DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. — Family legacies, whatever they may be, can be worth cherishing and passing on to your children. Positive ones create lasting values and experiences. While legacies bring a family together, they also allow for personal growth and success for each member. Alysha Busza had a passion and talent for the sport of twirling, one that shaped her life. For her two oldest children, Sterling and Shay, it created an opportunity for them that has become an exceptional part of a legacy for their family.

Alysha started twirling when she was four years old while living in Northern California before her family moved to Downingtown during high school. Her mom read in a parenting book that baton would be a unique sport to build a young girl’s confidence and thought it would be a non-competitive and inexpensive activity. “Boy, was she surprised to find out about competitions and that it would come to the point where she would fly me across the country for choreography and instruction,” Alysha recounts, with a bit of laugh.

She did take to twirling with a passion and fell in love with the challenge of the sport. Under the guidance of wonderful coaches who also cultivated her as a person, Alysha thrived in the satisfaction of staying up late at night to master a new catch trick so she stood out from the others. Alysha performed individually and later joined the highest nationally ranked team in Maryland. However, she does recount competing on the world level as a Nationalist twirler among her favorite memories by representing her country, hearing our national anthem played and having the opportunity to do guest teaching positions overseas. She won multiple medals, including an exceptional record of winning all four gold at the NBTA World Championships in Marseille, France, in 2003, an achievement no one else had yet accomplished.

After Alysha finished her competitive career, she stayed involved with the sport as a national-level judge and she pursued her childhood dream when she started her own business, MaJazzstic Twirlers, in Downingtown to teach twirling teams. At a very young age, Sterling dabbled in twirling while she spent time with her mom’s students, but they decided to set the sport aside and focus on soccer, dance, and gymnastics. However, as a mom, she recognized the training could benefit her daughter at a young age with eye-hand coordination, flexibility, confidence, and creativity that comes with a sport that requires a stage presence and musicality. Curious to see if this would be something Sterling had the potential to do, Alysha asked one of her previous coaches to give her little girl an impromptu lesson at a local competition.

Sterling just shone with a great smile, and by the age of seven, like her mom, she developed a love for the challenge that makes the work worth it to excel. Sterling started lessons a few times a month with the same team in Maryland that her mom was a member of years before, and Alysha coached her at home. Shay, just four, was always in tow and, while still tiny, began to learn and practice, too. The girls added a duet category to their routines, which, while having challenges that come along with the usual tiffs between sisters, also made them closer to each other.

In 2019, the sisters were old enough to try out for the World Championships competition, which only happens every three years. They could compete as individuals and duet, but they knew they were stronger together. They had fierce competition, so when their names were announced as winning Nationals and making spots on Team USA, their smiles and feelings of surprise were immense. Throughout the rest of 2019 and early 2020, Sterling and Shay prepared for April’s competition in the Netherlands. They cybered the last classes of the day because sports gyms with high ceilings in the area kindly allowed them to practice at their facilities before their athletes arrived after school. They collected all the American attire they could pack, but the competition was postponed three weeks before they were to depart due to the pandemic.

Adapting to training while housebound during quarantine was challenging and required ingenuity, so the girls did not lose the coordinated skills required, especially their spins and rolls. Combining this in a duet routine where you toss in exchanges to each other and coordinate your timing in unison makes it that much more important to practice. The family bought hockey flooring and put it over the carpet in their two-story high living room and needed to figure out how to toss around a ceiling fan since they could not get a professional inside to take it down safely. “As soon as the lockdown was over, the first thing we did had that ceiling fan removed!” exclaimed Alysha.

The next year the competition was postponed again, twice. The girls did homeschool during the pandemic to get into gyms during odd times, finding different locations to practice depending on where was open or had ceilings high enough. The family was so grateful for the many people who worked with them during this time. They cross-stitched school with practices, traveling to different locations in between, and adapting routines to lower ceilings and other restrictions. Nationals were canceled twice, and major competitions were postponed, slowing down momentum. Even when they approached July 2022, it felt surreal to the family that the rescheduled World Championships may finally happen. Sterling and Shay were returning to competing at major meets and had to go back-to-back from Nationals to Holland for the World event. Girls they competed against back home combined with them on Team USA, and everyone cheered and supported each other dressed in red, white, and blue.

They loved trading pins and trying to communicate with the athletes from other countries. Sterling and Shay’s biggest competition was the French and Dutch teams. While the parents usually relied on dividing and conquering, their Dad, Kevin, was able to fly out for the girls’ final round. Their competitors’ routines were impeccable, and the sisters had to change two major tricks due to Sterling’s hip injury, but they performed in perfect unison, gaining the highest scores. Alysha said, “It felt amazing hearing the National Anthem play when they announced “Busza and Busza” as the gold medalists! It is an honor to represent your country in the sport you love! As a mom, it felt special seeing my girls do it together and knowing all the hard work we put in paid off and we learned so many life lessons along the way!”

After the excitement of this past year, the girls are focusing on school sports, activities, and dance. Their younger sister, Payson, in 2nd grade, has already started to compete on her older sisters’ twirling team in Maryland, placing well at Nationals at the youngest level. Alysha isn’t sure if Payson will stay with twirling like her mom and sisters or pursue other interests. However, this year, it was special for her to see her older two daughters walk her youngest on the floor at a competition, continuing a family legacy.

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