They're Still My Girls (Even If I Don't Cheer Anymore)

Most of my girls quit after last year (we only had 10 girls total) and there is a new coach and assistant coach. 3 of us graduated. 3 quit. and 4 are still there. The new squad has almost 20 girls (so far this year like 5 have already quit), most of them are freshmen who have never cheered before. My squad is a mess. The season is almost over and there are still 3 girls who do not know most of the dances for pre-game. The new girls' motions are horrible. The could really benefit from a practice completely dedicated to working on motions and motion placement.

They just started doing a new dance last week and it is a HOT MESS! It is too fast. The girls don't know the steps. It looks awful.

Recently I have gotten into the habit of making a list of everything they do wrong at a game and hoping that by the next game it looks better. They haven't improved much. But I will share with you what I have (so you can feel my pain). They may also be problems your squad has:

• Their stunts are uneasy.
• They don't enunciate. 
• They don't stand the same way before starting line up
• They talk to each other all the time during the game (We were awful about this last year too, so I don't blame them too much)
• They need to work on having tight motions.
• They need to make sure they have their signs laid out before the game because it really does look bad when they are giving out signs in the middle of the game (A manager could help with that. They should look into that).
• They stop cheering towards the end of the game because they want to go home.
• The new girls don't know a lot of the sidelines.
• They need to work on motion placement.
• The same people call out cheers.
• They don't yell loud enough.
• They don't smile. 
• Their kicks are awful (but I do see an improvement in their jumps).
• They don't pop their motions. They just slide into them.
• They stop yelling when they are moving to a stunt.
• They stop yelling when they are in a stunt.
• They need to work on cradles and bump downs.
• They practice their cheers in front of the crowd.
• They talk before quarters and time outs instead of just starting the cheer.
• They don't spirit.
• And my biggest pet peeve: If you're colors are black, yellow, and silver DO NOT yell "go black" if the other team is wearing black! (You really just sound dumb)

It would be a complete bitch of me if I just critiqued everything and never even mentioned things they could do to improve. So these are the suggestions I would give them:

• Get a manager that can lay out your signs for you at the game. Your job is to focus on cheering, not making sure the signs are with the right person.
• Keep practicing your stunts every practice. If it doesn't look absolutely PERFECT don't put it out on the court or field. Get an outside opinion if you don't know if it is PERFECT yet.
• Decide before the game how you are all supposed to stand at starting line up, for the fight song, and for the national anthem. Then make sure everyone does it the same way. 
• Just stop talking and cheer. I know it is hard. I did it too, but it makes you look awful and you are there to cheer on the team not chit chat with the person you see every day.
• Dedicate one practice a week to working on motions. If you don't keep working on them you will get lazy and stop doing them right. Make sure everyone is doing the same thing and if someone isn't help her get it right.
• If someone does something wrong during this practice just write down what she is having a problem with and the CAPTAIN and COACH need to work with her on it before the next game. 
• I believe in having privates if there is a girl that needs extra help. That is the captain's job to get her girls on the same page.

•  I know that cheering for 2 or 3 hours at a game is exhausting. I have been there. But that is why it is called a SPORT. You don't see the basketball players just decide to stop playing because they are tired. No, they keep playing their heart out. You need to, too. 
• Cheer very clearly and together. If one girl is off it makes it sound like you are slurring your words. If you slur your words the crowd can't understand what you are saying. If the crowd doesn't understand what you are saying then they can't cheer with you. If the crowd doesn't cheer with you then they can't help cheer on the team for a win. So the team winning is on your shoulders. Feel the pressure now to be PERFECT? 
• Each girl should yell out 1 cheer, before one girl calls out two. Go down the line and each girl call out a cheer. The same girls can't carry the entire squad. 
• Yell your little hearts out. It is loud in the gym and on the field, but you have to yell louder so everyone can hear you. How are you going to get anybody energized if they can't hear you?
• Smile. Spirit. Be happy. You are a cheerleader and you had better be cheerful. You look hot in your uniform. You are the girl everyone wants to be. Carry yourself like it. Your team just scored (so what if they are behind 30 points), you had better get overly excited about it. That is what you are there for. To be CHEERful, to CHEER on the team, and to LEAD the crowd. I heard somewhere that you should put Vaseline on your gums so you always smile. But I don't know if that works. 
• Stretch all the time to get your jumps and kicks where they need to be. They need to be high. If you can't get them high AT LEAST point your toes. (My jumps always sucked so I don't really have any room to help you on yours if I could never get it right). 
• Practice everything in a mirror so you can see what it looks like. If it looks sloppy then you need to work on motion placement and popping your motions rather than sliding them into each other. It is something that comes with practice. If you cheer right your arms should be killing you because you are squeezing your muscles so tight to get your motions right.
• No matter what never stop cheering when you are moving to another position. It looks so bad. You come off unprofessional. It really makes you look like little children. 
• One of my biggest pet peeves is when my girls practiced the cheers on the sidelines before going out and doing them. For the love of all things that are fluffy DON'T DO IT! It makes the entire squad look bad because it makes it appear that no one could remember the cheer (or dance, or what ever) and had to practice it again before preforming.

