is successful, if you're if the showcase is successful, then we will run an adaptive abilities division, and it will become a world championship division. So we had this real weight on our shoulders, but at the same time, it was super exciting because we had we were literally inventing stunts, because we had this mixed disabled and non disabled athlete team, but across the the the range of disabilities, and we had athletes with limb difference. We had athletes with visual impairment with hearing impairment. And we were there going okay, well, we want to put this stuntin How do we do this done, if one person is a wheelchair user, one person that only has one arm and our flyer can't see anything other than light and dark. And so we were kind of creating and inventing stents as we went along. And it was really exciting. And we showcased in 2016. And they were really excited and happy with what we were doing. And so the division opened in 2017. So I'm really proud to have been a part of what will, I hope go on to be, you know, part of the IPC and IOC, Olympic and Paralympic sports when cheerleading is included. So we've now completed that three year, or the I see you, the international team in has concluded their three year period, and they are now a member sport. So it's up to a host country to choose cheerleading to be included. And I'm really hoping that, you know, I think I imagined 2028 might be a year, that would just be an incredible thing to have been part of the history of that.

Jim Woolfrey  33:13

Every four years, the Olympics come around, and many of us will sit with our families for just hours and watch the grace and elegance of sports that we probably wouldn't necessarily otherwise engage with sports like ice dancing in the Winter Olympics, maybe gymnastics and synchronized swimming in the Summer Olympics. What is it about the sports that you think really captures people's attention?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  33:40

Yeah, I think I mean, I think part of it is that it's it's not something that you're used to seeing you don't you know, I think the only time I've ever seen Synchronized Swimming is that the Olympics, it's not something that gets a lot of televised air time, necessarily outside of that. And so it's the uniqueness and the novelty of seeing something new. But those sports and you know, the ones that you've picked out there is something akin to cheerleading, you know, an element of those sports that that's drawn into cheerleading and I think cheerleading is just such a, you know, I know that the I and the IOC are really keen for cheerleading to be included because it is such a great televisual sport. It's so dynamic. It's so exciting. There's the element of risk, you know, are they going to fall is someone going to make that catch, you know, it has like an exciting dynamic element to it and cheerleading also at the world's level, and the competitive level rather, there is a element of the scoresheet, which is about overall crowd appeal and performance. And that's one of those elements that has stayed from the days of kind of traditional sideline cheer of kind of encouraging the crowd like part of what the sport is about. Part of the competition routine is about energizing and exciting people. So there's that great freedom within choreographic element and not just current by choreographic. I don't just mean the dance element. But the whole choreography of a routine and how it's put together that is about getting people excited. If you watch it enough, you can familiarize yourself with the language of the different skills and you can start to enjoy it from another angle as well as a sport that's easy to understand as well as a spectator so you can kind of enjoy things more when you when you understand, understand them. Right.

Jim Woolfrey  35:28

I'd like to shift back to another topic. You also mentioned earlier, joining you, a passionate and outspoken advocate for the safeguarding of both athletes and coaches in the sport of cheerleading. Can you explain this a little further?

