A lot of times I think gym owners are looking for the best deal on choreography. I get it. After all, choreography is one of our biggest expenses as a gym each year. I’ve had amazing choreographers and I’ve had ones I’d never hire back again. They weren’t necessarily terrible people, but they were not the right fit for my program.
So, today I’ll give you a few tips for hiring the best choreographer for you.
-
- Finances. I can’t help but start with this. If a choreographer is out of your budget, he or she is NOT the right one for you. Now that said, as a brand new gym with less than 20 athletes, it can be very hard to find a choreographer within your budget. Maybe you can’t hire from the most popular companies. Maybe you have a friend who owns a gym in the next state and he or she is able to offer you a good price for choreography. Maybe that friend has a coach who has pretty good choreography who will do it even more affordably. Another option even is that maybe you hire someone in to do transitions and dance, but you choreograph your stunts and pyramid alone. This can be an option with all companies, and it will force you as a new gym owner to get familiar with the scoresheet quickly. I’ve done this many times and our choreography, while stressful to plan, hit just as well as a choreographer’s. It definitely stretched us as well.
- Determine your preferred style, and make sure you hire a choreographer who has strengths in that style. For example, my kids can DANCE! I have had hip hop teams for 10 years. It’s not as common to see that from Midwest farm kids, so when I hire a choreographer, I make sure they have strengths in their dance and transitional choreography.
- Make sure your choreographer knows your strengths. My higher level teams are also really good at throwing and catching people. (Yes, I am laughing with you because I realize how ridiculous that sounds.) When it comes to creativity in stunting, twisting is not our strong point. We’re always working on it and have some great new drills, but at this time, I would for sure tell a choreographer to avoid twisting skills for the sake of creativity. (You reading this Jess? Throw and catch. 🤣) We also make sure our choreographer knows when our teams have strong skills in tumbling and jumps. If you have strengths in certain areas or things that come easier for your teams, your choreographer can emphasize those areas by where they’re placed on the floor, where they are in the routine and the transitions leading into them.
- Make sure they know your coaching style. I once had a choreographer tell me I’m a “puppies and rainbows” gym. He said some gyms are militaristic in what they expect of their athletes. NO ONE misses choreography. They practice hard leading up to choreography and they practice hard coming out of choreography. Before an end of season event, they amp up and practice even more. If they drop stunts, they condition. My gym just isn’t like that. If you dropped a stunt, but truly tried, we talk about it. We talk about what happened and help the athletes learn to make corrections when something doesn’t feel right. We rarely tell them they’re not trying hard enough, because a good culture in the gym means that kids try hard because they know they have to in order to reach their goals. My Junior 2 has hit really great all season. We’ve been able to add difficulty and they have MET the challenge every single time. They were undefeated until recently when they came in 2nd out of 9 to another undefeated team. Last week at their last practice before All Star Worlds, they weren’t hitting a thing. Instead of conditioning a team that has done so great all season, we talked about why these things were happening. We talked about how they would have an error in a stunt and panic, causing an overcorrection. That then led into timing being off. Then, pyramid was off. Then, they made an error in the stunt during the dance. A prep. Y’all, my nearly undefeated Junior 2 could barely put up a prep that night. At the end of the routine, I called them in and we made a circle. I turned into a therapist and we talked about how to take a deep breath even when you’re out of breath. I need a choreographer who can understand that my kids are trying to impress them and are just nervous. I need someone who can handle some nervous tears and someone who needs a little extra time for repetition. I need a coach who is my style.
- I need a choreographer who can understand my gym. When I’ve hired choreographers in the past, they’ve wanted a full floor and uninterrupted gym for the whole time. I just can’t offer them that. We have a very busy gym starting at 6 a.m. when my Summer Camp begins until about 9 p.m. each night. There isn’t a moment that recreational or summer camp kids aren’t in my gym during choreography. I would never prioritize one program over another. That means when my summer camp kids need to be on one floor for a couple hours to get their energy out, I need my choreographer to be able to handle the noise. If I have an audience of five year old future cheerleaders trying to climb up equipment to watch choreography, I need a choreographer who will be kind and understand that’s the future of my program. Above all else, I need someone who understands that all star is one program in my gym. It’s an important program, but so is my summer camp program. I need someone who can appreciate the value each program in my gym brings and be respectful of that.
No matter what, make sure you get references for your choreographers. If it’s a coach who does it on the side, then they should have teams they’ve worked with before. Make sure they love kids more than they love cheerleading. Make sure they can work with children with learning challenges. Make sure they are patient with kids who may not understand something. Make sure they have great communication skills because kids learn differently. Do your homework and stay within your budget. Good luck this summer!