Remember, I am a full time fan now, so I know what it looks like from the crowd's point of view. As as past cheerleader I know what is right and wrong. I drives me nuts when a squad doesn't put 100% into their dance (or cheer or stunt). You are a performer, so perform to the best of your ability. And if your best isn't good enough, ask for help. Your seniors, captain, and coach are there to make you better.

Side note: When I first started cheering I didn't know anything. Like literally anything. I didn't know a punch from a touch down. I asked the captain for help. We practiced every free second we could (I probably drove her nuts by not knowing anything and being THE SLOWEST learner ever), but we kept working. I asked my other friend to work on dances outside of practice to help me get on the same level as everyone else. I practiced at home. I did everything I could to get better, and I did. I have no sympathy for girls that won't work to make themselves better.

The moral of the story is to use your resources, and try your hardest.

Honestly I love my girls. I critique them because I want them to be the best they can be (even if they think that they are just WONDERFUL, they are far from it). Even all of these new girls that I have never cheered with are my girls. It is my squad, and I just want what is best for them. And I know that a little more work and they could be excellent. I believe in them.

-Cheer Strict

Stunt Progression... And KEEP PROGRESSING!

OK so I know this is way out of order, but stunting was always my favorite so I wanted to start off with stunt progression. The problem with my squad my senior year was that after we got to a press-up my flyer didn't want to try anything harder. Talk about a boring season! My freshman year we did libs, halves, fulls, and one girl did some awesome partner stunts (sadly she was a senior and all of those partner stunts went with her =/  ). Sophomore year we got to do a pendulum (it was so much fun). Junior year we could do tick- tock. My cheerleading career got progressively boring every year...

Just an FYI I really hate partner stunts. What I mean is that they are really cool, but personally I don't like to do them. My sophomore year we were practicing a shoulder sit with a brand new flyer (and new cheerleader) and she fell and cut her head open. A combination of bad coaching (she told us to do it on a tile floor in a hall way and she never really taught her how to do it), flying (she was new, can't fault her for it), basing (I really did the best I could, but I panicked), and timing (halftime of her first game, right before we were going to go out and do it). I spent the rest of the game in our prep-room hyperventilating while she went to the hospital. Now we joke about it, but I never got over it and still refuse to do a partner stunt. We were just lucky it didn't hurt her more than it did or (worse?) out on the court.

I know I should have gotten over it and sucked it up, but I never was very strong with partner stunts and we didn't do them much, so I just didn't do them. If something like this happens to you: Do as I say not as I do. Get over it. It was one time. It may or may not happen again, but it didn't kill you, so make sure it makes you stronger. 

Another side blurb: That same cheerleader gets hurt in stunts a lot. That happened her freshman year, her junior year she dislocated her shoulder (or something like that), and then her junior year she broke her ankle(/foot?), so far this year I don't think she has gotten hurt (but the season isn't over yet ;)  ) I really do love her. We just tease her about her accident prone-ness while stunting.

Also another side blurb: Same cheerleader. Hurt every year while stunting. She still wants to fly. If she is good at it is a completely other topic (usually the answer is no, but I know she tries really hard to be a good flyer and I can't fault her for that either). I have based and back spotted her and personally I think there is a lot of room for improvement. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she is scared, and partially because she doesn't want to fail (after she hit her head the coach wouldn't let her fly again). This year (her senior year) she is flying every game, but I can still see she has a lot of problems. She is wobbly and looks scared to death. But I know she loves flying, so I try not to crush her dreams and tell her the truth. I know she has gotten better than she was freshman year. She  just is not at the level she should be to be flying at games in the stunts the coach is having her do.

