While you can hire a choreographer to create a cheerleading routine, you'll reap benefits by creating the routine yourself. You'll save making up the routine by yourself and by creating a routine yourself, the routine will be specific to your squad. Choreographing the routine yourself also allows you to develop your ability to adapt and alter routines independently.
Highlight Strengths
Figure out what your squad is best at, and capitalize upon it. Look at their jumps, tumbling, motions, presence and dancing. Once you figure out their strongest area, focus on it. If your squad has good jumpers, put as many jumps as possible into your routine. If you have terrific dancers on your team, incorporate more intricate dance segments. If you have a lot of tumblers on your squad, have them tumble all over. Give your team as many opportunities as possible to show off their best skills to impress the judges.
Action Packed
Choreograph every second, trying to get as much into your 2-1/2 minutes as possible. Make a map of your routine by writing down every count of the music portions on paper. Figure out what is going on during every count and don't allow any dead time. Be careful, however, not to distract the judges' attention away from your biggest skills. If you have a tumbler performing or a stunt group that can hit a bow-and-arrow, have all other action halt at the moment.
Effective Transitions
Aim for seamless transitions. Avoid simply walking to new formations. Use spins, dance moves or even tumbling to travel to new positions. Move one group of people while others are performing. Coach your cheerleaders to use transition times for working the crowd with ad-libbed shouts and spontaneous motions. At bare minimum, incorporate motions into a traveling portion so that cheerleaders are not just moving to a new formation. Finally, ensure that you minimize how far individuals have to travel across the mat. Avoid moving one cheerleader all the way to the opposite side of the mat during one transition.
Keep it Flexible
Your routine is not set in stone. The way it is at the beginning of the season when you introduce it to your squad will differ vastly from the way you compete it at the end of the season. Mastery of new skills, problems with grades, and even injuries will cause you to adapt and change your routine throughout the season. Stay flexible and work around all of these challenges. Also, evaluate your routine in light of the scoresheet used at each individual competition. Adjust your routine to the criteria for each specific competition.
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