1. Tumbling Your Way to Cheerleading Success
Tumbling consists of basic gymnastic floor routines: cartwheels, front and back hand springs, splits, somersaults and aerials. Often the participants able to do these on the team use these stunts as distractions while the rest of the team is getting ready for tosses and multi-level configurations. The more people that you have who can do tumbling at increasingly-difficult levels increases a team's scores in competition.
2. Jump With All Your Might
There are various types of jumps involved in cheerleading. You can do jumps from stationary positions or in tossing configurations. Some positions to follow once in the air include the pike (a straight-body bend at the waist, where you look much like a jack knife closing and opening as you touch your toes with your fingers) and the arch, where you jump up and arch your back, spreading your arms and legs out as you do so. The tighter and more controlled you make the movements, the sharper your jumps look.
3. The Shy Need Not Apply
You cannot be shy. A shy or timid personality within the team's ranks can bring the whole team down. During a cheerleading competition and in performance, you have to be able to show excitement on your face and with every bit of body language. You have to have an infectious bubbliness that you can bring to your team and to those watching your performance. This is especially true when your team is losing. Chants and cheers--short and long vocal routines to charge up an audience--go a long way to helping you do your job, and you need to remove timidity and push yourself outside your comfort zone to be able to project your voice and your spirit.
4. Shake Your Groove Thang
The ability to have rhythm is definitely a plus and hard to underrate in this activity. A lot of the routines are built around an 8-count, so you have to be able to stay with the rhythm and speed. You need to be able to focus on clapping and moving to choreographed routines while keeping an eye on your teammates. Straight out of a typical dance move is, for example, the toe-step pivot which allows you to look at the audience, and then turn and look toward the game, all in a back and forth with consistency and flow. The more practice you get with general dancing skills, the better your performance will be as all eyes look at you and your teammates during your cheerleading routines.
5. Cheerleading is a Sport!
Cheerleading requires you to be in excellent physical condition, much the same as any high-impact, high-intensity sport. The routines call on you to be limber, loose and flexible with your body movements, as well as strong enough to support yourself and any team mates as you go into the various twists, turns, jumps and spins that characterize properly-choreographed routines.
Member Comments