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  35:43

Yeah, so I mean, in terms of how a club would operate, that, obviously different countries have different kind of procedures and policies in place for how they do that. But, you know, anybody who's sending their young person along to a club should expect not only for their coaches to be appropriately credentialed in order to coach the skill, so they actually understand the sport that they're coaching, but they should also expect them to have a police background check, and to have undertaken some kind of training, so that they not only know how to behave appropriately, and you know, the identification of good and poor practice, but also how to report anything to the authorities or appropriate people should should something happen because being a coach, not just in cheerleading, but I do think cheerleading, sports, like cheerleading and gymnastics give you additional insight, because of that kind of hands on element. But as coaches, we're in such a privileged position to potentially be that somebody for a young person who is experiencing abuse, not necessarily within the sports setting, you know, but you are in, you're in a position of trust, you're the person that somebody might, that a young person might talk to, you know, where they wouldn't talk to a parent, or they wouldn't talk to a teacher, but you're also in a position to see them, you know, their behavior, you might spot something in the, the physical behavior of a young person, which causes you to, to raise some questions about what's going on in their life. And also, you know, in a sport like cheerleading where you're in small shorts and T shirts for training, you may notice things on a young person, like, you know, perhaps bruises that are in unusual places. I mean, in cheerleading, it's a challenge, because obviously, you're getting bruised all the time. But you know, you might notice, you know, maybe bruising or cuts on a young person that causes you to raise some issues, you're in a really privileged position. And obviously, with that privilege become comes, comes responsibility and knowing how to how to support that young person appropriately, how to report how to do all of that stuff. That's a real, you know, it's not only like, an education in a skill set, but there's also legal responsibilities around that. And, and, of course, also, you know, sports environments give rise to the opportunity that a coach may be a predator or an abuser themselves. And so helping coaches to identify when a colleague might be somebody that raises a concern and how you manage that. And I think those are elements that, you know, perhaps some of that is missing from traditional safeguarding training because you know, that if you're, if you just got a standardized course, it's not addressing particular scenarios that might happen in a gym that you wouldn't get, you know, in a school or maybe a youth club or whatever. And it is so important that we equip our coaches to, to know what to do and to feel confident to do the right thing as well, you know, because I think a lot of it for coaches is around the confidence they're frightened of doing the wrong thing. You know, what if I report and I've made a mistake, or what if, you know, I don't want to split up a family, what is my responsibility? What is my role? How do I protect this young person? And yeah, I just want to really empower coaches, so that they, they they're equipped with that information and and also to help them to help young people identify good and poor practice. So we've we have environments in our gyms that are where we're, we're openly talking about safeguarding issues, we can help young people understand, understand and identify, because also, you know, perhaps a young person doesn't know if they're being touched in the way they're being touched is appropriate, hands on spotting technique or not. And I think that's really important as well that we give young people body autonomy and empower them to kind of also identify I mean, the responsibility 100% is on the coaches. But if we can help empower our young people as well to identify those and create, you know, I want to teach coaches and gym owners how do you create an on purpose intentional culture in your gym, that creates transparency and communication.

Jim Woolfrey  39:58

I'm sure there is a lot more, we can Talk about on safeguarding across all sports. Because if we want to encourage participation, this is an area that requires attention, not just for athletes, but as you also explained, coaches need to know where to go to help each other, or what to watch out for, or even just to be better at it themselves.

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  40:17

Yeah. 100% This is a conversation that, you know, all sports should be having. And, you know, some sports at the moment are having it under very difficult circumstances, recognizing that perhaps, you know, it's not something that's been done well in the past, and, you know, how do we now work to rectify that, and that's about listening to, you know, the stories of survivors and, and getting staff trained, it's not good enough to, for staff to go in gyms to go, or whatever sport it is, oh, you know, that's terrible, you know, that that happened, and not recognizing that, you know, it might be a problem in their own club, or not necessarily an immediate problem but, but just because you've managed to run a successful team and not have an issue up until now, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't prioritize it. And in fact, I do think prioritizing for any sports club is a, that works with young people or adults at risk, you know, vulnerable adults as well. It's should be a priority. And again, when you're creating that environment that is open and transparent, and where communication is, is valued, you know, then you, you also create better team. You know, I spoke to a conference to a lot of American coaches who run most gyms in America or run as businesses. This shouldn't be your main reason for wanting to do it. But the you know, another key thing about it is it's good for business, parents want to send their kids to a gym or to a sport where they know that they're going to be kept safe and where the child is prioritized.

Jim Woolfrey  41:54

Joanna, thank you for shining a light on this topic. Both Paul and I have young daughters who are actively involved in extracurricular activities. And knowing that coaches like you, drawing attention to the area of safeguarding is very reassuring. And I know many people listening to this today who are parents would probably echo these feelings and say, Thank you keep going keep pushing that agenda, because it is appreciated. Yeah,

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  42:21

thank you. I, you know, I, I jokingly said to you, when we were doing the pre pre chat before the podcast, that it's the hill that I'm prepared to die on, you know who I am, I'm really, you know, this is if I truly believe if for no other reason to push ahead with a national governing body in England for the sport of cheerleading. And there are many other reasons why we should be pushing ahead with it, you know, around supporting other types of regulation and funding opportunities for grassroots and all of those things. But really, and truly, I want to see regulation of safeguarding and whatever country and whatever sport you're in that should be at the forefront of people's kind of missional. work as a coach is to is to see young people kept kept safe in the sport.

