Every athlete tries out once a year and is placed on one levelled squad based on skill - not age, not seniority. A squad is a fixed roster for the season: five to twenty athletes who train the same routine, the same stunt groups, the same counts, week after week.
That roster is not a convenience, it is the sport. In a stunt group, a flyer is held in the air by her bases and steadied by her back spot - if one of those four people misses practice, the other three cannot run the stunt. Missing a rehearsal does not mean catching up later; it means the group cannot practice at all that day.
A routine is choreographed once, at the start of the season, from stunting, pyramids, tumbling passes, jumps and dance set to music and eight-counts. After that it is drilled, not rewritten, until it is clean enough to compete.
