How To Follow Basic Cheerleading Stunt Safety Video

Before pepping up the crowd, make sure you and your surroundings are safe to cheer. Learn some basic safety rules for cheerleading in this video.

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Have enough space
Land on soft surfaces
Put hair up
Wear close fitting clothes
Wear proper shoes

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Lauren has been cheerleading since she was thirteen years old and coaching since she was eighteen. She is now the director of cheerleading at Orlando Gymnastics and Cheerleading. She founded the Orlando Storm All Star Cheerleading Organization with which she has won a national championship. She is also a member of the USASF and is safety certified by the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Advisors.

LAUREN MUTTY: In this segment, we are going to talk about stunting basics, stunting 101. The first thing that you need to know when you are stunting is the safety rules. Safety rule number one, always make sure you have enough space to do whatever it is that you are practicing to do. You want to make sure that you are not going to fall into anything. And if you do end up falling, you want to make sure that you are going to land on a surface that is not going to hurt you, bruise you, break anything or cut anything open. So we are on a foam floor with a carpet mat on it. And then we have plenty of room, as you can see around us, plenty of ceiling height, plenty of room on either side of us. The second safety rule is put your hair up where it is not going to get pulled on. So put it in a nice, high ponytail, keep it off your shoulders and make sure it is out of your face so that you can see everyone and everyone can see you. Second safety rule or third safety rule, rather, is to wear clothes that are close to your body, that are close-fitting. You do not want baggy pants or anything that is going to drag on the ground. You do not want, if you are a flyer such as Jessica, who are the ones that fly up in to the air, you do not want anyone to be able to grab on to anything that they can pull you down with. And then the last safety rule is, also clothing-wise, no jewelry. And make sure that you are wearing sneakers that are athletic shoes. You do not want to wear shoes that you can fold up in half and stick them in your pocket or anything along those lines. They need to be safe. They have to have a nice sole to them and they have to be tight, nice and tight, so they do not go flying off in the middle of tumbling or stunting or anything along those lines. So the basics of stunts, you want to start very close together if you are doing something such as an extension or a thigh stand, which we will show you later. But the first thing that you want to do is you want to set up nice and close. So Mandy and I are both bases. We are going to stand very close to each other. Jessica is what we call a flyer because she flies up in the air. And Kristen is our back base because she is behind the stunt, so she is at the back. Mandy is going to be what we call our main base because she takes the main foot. And I am going to be the side base because I take the second foot, which is the side foot. From that point, we just want to make sure that we are doing everything in our little area nice and safe. We got our shoes tied. We got our hair up and smiles on our faces and then we are good to go.

How to Follow Basic Cheerleading Stunt Safety Video

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