Marathon’s Body Language Studio is home to state and national champion competitive cheerleading squads. And most are less than 10 years old.
Coached by studio owner Stacey Smith, the Stars of the Florida Keys made their presence known in five competitions between January and April of this year. Both the 8-and-under “Tiny Twinkles” and 10-and-under “Shooting Stars” went undefeated, culminating in a Florida Cheer and Dance Association Performance Recreation state title for each team in their respective age divisions.
With the top score in February’s competition for the entire recreational division – based on both the difficulty and execution of their routine – the Shooting Stars also earned a bid to the national competition on April 23 in Orlando, a feat that paid for half of the team’s fees to enter the contest.
“My girls have never done that before,” said Smith. “I couldn’t believe it. They actually beat 18-and-under teams and a lot of teams that are bigger than them from big cities. And of course, all the girls were excited to get a trophy that was bigger than them.”
Smith stressed to her team that just reaching the national stage is an enormous feat. “Just getting there was a huge accomplishment for us,” she said. “I mean, we practice outside, for crying out loud. We don’t have a full gym or anything like that.”
When the initial schedule for the national competition was published, Smith realized her team stood alone in its assigned division. But the Shooting Stars had not traveled to central Florida to end its undefeated season with no competition. And they certainly didn’t make the trip for a loss.
“I actually bumped them up to a higher age level, 13 and younger,” said Smith. “It was just so they would have competition, and they ended up beating 13-year-olds.”
Smith took over Marathon’s Body Language Studio in 2019, hoping to use her background in gymnastics and competitive cheerleading to continue a strong youth program in town. With only one competition in 2020 due to COVID-19 and limited participation in 2021 due to lingering uncertainty around the pandemic, she said she didn’t expect the Stars to take off the way they did this year. But she’s not complaining.
With 23 athletes in the program this time around, Smith says she was glad to spend her time constantly retooling the team’s tumbling, stunts and choreography between competitions, based on feedback from judges. Add injuries to the mix, and she said she spent many nights going back to the drawing board as she tweaked the components of a changing routine with a revolving door of athletes.
“I’m watching videos, writing things down, drawing formations, trying to figure out transitions, and I probably look like a crazy person,” she laughed. “My husband knows that when my headphones are on and papers are scattered around, he’ll just be like, ‘Uh oh, who isn’t making it to the competition this time?’”
With three or four practices each week, Smith said the team showed meteoric improvement over the course of the season, even down to her youngest 4-year-old athletes.
“At the very beginning, I remember thinking, ‘Oh man, if I can just get them all to do a cartwheel, that’ll make me happy,’ and at the end they’d learned how to do actual stunts,” she said. “When I watched their first competition to their last, it blew my mind. … Honestly, they surpassed all my expectations. I’m so proud of them.”
