Confidence Boost

The real reason why I started the whole cheer leading blog was not to just say the good & bad things about cheerleading, but it was also to show how fun it could be. This specific sport gives girls/guys a significant amount of confidence. It develops them to be more outgoing, and encourages them to be happy with what they do. Cheer leaders do a tremendous amount of charity work and fund raisers, so they get the sense of accomplishments of helping others. Also, every time they step up to the competition mat, when they win they get a sense of joy that over takes them..Proving to everyone that cheerleading is a sport.

Tips for the Wise.

Need some great cheerleading tips? Well, I've got some for you. When you go to tryout keep in mind that the judges really pay a great deal of attention on your facial expressions, and how you deal with the skills that don't always go as you plan. To be a good cheerleader you should always be smiling, and determined to finish whatever you have started. If you are doing a stunt and it falls, just keep moving on to your next formation or your next placement in the cheer. Don't let the audience know that you have messed up by your facial expressions. If you don't make an expression, the audience may not even notice something got messed up, they might think that, that is what was supposed to happen. Well, if a stunt falls then that is obvious that it wasn't supposed to happen, but if a cheer motion got a little messed up or confused they might not even notice. You just have to keep smiling and look confident and positive. Your claps must always be clean and tight. Your voice needs to be heard in what they like to call a "man-voice." When doing drills, don't take shortcuts...you're only hurting yourself. The coaches give you the drills to do for a reason, obviously. Just remember, if you feel the burn then you know its working..
All in all, my last tip for you is to just do your own thing. Yes, the team has to do all the moves and motions the same way, at the same time.. but you have the chance to do it in your own style, and how you like to do things.

Confessions..

I participated in cheer freshmen year for sideline & competitive season. After that I quit for Sophomore year, and then decided to pick it back up Junior year.. I missed the fact of being on a team, and all the hard work and responsibility that was tagged along with it. Also, I felt like it was time to get back into shape. I am no longer part of the cheer team. In a way I do feel like a quitter because I keep joining and quitting, but I quit for many reasons. For example, it took up my WHOLE summer. I had to literally schedule all my plans around my practices, and on top of that I hated the gymnastics portion more than anything else. I could do the skills, and did a decent job at them, but I hated the fact that I was forced to do it when I was uncomfortable doing it by myself. Cheerleaders have gotten severely injured by lack of confidence in their skills. I do miss it though, I'm too far behind on my gymnastics skills to go back right now, but maybe one day I will.

Competitions

When competitions roll around the corner, it is important to remember that there are a lot of do's and donts fo cheerleading. The judges for cheerleading competitions are very critical, they will deduct you points for even the smallest minor mistakes. For example, if your team goes onto the mat before they are told to take the floor, that's a deduction. If you have nail polish on, or different colored shoes than your team you get an deduction. If you go to do a skill such as a flip and back out at the last minute and don't do it, well guess what...ANOTHER deduction. One of the biggest and most important deduction in a competition is, when you're in a stunt group the flyer is NEVER EVER EVER EVER allowed to touch the ground. If she falls & actually hits the ground in anyway, you get a pretty big deduction.
Claps all need to be together, on time, and in the proper placement as the rest of the team. Jumps need to be on time, and prepped the same way. Never start the cheer round until you are told to do so, or that is a big deduction as well.
While there are a lot of things that could go wrong, there are a lot of things that can go right. If you practice enough, you can nail the competition, do great, and win! :)

Passion; what you love

To some who don't ,care cheerleading is a extracurricular activity. There are those who think that it is just a sport, but for many cheerleading is a passion. Passion generally means you do something that you love. Well in this case some people think that cheerleading is their passion. They LOVE to do it! I think that cheerleaders feel as if it is their passion because it gives them something to believe it, & something to fight for. To them it's not just a sport, they dedicate their time and energy into it because it's something they don't want to go a day without doing. Passion wise, in competitions they are compassionate about cheering and supporting their schools/ teams. They put their all in it..

Spirited Fun

I personally think that cheer leading is a really fun thing to do. It helps you to make a lot of new friends, and gives you responsibilities. What I mean by responsibilities is, you have to always make sure the people in the stunt groups are safe, you have to be at practice on time, & you MUST give it your all every time. Learning new cheers can be frustrating. I know when I tried to learn new cheers for the first time, it literally took me forever! Cheer leading is honestly a memorization skill, no lie. You have to remember cheers, counts, positions, formations, an placements. Along with memorizing all the different types of jumps, their counts, preps, & landings. After you get used to it, it becomes a lot more simple....which then makes it even more fun. Along with having fun, it also helps to keep you in shape. The warm ups, drills, and conditioning all helps to keep y0u fit and builds up muscles. I don't do cheer anymore because when I was on cheer I honestly loved it, but the gymnastics was a downfall for me. I could do the skills, and I had them.. but I was just to afraid to pursue them independently. Like I said it is a lot of fun you just have to be careful when doing this particular sport, be careful doing any sport.

Tryouts!

Cheerleading tryouts are always scary and nerve wrecking. I've personally always hated tryouts. Even though I knew if I made the team I would have to be cheering in front of a large crowd, but I just always hated the idea of actually trying out; one on one. I don't like single attention. When it came time for my tryout I would start to get real nervous and not want to do it. I didn't like the fact that all eyes would be on me. Plus, everyone gets so scared for tryouts they are bound to mess up a little bit.
During tryouts they usually ask you to do almost every type of jump; counting and all. You are asked to do splits or switch splits, which is basically just calling out a set of numbers and doing each split.. right, left, & middle to the counts. The counts are similar to "Ready set, down one out two, hold one, two, three, switch one, two, three, hold one two three, switch one two there. hold one two there, and then you go on with the counts and get up with the counts. Tryouts also requires a specific cheer that they would have taught you at an open gym. Then after all that is done is the gymnastics/skills portion of the tryout. You can either be spotted or not. Then the last might be an interview. When I was on the cheer team, for the tryouts the judges or the coaches would ask us certain questions that we would have to answer. Nerve wrecking, but HOPEFULLY worth it.
After all the hard work is done, you just have to wait for the results & hope they're good!