Cheerleading
A jolt of energy rushed through my body and hit my heart when they call me up to get the team trophy. Not fourth, third, or second, but first place for the third year in a row. Being a captain of a team is an amazing experience. You get to see your team physically, mentally, and emotionally prepare for competition. It's a lot of hard work, but if you try your hardest, make all the practices and have a passion for cheerleading its worth it. Every year we take a few weeks to build a competition routine, the out come is incredible, but the celebration is the best part.
Preparing for competition is easier said than done, you need a passion to complete the task. Competition is extremely stressful, but amazing at the same time. It?s a process of mixed emotions, not knowing if it?s importance will have a meaning in the end. Having practice six times a week allows us to work on our jumps, cheers, dances, tumbling, and the most difficult, stunting. Just the counts and lifting people in the air is traumatic enough, but repeating it over and over again it gets strenuous. Dancing is relaxing when you have counts to them, but when you have to learn the dance to the music people get confused and don?t know when to leave to the next formation. Team members start getting fed up with each other at the closing stages of practice, it?s just a natural human reaction after practicing with the same fifteen to twenty girls for three hours.
At last we had brought all our practicing skills into work at the final stages. After working hard for three solid months it all paid off, the competing mat was beneath our feet. It was as if I could almost hear the girl?s hearts thumping before we walked onto the mat. I couldn?t stop smiling, I had the biggest grin on my face as if I were the cat who just ate the canary. Only when I thought that was enough, my facial expressions were amazing, all the nights I spent in front of the mirror or watching my self through the reflection of the glass door in my kitchen. It?s hard to go first because watching all the other teams compete makes you think, how did I do?
When I found out that I was one of the captains of the Varsity Sideline team, I had a beaming smile and felt satisfied with my achievement. As captain, cheerleaders on the varsity and the JV squads come to me with questions and small issues, and I enjoy the opportunity to help them. I have become even more organized and mature because the coach looks to me for help. Being selected as lead captain has had many rewards, it gave me a boost of confidence and inspired me to campaign for other leadership
Being a cheerleader means setting an example. Cheerleaders conduct themselves in a respectable way and are very proud so that they can be good leaders on and off the sidelines. We are proud to represent our school and proud to be cheerleaders. We are the epitome of school spirit and we lead the other students in our school to be more spirited and show what it means so be enthusiastic in school. We lead the crowd and of course, we lead the cheering!
By universal definition, "sport" is listed as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively." Football, basketball, baseball, soccer and other primary activities have always been concretely defined as sports in society. However, one of the most physically demanding activities is constantly forgotten when it comes to the realm of sports- dance. Dance requires a tremendous amount of training and creates an aura of competition in which people compete to be the best, win, and take home the trophy- just like in traditionally accepted sports. These sports, however, do not possess an element of psychological health threats that some competitive dancers unfortunately must account for due to the emphasis placed on physical appearance.
Again I was here to work and be my best. Half way into practice coach asked “who (faces off)”? I raised my hand because why not? We went to the other side of the felid and I watched before I volunteered to (face off). Seemed easy enough for me so I gave it my all.
This recognition I received in 2015 sets me apart from other cheerleaders. Cheerleading is my passion and something I hope to never stop doing. I hope that once my time comes to an end, as a cheerleader I have the opportunity to be a head coach. Since been awarded I have noticed that more cheerleaders regardless of age, or level have come to me as their mentor seeking out advice on cheerleading. I am glad that others see me as someone they can come to, to seek advice, because I have been in their positions before at one time or another. I love to help out others in any way possible especially when it comes to something I am very passionate about. Recently, I have been able to become an assistant coach and I feel that being looked at as a mentor helps me tremendously, because they know that I am there to help them in as much as possible and that I know what I am talking about when it comes to cheerleading. I hope that by the time I graduate I will have impacted in a positive way all of their lives as
Movies portray cheerleaders as the popular girls that everyone likes and aspires to be. But when reality hits at Salem High School, it’s a completely different story. Cheerleading was taken as a joke by the other athletes and even students. It was considered a hobby, but to me it was a passion and something I worked hard to be. Being on the cheer squad in high school was difficult to deal with in school because we were constantly being snubbed by the other athletes and students in our school ever since we were kids in junior high which should not happen because everyone has the right to do what they love and they should not be judged for it being different than everyone else. It was always us versus them up until my junior year of high school when we finally earned the respect of our peers.
Sweat plummeting down their faces as they catapult yet another girl into the air; each flyer aiming higher than the last go rounds. Their whole body aches and begs for a moment of rest, but they never surrender to the pain. For the hundredth time, they’ve reviewed their two minute routine and for the hundredth time they tumbled non-stop. Knowing that all this hard-work, had the ability to raise a smile onto the face of someone watching. Knowing that at every game, they can provide the match, to lighten up the mood.