Back to stunt progression: My first stunt was a thigh stand freshman year. Then we did an L stand, and I wish I knew this then, but REALLY bend into it and make sure your thigh is completely level or she will slide off and leave a shoe/scrape/cut thing on your leg and it hurts like heck! I don't think I have done one since because I hated it that much. Then we did a half, and since it was my first practice as a cheerleader it did not go well. I think we spent most of that practice trying to get it right, as soon as we got it pretty well it was time to end practice. The next practice my other base swore up and down we were on opposite sides of what we had been the day before. I still think I was on the right side and she wasn't, but we changed sides to what she thought was right and surprisingly enough it went up perfect. So the moral of the story is, when you are first starting out find "your side" to base on and go from there. As you get more experienced you will be able to switch sides whenever you need to. I had a strong and weak side. When I switched sides my Junior year (I think that's when it was) to do a full I almost dropped my flyer at first. It took a while to get used to it, but you WIKL get used to it.

Side blurb: NEVER LET YOUR FLYER TOUCH THE GROUND! If any of our girls touched the ground with anything but her feet the bases and back spot had to do 10 pushups. It isn't good to get into the habit of letting your flyer fall out of a stunt and it could really hurt someone too. Just don't do it! And one of my little pet peeves: when you are cradling catch your flyer high! if you catch her low she will hit her butt on the ground and that could break her tail bone. You will be able to tell if you are doing it right.

I was always a base or a back spot so I don't know much about being a flyer (not gunna lie). What I do know:

• Stay tight. The trick I always heard was to pretend you are holding a dine in your butt cheeks (I wonder if you can actually do that?) The tighter you are the lighter you feel to your bases. The lighter you feel the higher you can go when you cradle, and the easier it is for the bases to get you into stunts.

• Your job is to go with what your bases are trying to do. If they are trying to cradle ride it up as high as you can and then pike. DO NOT kick out when in a cradle. It will send you flying back and the bases will have to move to catch you. We had a hard time with one of my flyers who kept doing this. We ended up taking her out of the stunt because she would not learn. And make sure when you come down you wrap your arms around your bases.
• Lock your legs when you are in the air! If you don't you won't be tight and if you are trying to do a partner stunt it will probably come crashing down. I watched the new set of girls on my squad do this at one of the first games this season. I kept sitting in the bleachers waiting for it to fall. Thankfully the base kept it together and the back spot was pulling up enough to keep her up. But it could have gone very badly.  
• If your bases are not even in height then raise your hip up a little on the lower side. It will keep you balanced.
• Keep your weight evenly distributed across both bases and evenly in their hands. The worst thing for a base's wrists is when a flyer heels or toes while in the air. To fix this we had our fliers stand on the bleachers with only their toes on and they had to balance there until they learned not to heel to toe. Also it hurts the bases if you put all your weight on one base an not the other.
• When you are in the load in position keep your head over knees over toes. If you have a problem getting in the right position use your kitchen counters and just hand there until you get it burned into your muscles that it is right. I actually knew a girl that had her mother and grandmother do hang drills with her all the time for her to get it right. A good hang drill
  is a good predictor of a good flier (so many "goods" but it's true).
• Keep your legs together in the stunt and don't push out on your bases. If you get your legs too far apart you won't be able to keep as tight. If you push out it is hard on your bases. It is just a matter of practice and a good back spot to keep your legs together and to keep you from pushing out.
• Always wear cheer shoes when stunting. It is hard for your bases to adjust to different shoes. And some running shoes (Nike Shox in particular) are really awful to hold on to. 

This is a good Pic (from google: I do not own this picture nor do I know who it is of) that shows catching high and kind of hints at where a flyer's arms will go when they...land? lol

Back spots (I personally think back spotting is the easiest position)

• Make sure you lift up A LOT. A good back spot can make all the difference if the flyer won't stay tight. A bad back spot can cause a stunt to fail miserably and it will hurt your bases' wrists with all the extra weight (that you should be taking care of) from the flyer. 
• Keep your flier's legs together so they can't push out. It is hard on the bases and it doesn't look good.
• When you are cradling you need to throw your flyer up a lot so she can get more air. And it takes a lot of the weight off the bases so they can throw more too.

Bases have a really hard job. They get all the weight from the flyer on them. Bases:

• Always lift with your legs. If you lift with your back or your arms you will never get the stunt to stay up and it will hurt you later on.

• Keep your back straight. Your back will be killing you if you don't keep it straight.

• Watch your head recoil when your cradling. My base and I always were hitting heads because I could not keep from flailing forward. You can even break your nose if you aren't careful.