Jim Woolfrey  43:10

Join us you've been super generous with your time today. Thank you so much for what you've given us. Before I asked you My last question, I'd like to point out again, to those listening who may not recognize the significance of what competitive cheerleading has achieved in the UK, over 89,000 participants. In 2017, the UK team won the World cheerleading championships. In 2019, a junior team won the Junior World Championships after coming second the previous year, the sport has developed an impressive platform of inclusion for young people beyond gender, the pair athletes as well to come together and use their uniqueness in ways that hasn't been really explored in other sports before. And so Joanna, my last question for you is, what is the legacy that you want to leave cheerleading? Oh,

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  44:00

well, I mean, I think if it on a really personal level, you know, I don't know how long I might be in my position. At the end. GB we at the national governing body, we have a two year terms. So I've just come to the end of my first year term. And I think, you know, the thing I talked to the board about whenever we're talking about adopting new policy or structure is, how can we leave this in the best place for somebody else, you know, maybe it will be me, they're still in like 10 years time, but I doubt that, you know, I doubt it, though. You know, there'll be we want to see opportunity for other people. But you know, in the time, the time that I have, what can I do to leave it in the best place for other people in terms of kind of support structures and, you know, I'm a big fan of leaving things better than you had them yourself and then, so, I guess from a from an MGB perspective, it's it's to to build something that will last and support the continuous Have the sport here in a way that you know really supports and champions young people and and then with with squad safe it is that's really a kind of a It sounds very grandiose Oh, when I say like this because I'm one person on my own. But you know a bit of a global mission, you know, I've been really privileged to very recently have been able to talk on some, some international platforms about safeguarding in sport. And, and there aren't very many people that are talking about it. And at the moment, and I really hope that that more and more people start talking about it. But yeah, just to kind of, to reach as many people as I can, really and to, potentially, through through that kind of training and education, support and save some young people from some difficult situations. And, you know, I think coaches have the opportunity to we, you know, we often talk about coaches of significance or, you know, when you hear interviews with professional sports people, they talk about those grassroots coaches that they had that help change their life, maybe they were the person that kept them safe from a situation in their home or whatever it was that they did for them, and you know, that we can help build more coaches of significance and in young people's lives. And yeah,

Jim Woolfrey  46:22

Joanna, thank you for your stories and for your insights. Your Enthusiasm is so infectious, and I know many people listening to this podcast today, we'll be looking to discover the visually exhilarating sport that is competitive cheerleading. We hope to see all the teams back out on the mats and into competition again soon, but also keeping an eye on its Olympic journey. Thank you so very much for your time today.

46:47

Oh, thank

Joanna Gamper Cuthbert  46:48

you so much for the opportunity to share

Transition  46:53

the great coach's podcast.

Paul Barnett  46:56

Hi, everyone, it's Paul here. And you have been listening to our discussion with Joanna gamper customer. The key highlights for me were how Joanna is using dance and choreography to reach people with disabilities. how competitive cheerleading helps young women stay in physical activity. At ages, they have been dropping out of more traditional sports, and how grassroots coaching in the community helps make a difference in young people's lives. I hope you enjoyed it as much as Jim and I did. In our next episode, we will be speaking to legendary cycling coach Charlie Walsh,

47:32

strong view that everything is driven by the mind. And even so even in the recruitment of particular muscle fibers within the muscle that's driven by the mind. So everything that we do the sequencing, everything we do is driven by the mind. And so we need to make, as I said in a training of what we do the best mind in the competition. And if we haven't trained the mind to do that, then we'll then we're failing. You're never the best body in the world. If we haven't conditioned the mind to satisfy the competition demands, then as a coach, we have failed.

Paul Barnett  48:12

And just before we go, coaches are not usually the type of people who seek the spotlight. And so if you can put us in contact with a great coach that you know has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you. You can contact us using the details in the show notes.