Quick answer: rules, age grids and scoring differ between governing bodies and change between seasons - we explain the underlying concepts, mark pages that are rules-sensitive, and always defer to official rules documents for exact current requirements.
Why This Matters
Competitive cheer is not governed by a single global rulebook. Levels, age grids, legal skills and scoring criteria vary between governing bodies, event providers and countries, and are revised regularly - often every season.
How We Handle This
- We use the USASF All Star Cheer Rules for the current season as our reference edition for levels, skills and divisions, because they are the most widely used All Star rules and closely match the IASF rules used in many other countries. Our level pages say what those rules allow, while noting that other governing bodies and school rule sets can differ.
- Rules-sensitive pages (levels, divisions, scoring, legal skills) show which rules edition they were checked against and when. We re-check them when each new season's rules are published (usually in late spring).
- For scoring, where point values differ between event producers, we describe the categories and concepts rather than asserting one producer's numbers as universal.
- Where precision matters - an age grid, a specific deduction size, a specific skill legality - we point you to check the official rules for your governing body and event.
Official Rules Remain Authoritative
If anything on this site appears to conflict with your governing body's current official rules, the official rules are correct. Please let us know so we can review and update the page.