• Don't back out when you cradle. You are more likely to let your flyer fall, the stunt won't look good, you'll probably end up hurting your other base. It's just not good. To fix this we always had someone else stand with their heels against the base's heels and butt against the base's butt and it would keep them from backing out. I know it is scary to have a 100+ pound girl falling at you, but you need to get over it. She won't hurt you too badly if she hits you, and even if she does it's still better for her than hitting the ground from 8 feet above the ground in a stunt. You need to sacrifice your body to keep her from getting hurt. You are on the ground if you fall. She isn't. 
• Lock your arms when you are doing a full. If you bend your arms you are losing power and it means you won't be able to hold up your flyer as long, if you can even get her up there in the first place.
• If you and your other base do not match up perfectly in height the shorter one needs to stand straighter up and the taller one needs to spread her legs a litter further apart (or if you listen to UCA They suggest you bend your legs with them shoulder width apart. I do not think this works and I think you lose power. But what ever your coach says is probably best.)

FOR EVERYONE:

• SMILE it makes everything look better. If a stunt doesn't go right just keep smiling and pretend it didn't happen. You are a CHEERleader you need to be CHEERful. Or someone will CHEERfully get rid of you. 
• If a stunt comes down the flyer needs to put her arms straight above her head and clasp her hands. Bases and the back spot need to catch her. 
• When cradling: 
• Bases and back spots: one, two, bend (your knees), UP!
• Flyers: ride it ALL the way up,  pike
• Everyone: catch, hold (one, two), dump flyer out gracefully with head all the way down (one, two) (when you come up you should flip your pony), stand up straight and spirit
• ***the back spot of the main stunt group calls the cradle and everyone needs to follow her/ him***
• Keep all of your hair pulled back! If you get it caught somewhere it's going to hurt. 
• Don't wear ear rings. They can get caught and pulled out. *True story: My mom fell asleep in ear rings when she was a kid and got it caught in her hair when she was sleeping and it pulled the ear ring out of her ear.
• Don't wear jewelry, period! It can get caught and break, cut someone, fall out, and lots of stuff like that. I had a huge problem with taking my ring off before stunting and my coach went home quite a few times wearing my ring because I forgot to leave it in my bag and I had to give it to her. *This includes your belly button rings and whatever other "stuff" you might have pierced

Side blurb: I prefer cradling to bumping down. I think bumping down looks stupid and just plain bad! Unless you can do it perfectly I do not recommend it. Besides cradling is a lot more fun and just looks good (as long as you do it right). Practice makes perfect though. My coach refused to let us cradle my senior year because she didn't think it looked good, but it never got any better because she refused to let us try to make it better.

Another side blurb: Never walk down from a stunt when you are at a game for the love of all things that are fluffy! No one will EVER take you seriously if you can't even manage at least a bump down. Also I do not think it looks good if you need a front spot at a game. Seriously if you need a front spot you do not have the stunt good enough to have it at a game. End of discussion.

My preferred stunt progression for beginners/ a new squad: hang drill, thigh stand, L stand, walk up to a half, half, hitch, half lib, walk up to full, press up to full, leap frog (I had the hardest time learning how to base this! I might not have ever been able to get it right, now that I think about it. If you don't mind getting kicked in the head or sat on back spotting is a fun position for this stunt), shift weight in a full to a lib (We never knew what to call it lol), straight up to full, show n go (LOVE LOVE LOVE), straight up lib

Once you have a straight up lib you can basically do anything: heel stretch, arabesque, scale, scorpion, needle, bow and arrow, etc. To do these just be really flexible and stay tight. That's pretty much my only advice for flying in stunts that I have never even based.

Side note: if you're going to do the splits in a stunt for the love of all that is fluffy make sure it looks good. I was at a game a week ago and the flyer's split was pathetic. My grandmother could do better. If my split is better than yours after not cheering for a year you should not be doing it in a stunt.

One of my squad's favorite stunts was a one man. I personally could never base it. I just didn't have the strength to hold my flyer. I always was the umm... other person (I don't really know if you would call what I did a base or more of a back spot). Either way I was the person that helped the flyer get up on the base. In the same position as the back spot in a leap frog.

We didn't have male lifters my junior or senior year (main reason we didn't do partner stunts after sophomore year), so we were always trying to figure out how to do more difficult stunts when we didn't have the muscle to do them. The bases usually just had to work that much harder to make up for it.

