As noted above, Calisthenics is a competitive sport, with competitiveness of clubs ranging from fairly non-competitive, to extremely competitive. Most clubs you find will be reasonably to highly competitive, the competitive nature encouraging the girls to perform to their best. Because it is also a team sport, and for team to win, all girls must do well, there is often a strong team bonding created, as well as strong a bonding to thier club, whom they represent in competitions. Competitions are usually held annually and are held between rival clubs in the area/state/city.
Due to this girls are expected to commit for at least a year to thier club, and droppouts are frowned upon, as the performances are choreographed for a specific number of performers and with each girl in a specific place. Perhaps this is one of the biggest reasons why Calisthenics has such a high retention rate.
There is also now a national competition which clubs may enter where each state competes against eachother represented by the best of the best girls from each state (It is even auditioned!!). Most clubs will also put on a non-competitive end-of-year "Calisthenics spectacular" for parents and friends, demonstrating what they have learnt over the year. Some clubs even put on Calisthenic demonstrations for community events to increase its familiarity and popularity. Technical Requirements/Judging Judging at a state competition is carried out by an Ajudicator (typically these are from Melbourne). Performances are assessed on difficulty and skill of the routine, execution and artistic impression of the routine, and marks may be deducted for sloppy form, such as toes not fully pointed, line of leg not straight, hips out of alignment, etc.
For the main exercises of Calisthenics: Appartus, Free exercise and Figure Marching, there is a requirement that all girls must be in syncronisation with each other. There is also a really dumb rule that the girls must remain expressionless throughout the performance, which personally I think looks really stupid. Presumably this is so that no team has an advantage over another team by showing more expression than another. For all other exercises including aesthetics, performers are allowed and in fact encouraged to freely show expression.
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