The words “competitive dance” alone say it all. The whole purpose of dancing at competitions is to compete against other dance teams in order to try and win an award. Without the competition aspect, dance should not be considered a sport. Yes, it is a physical activity that involves a lot of strength and time that needs to be dedicated to it. But without the competitive aspect, it would not be a sport. To be a sport, a team has to compete against another team for the enjoyment and entertainment of others (Sport, 1). This is the goal of any competitive dancer or dance team. For something to be a sport, it specifically needs to be in a competition setting as well as have the purpose behind it of entertaining. People do not go to a football or basketball game to sit there and watch two teams just play an equal and fair game with no activity and no winner. If all games and performances in the sports realm were like this there would be no one there to watch them because they would not be entertaining. With competitive dance, there is always two or more teams or dancers going up against each other to get the win. And a major reason why dancers compete is to entertain, because they love the satisfaction of the crowd being pleased by their performance. “I dance because it feels good. Also, applause,” said Helen Phelan, a freelance dancer
Next year, as I embark my first year at university, I hope to fully integrate myself into the community by getting involved in the Students' Union, joining the cheer team, volunteering where I can and making many new friends along the way. At university, I hope to maintain a high grade point average, granted that my education is extremely important to me and that I am extremely ambitious about achieving my goals.Therefore, I will commit lots of my time to my studies in hopes of being a successful student. Nevertheless, I am still looking forward to being a part of the community by devoting my extra time to helping those around me. In classes, I intend on being an active learner, a respectful student, and a helpful classmate; someone who is always willing to lend a hand to others. Through engaging in my community, I hope to bring joy to others around me by spending my time supporting local events, volunteering for fundraisers, and helping plan and organize campus activities.
Naturally, I faced the competition of other gymnasts, however, meets were not where my most valuable lessons were learned. The impact was greater in times I wanted to quit, and didn’t. For instance, my flyway, a skill I acquired as a child, became impossible for me to execute as a teenager. Each time I attempted to perform it, I froze, fear lingering in my mind. Frustrated, I contemplated abandoning my passion, yet, due to my persistence, I overcame the obstacle. I found quitting would never provide me the satisfaction I hungered for. Gymnastics also challenged my body. I suffered more injuries than the average gymnast with broken feet, fingers, toes, and elbows, a concussion, and two stress fractures in two years. My final injury, a torn labrum, resulted in hip surgery, six months of physical therapy, and the death of my college gymnastics dream. Through disaster emerged strength to cope with every roadblock I encounter. All of my life I had worked towards that goal, and with the lift of a scalpel, it was shattered. Thankfully, the qualities gymnastics has given me has transferred to every aspect of my life including my academic career. I have put in just as much effort in the classroom as I have in the
Cheerleading has affected many lives in a positive way and proven that sports can help build character and change a person for the better. I have been an all-star cheerleader at Cheer Extreme all-stars for the last two years but have participated in all-star cheerleading since I was three years old. Through this sport, I have become a summit champion, triple crown champion and bronze medalist at the 2017 world championship. While these accomplishments may have seem important at the time, I quickly learned that cheerleading is about more than the jackets and the rings. Winning has become a huge part of any sport but in a survey of seven cheerleaders they revealed the true meaning of the sport. When asked the
When I first started cheering, I decided to participate because of two reasons: my mom forced me and my older sister, who I modeled after, cheered. As I got older and began to think for myself, I had engaged in cheer for so long that it became a habit. If my mom did not demand that I partake in cheer, I would not have been able to go through situations that sparked personal growth and knowledge. Cheerleading has given me opportunities to guide and interact with younger kids, which has influenced my decision to become a pediatrician.
“If at first you don’t succeed try , try again.” At the age of six I was starting to play football. The game was a hard hitting running and commitment. I was six years old at the time now I’m fourteen a freshman in high school a lot has changed.
...for my first cheerleading squad, in the seventh grade, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. In fact, the try outs were so hard and so demanding I did not make the cut. This did not discourage me at all; it only gave me motive to try harder. Next season I came back with a bang; I made the cheerleading squad. Cheerleading is an experience that I would never give up for anything in the world. I learned more lessons on teamwork here than any other sport I played, because in cheerleading I mainly had to communicate with the other cheerleaders. Cheerleading involved much work and effort from me and my team mates. When I first started cheering I was a fairly fat cheerleader; by the end of the season my body was perfect enough for a show all bikini, and this is the one change that made me genuinely realize, “yes, I am an athlete; cheerleading is a sport.”
I am very proud of all my achievements listed, but I am most proud of my achievements earned through my cheerleading career. I instantly fell in love with the sport of Allstar Cheerleading in the seventh grade after growing up as a competitive gymnast. Although before high school, I believe that it is worthwhile to mention the teams I was a part of in 2013. One of my teams won several province-wide and national competitions, including the CheerExpo National Championship, where we earned the second highest score of the entire competition with approximately 115 teams competing. In the same year, we also traveled to Ocean City, Maryland, where I competed at the Reach the Beach International Championship as a crossover on both high level teams.