MIX IT UP

My squad was a bit ridic when it came to dances, sidelines, and cheers. My coach didn't know how to come up with new cheer and dances herself so we only used the material that we learned through the UCA camps and tryout DVDs. Yea. Those SUCK! Because my coach didn't know how to come up with her own stuff the UCA material was all that we knew... We did the EXACT SAME dances, cheers, and sidelines my 4 years of high school. That is one of those things that DRIVES ME CRAZY! I like to mix it up and we got stuck doing the same thing every game, sometimes in the exact same order as the previous game because she was too lazy to change it. The crowd wasn't stupid, they knew what she was pulling. And that is probably one of the reasons they didn't get involved. They had seen it all before. I am a strong believer in coming up with your own dances, cheers, and sidelines for your squad. Doing those robotic nasty UCA dances are SOOOOO junior high. If you're going to jack someone else material at least make it good material! I would also suggest jacking it from a school across the country so they don't find you and bring a beat down (Obvious Sarcasm).

Now I'm just going to link up some Youtube videos of stuff that I like (at least pieces of it I like) and would be cool to use as inspiration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QE0TJBF7Ro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if02tS5-Glk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYLEPtdw4Rk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL2luR8Y6Xs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40oZ0PVPRzs

You are beautiful

There is no body type you have to have to be a cheerleader. I am 5"5' and my weight ranges from 145 to  155. I have a huge butt, a bit of a tummy, and thunder thighs. I was still cheer captain. My co-captain was almost 6 foot tall, skinny, and all legs. She backed and I based. We had a short chubby girl fly one season. We also had flyers who were 5 foot 2 and 110 pounds. My point is that just because you aren't a short skinny girl doesn't mean that you can't cheer. Cheerleaders come in all shapes and sizes. We are not all alike like the media portrays us to be. We are each unique, special, and beautiful. The squad needs all types of girls. Don't think that just because you don't have a model's body mean that you can't cheer. If I can do it I know you can too. Just prove yourself and your skills and leave it all out on the mat. 

Watch Those Motions!!

My cheer pet peeve: Shitty motions. For the love of all things sparkly why is it so hard for some people to figure out how to do a right or a left punch? WHY??????? Its so easy!! Straighten your arm, put it right next to your ear, thumb tucked, squeeze your muscles, and pretend that a puppet master has your arm on a string and is pulling it straight up. Your hand should NEVER be over your head or in front of you. It should always be straight above your shoulder. Why do some girls hook their arm? You ain't no pirate! Why do some girls push their arm forward? That looks like you are a deformed unicorn with a horn coming out of your shoulder. Why do some girls tilt their heads so they can touch their ear to their arm, instead of pulling straight up from your shoulder? Girl you confused. See this girl on the left is doing a unicorn. The girl on the middle has a hook. The girl way in the back is doing it right.

Then the people who can't do a high or a low-V. Your arms should not be parallel with your body. If you look straight ahead while doing a high or low-V then you should see both fists out of the corners of your eyes. Your arms will be in front of your body.And for the love of all things sparkly watch your wrists! Your arm should be straight. Don't push your wrists up, down, left, or right during the motion. The top of your hand should be level with the rest of your arm and there should be a straight line from the pinky side of your hand to your shoulder. I see a lot of flyers do this! They have what I like to call broken wrists. It looks like this. (and a little side note: Never cheer at a game in a T-shirt. That's NASTY!)











If you are doing a touchdown PLEASE do it correctly! It's just a left punch and a right punch at the same time. This is the wrong way for it to look. Her arms should be touching her ears just like the three girls on the left of the other picture.
















 And when you do a low touchdown a good rule of thumb is to squeeze your boobs together with your elbows. Obviously you keep your arms straight while you do the squeezing and your arms will be a little in front of you.











 And PLEASE watch your arms when you're doing a broken T!!! This is the GROSSEST motion if its done wrong. Look at it. EWW! Keep your arms flat and right in front of your shoulders.

A T is just like a high or low V in premise. Its just in front of you, perpendicular to your body. You always have to remember to keep your arms straight and not have one higher than the other.











When you do daggers you have to keep your arms at a right angle. From the side of your arm with your pinky to your elbow should be straight and parallel with your body. Your arms should be on either side of your boobs. If you push your boobs together too much the motion will end up looking like a mini high-V. If you don't tuck in your arms enough then it will look like a chicken wing. Chicken wing example.


















And lastly I will discuss an L. For the love of all things sparkly the girls on my squad had the HARDEST time doing an L correctly. I don't know what was so difficult about it, but they sucked at it. For an L put one arm in a punch position, and the other in a half T position. You have to make sure that your punch is perfectly straight and your half T is parallel with the ground. See this girl on the left is demonstrating the confused look when you do a punch because her head is tilted. If your arms aren't perfectly lined up with each other it could look NASTY.



 

That's pretty much the motions that get screwed up a lot. If you think I missed a big one then please tell me and I will add it. There are a ton of strange non-named motions that you will have to do, but they're all based off of the basic motions I just talked about. I hope this helped and rememeber! STAY SPARKLY!!