On my soap box: For the love of all things that are fluffy, once you have a stunt keep progressing. I had a squad my senior year that for the most part never wanted to progress in stunts (but always complained that we never did cool stunts. It doesn't make sense to me either.). I would have loved if my flyer would have tried to get a lib, but she didn't want to, so we didn't. We were stuck doing press- ups all season long.

YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR WEAKEST GIRL! If you have a girl that does not want to progress, you have a problem on your hands and you need to remedy it. Either you get her to suck it up and progress, or get rid of her. It is as easy as that. If she doesn't want to improve to help the squad you do not want her around. As much as you love her, she is detrimental to the squad. My coach had a problem with letting the captains do what they thought was best for the squad, and it hurt the squad.

That was kind of ramble-y. Sorry about that, but I hope it was helpful =) 

-Cheer Strict

First Off...

I want to get this out of the way now: I do not believe in competitive cheerleading. If you don't like my opinion and are just going to hate, you can leave now because sideline cheering is what I know and that is what I am going to write about. My reasoning for not liking competitive cheering is that I do not think that doing tumbling passes, dancing, and stunting for a few minutes constitutes as cheerleading, but I have always been strictly a sideline cheerleader. I understand that competitive cheerleading takes a lot of hard work, but that doesn't change how I feel about it. Sorry. My type of cheerleading is pumping up the crowd at a game, not doing gymnastics; although, I should say that my squad did not have any gymnasts. We danced at pre-game and sometimes at quarters and timeouts, but not a lot. We liked to (this is a concept) CHEER, and stunt. I only think that tumbling is acceptable to ACCENT a cheer, not to be the focus of it.

I do think that it is good to have a background in gymnastics (I don't). It helps with flexibility, balance, and strength, and it will make you an overall better cheerleader. I also think that you should have a background in dance, so it is easier to pick up the cheers and dances (I don't). OK, I feel like at this point no one thinks I am qualified to talk about cheerleading, let alone be one. You can just shut your mouth now. I started cheering my freshman year with no background in gymnastics or dance and still was able to become captain, because I worked my ass off to get on the level of everyone else. I will say that I never had good jumps. I couldn't get over the fact that I had to pop my hips out of place to do it well. But I made sure that I popped my motions and was tight. I practiced dances, sidelines, and cheers over and over and over again until I knew I had it. I always made sure that I kept working on a stunt until it was perfect. Once I knew everything I helped the new girls learn the material. I took one girl under my wing when she was in the same position as me, a freshman with no cheer background. She exceeded my expectations and is the current captain. She is filling my shoes with the best of her ability, she has her flaws but I'll discuss that later.

-Cheer Strict

In The Beginning, There Was Sideline Cheerleading

I will be the first to say that I was never and will never be Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On. I was a solid base and occasional back spot for seven seasons at my small high school. I graduated last year and so far I am missing cheering like crazy. I have turned into a crazy ex-cheerleader. I go to as many games as I can  just so I can critique my old squad from the bleachers, and lie to them to their faces that they’re doing well. We were never that great, especially the last year. Our main flyer didn’t want to be there, one girl kept skipping practice because she kept faking sick, and then a junior kept trying to take control of my squad and go behind my back to change everything. Senior year, though fun, was miserable at the same time. My squad had gone so downhill from when I first made it on freshman year. My freshman year we had the best coach, great fliers, strong bases, our stunts were awesome, our dances were good. It was just an all-around great squad that year. But after than year it all went to hell in a hand basket.  The next year we had horrible captains who never were on time. Then they finally graduated, but two of the seniors the next year made everyone else miserable. One was a control freak who had trust issues. I learned a lot from her though. Her picky-ness made me picky too, so much of my personal preferences are also hers.The other was just mean and hateful and screamed at everyone all the time. Finally it was my senior year. I was determined to make us great. It didn’t work though. After my freshman year our great coach retired and the assistant coach took over. And as much as I loved her as a person her coaching lacked in almost every aspect. She let us talk the entire practice, she allowed phones during the game, and never pushed us to get anything accomplished. And the worst part was that she didn’t let me or the other captain take control of the squad and get things accomplished and perfected. What I did take away from my cheerleading was that I learned what is and isn’t right in cheerleading. My first squad and coach taught me so much. They shaped me as a cheerleader and taught me the right and the wrong way to do things and how to and how not to act in uniform. It is with this knowledge that I feel like I am qualified to help you learn what is and is not what to do as a sideline cheerleader and throw in a little commentary here and there. I hope I can help and I hope you enjoy.  But just a warning I am pretty picky about what is and isn’t right.

-Cheer Strict