What Cheerleading Means To Me Essay

What Cheerleading Means to Me 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

The sport of all-star cheerleading stresses dedication, sportsmanship, but most importantly the value of friendship. As the season progresses, a team, which once started out as multiple individuals with a common goal grows into one cohesive unit which bonds similarly to a family. Each athlete knows they have teammates who will support them in everything they do, on or off the mat. The team becomes dependent on each other to get through hard practices and to reassure each other of skills or give each other confidence. In particular, cheerleaders tend to grow closer than other sport teams. This is because during stunts and in routines athletes put their lives in each other’s hands. When completing a routine there are various stunts that include release tricks and a great amount of trust is required throughout the team in order for the routine to be successful. If a team is lacking trust or a strong bond between teammates, the routine becomes dangerous. At the end of each season, the athletes say goodbye to the seniors and as they welcome the new athletes into the family, it is clear that their strong bond lives on for the upcoming season. Although cheerleading teaches multiples lessons which will stick with the athlete their entire life, none are more important than the value of trust and

Cheerleading is a sport of perfection and scores depend on the execution of the skills performed. It may seem coaches only stress the technique of skills to make scores higher but in fact, technique improves the safety of the athletes. When routines get hard and athletes become tired they begin to perform skills lazily just to finish out routines, but this can quickly lead to injury. Therefore, coaches always stress technique and instruct athletes to strive for perfection for their own wellbeing. Although perfection is the ultimate goal, failure is often more common than success. Coaches are quick to remind athletes that the skills they are performing are difficult and every failure is one-step closer to accomplishing their goal. Cheerleading is different from other sports because the feeling a cheerleader experiences when accomplishing a skill they have worked on for years is indescribable. The only ones who can truly relate to a cheerleaders success and failures are the members of their own team. While failure can be discouraging, athletes gain support from their teammates who encourage them since they have been through the same journey to achieve a