Are Cheer Gyms Really Safe?
And the answer, quite frankly, is disturbing. Let me tell you a true story of one elite cheer gym in Colorado that happened just recently. A girl who is a flyer decides to go to the open gym to hone in her skills on partner stunting. A male base tosses her into the air to do a toss extension (a stunt where the base catches the flyer’s feet with their arms fully extended overhead). Upon the catch, the base gets disgruntled and yells out a few obscenities telling the flyer to stop moving. As if the obscenity were not inappropriate enough, the base pops the flyer up out of his hands and walks away. The flyer was left to fall from a height of over 8 feet with no one to catch her. Just so we are clear, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) regulations states that a fall from a distance as short as 6 feet can be fatal. Are you disturbed yet? This is an elite gym! The above is completely unacceptable! And even worse, the base was not reprimanded in any way. Now I am not trying
