Competitions

I love competitions especially the ones the team have to travel for. I’ve gone to Georgia, Dallas, and Indiana a few times each and there just blasts each time, even the Orlando competitions are fun. If you’re lucky, you get to travel with a plane filled with cheerleaders sometimes from your own team or it can be mixed with other teams so you meet other cheerleaders. Ever since I started to travel, my team has liked to stay in the same hotel or they pick three hotels we can pick from to stay at. The experience of staying together makes the trip more enjoyable. The past few years when I traveled out of state my team usually meets up in fun places around the competition area or even just a few of the girls and guys from the team will meet up for lunch or shopping.
The Orlando competition has to be one of my favorites. In the hotel we stay at, the competition is in the convention center in the hotel so there is no need to drive or worry about leaving things behind. The competition is held at the same place every year, the Gaylord Palms. Its HUGE hotel and I would say at least 97% of the guests are cheerleaders and there families. The hotel warns other costumers not to stay there during the competition because everything is being used by the cheerleaders like the pool, the shops, and the restaurants in the hotel. The Orlando competition has a great way to balance hard work and play.

Trust!

Trust is very important in life in general. In high school, because some of us are so juvenile, we can gain, lose, and spread trust all the time and unfortunately in cheerleading it cannot work this way. Some of you watched the video in my last post about flying and were impressed with the strength and skill that pair of cheerleaders had. Well they not only have the strength and skill they have trust with one another. Without trust, how can you allow someone to catch you while spinning and flipping down? It just isn't possible! Many teams bond before they start to practice and it’s a great way to learn trust games and just hanging out. I'm sure many of you have heard of the trust fall and that is a great trust game! The trust fall is when one person closes their eyes and trustingly leans back and falls while there partner stands behind them and catches them at any point of time before they reach the floor. The goal is for the person with their eyes closed to not move their legs, stay tight, and continue their fall without stopping. There are plenty of other games but that is a simple one to gain trust. Trust is essential with your teammates as well as coaches not only in stunting but it’s definitely a big factor in stunting.

Flying

A flyer, also known as the top girl, is the girl that is known for being thrown in the air. The flyer has many responsibilities while she’s in the air. The top girl needs to have flexibility, balance, and strength. The bases do a lot of the work getting the flyer up but once the flyer has hit the maximum height the bases can go the job is all hers. Flyers never stand in the air and do nothing; they always pull some sort of flexibility stretch. Common ones are a heel stretch, scorpion and an arabesque. While holding these positions the weight of the flyer shifts and that's where balance and strength comes in. The fly needs to stay tight so the bases can hold her. The number of spotters under the flyer can change; there could be four cheerleaders, three cheerleaders, two cheerleaders, or one.
My favorite stunt is with is one cheerleader underneath me and it’s usually a strong guy. With my experience I don’t like having to have so many arms catch me when I come down, I'd rather focus on one to grab and that one base will only be focused on me. In my other post I mentioned that I want to fly in college and when I fly in college I will be trying out for a one man group which is obviously one guy underneath the fly. One mans are very cute and they just look so cool in my opinion.
Check out this VIDEO!

A Cool Fact

I found out a really interesting fact about cheerleading in college over winter break! I told you guys how I want to cheer in college, I think it will help me meet other guys and girls who know the school, I would make friends, and bond with people with a common interest and the excitement cheering at a college game is something I would be so down to experience! Therefore, at my job, I work at a gymnastics gym where there are some older cheerleaders, I found out that if you make the cheer team of the school you could make it into the school. I'm not sure if this is with every sport but I don’t see why not. I thought this was so exciting because I am a well-rounded student and I do have a great talent. Since I am not the absolute best student, I think that if I tryout it would be a great advantage for someone like me to go to University of Florida without having met all the requirements of what they ask in academics. I hope what I was told about making the team and being in the school is true I will need to do more research but with this thought in my mind I am already preparing for the tryouts.
I was happy to share with my parents this news so I told them I want to learn how to fly again. I am a base (I know I'm small but I am very strong) and in college I don’t think someone my size will be able to pick up a college sized girl. College flyers are all very tiny so I have asked to be put on a diet so I can become smaller and then once I’m at the weight I need to be my parents are putting me in private lessons. I have flown before when I was younger but then my coaches moved so I do know a little bit about flying. I feel that being a strong tumbler is an advantage for me to make the team so being a fly would just be another advantage for me so I really hope my effort that I am starting to put in now will pay off when I try out for schools!

Cheer Music!

Ahhh I just love cheer music! Definitely the music that the gym I went to mad! It’s very important that the music is upbeat and it can pump you up to keep going. Some of you guys who work out usually bring iPods and depending on the person its fast rap, screaming music, upbeat girly music and just like how everyone at the gym works out to upbeat music, so do the cheerleaders while they perform. Rarely do you go to cheer competition and see a good team paired with slow music. I actually think you never hear a team with slow music if they stink or if they are good. Some teams like to speed up songs, most teams do, and you can check out the samples of music that I have posted. The music will make you want to jump because it’s so energetic and that’s exactly how every team should be. If you go to an opera show, the crowd is quiet, but if you go to Ultra, everyone is screaming! It’s a huge difference what music can do. Music can mix with your emotions and that’s why fast music is important to any workout! If you never watched, one of the videos I’ve posted the music for cheerleading is a mix of different songs twisted with other songs and they add different sound effects its great!
TOP GUN 2010
EAST CELEBRITY ELITE 2010

Smiling

Like I said in my last post, smiling is the best facial expression to do while performing. Facials aren't an option they just look cheesy and awful. Smiling is something you CANNOT forget! To make sure the crowd and the judges are into your team you have to make it look fun. It kind of sounds a bit easy to just keep smiling but it's not. With all the running around, lifting and dancing the routine involves you lose your breath. Most cheerleaders forget to smile because they are exaughsted and it’s something they don’t think about. As cliché as it sounds, smiling will just make getting through the routine easier. If you can try keeping your mind off the difficult things and just go through the routine like you always practice, you are in good shape!

POM POMS!

Oh, pom poms...what a funny name for such a silly thing it fits perfect! Pom poms are the most used prop in cheerleading. Cheerleaders who cheer for a sport are always using them but competitive cheerleading teams never use them. To be honest I have no clue why we use them! They look cute which is a nice and they can grab attention in some cases. It can depend on what your pom pom looks like. Pom poms come in many different forms. They can be a solid color, a double color or even multicolored. The colors usually and definitely should match your uniforms. Some are metallic, big, small, wide, and thin, they are all different. You can get pom poms in magazines like the cheerleading catalog. Like I said I have no idea why we use them, they aren’t needed to cheer they are just a decoration that makes cheering a little more exciting.
Spiriting, the screaming we do after a cheer, can be extremely awkward without pompoms. Once you start cheering with pom poms, you don’t want to put them down. When you spirit we usually shake or poms so they can make a light noise or shine, so without poms we have to use spirit fingers (like bring it on -___-). I think pom poms aren’t needed but they definitely make us look cute and are a great prop to avoid spirit fingers!