Aliyah McDaniel
English 1101
Expertise
“Let’s go ladies! Push! That’s it!” All cheerleaders know these words and are probably used to hearing them from their coaches by now. Would you devote your blood, sweat, and tears to a hobby where you would practice twice a day, stunting, tumbling, jumping, running, falling, hurting, and keeping a smile all at one time? I would any day. Cheerleading is one thing I’m good at and enjoying doing when I have the opportunity. I would say cheerleading is the most misunderstood sport there is. It takes more than yelling and jumping around while smiling at an audience.
Teams don’t get as good as they are overnight. There’s a process. Just like every other sport, cheerleaders have to attend workouts/conditioning
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before the season starts. We have to get prepared mentally and physically. Conditioning consists of exercises, running, working on jumps, tumbling, and stunting. A typical day of conditioning would start off with us stretching and running laps to get us warmed up. Afterwards, we’ll get into jumps. Toe touches, pikes, tucks, and more. To make jumps higher and better, they’re usually practiced with ankle weights multiple times. Stunting comes next. Stunting is when there’s a group that is made up of a flyer (the person held in the air) and his/her base(s) (the person holding the flyer). Stunts can also include front and/or back spots. It all depends on the type of stunt being done. Tumbling and workouts are often last. In my opinion, this is the most tiring part of practices. Tumbling is flips, cartwheels, etc. During tumbling and stunting is where most injuries take place because these skills require the most technique, but all of these skills require a lot of strength and practice. Team bonding is also a part of this. It’s very important to get to know your squad. Trust and communication play a huge role in cheerleading. This is to get us prepared and ready for competitions. A competition routine consists of a squad performing tumbling, jumping, dancing, stunting skills and sometimes a cheer for three minutes on a competition mat while being completely flawless.
Each tumbling pass and stunt is judged on difficulty as well as technique. Dance, cheer motions, and jumps are judged on technique and sharpness. The more difficult a pass or stunt the more points awarded. It takes hours every week to practice and perfect a three-minute routine with these in it. There are specific divisions when competing. Divisions are specific groups that cheerleaders are broken up into based on age, the number of people on the team, and skill level. Within these divisions are rules that the team must follow to be in the running to win. Just like any other sport, there are rules you have to follow and if not, you can get disqualified. Additionally, in competitive cheerleading, cheerleaders must also jump a specific height, throw girls in the air at a specific height, their voices must sound a certain way if they’re doing a cheer, and they also must tumble and dance in unison, all to prove themselves to the …show more content…
judges. With any sport, you have to be a good team player and know how to work with others to succeed. Being a good teammate includes encouraging, helping each other, and respecting your other teammates. It’s essential to have this to get over difficulties the team might be facing or even one person may be facing. It can go a long way. This sport greatly reflects my personality. According to a personality test on www.16personalities.com, I’m a “consul”. Some of the qualities of a consul consist of being supportive, loyal, social, and have a strong sense of responsibility. Since I am a visual learner, learning dance moves or cheers come easy to me. These qualities and the dedication I have is great to have while doing this sport. The energy, the challenge, the lights, the sweat, competitions, being the center of attention for the moment, the friends you meet, the clothes, the bows, the makeup. The list of what draws me to it can go on and on. I love it. I’ve done it for years and even if I took a break from it I would still have the love for it. “Cheerleading isn’t a sport.” “Cheerleading is only for girls.” “Cheerleaders never get hurt.” These are popular misconceptions of cheerleading.
Cheerleading is just as much as a sport as football or basketball. We look forward to showing off our skills, too. Most cheerleaders are just as strong as a football player and just as flexible as a gymnast. Since when is cheerleading a girls sport? It isn’t. On a high school team you might not see many guys. However, in competitive cheerleading, they’re everywhere! No, they’re not homosexuals. Males provide strength, power and a much needed competitive edge. Just because we make something look easy doesn’t mean it is. Skills can take months to learn. It could take a while to overcome the fear of doing it. It all depends on the person. For some people it could come naturally, but some may have to work harder. A lot of things could go wrong if something isn’t done correctly. Most times when something goes wrong, someone gets hurt as
well. In spite of difficulties, obstacles, and discouragement cheerleaders always put their best efforts forward to achieve. Not everyone can do it. It takes a driven, self-confident and bold person to stand in front of a crowd and capture their attention for 3 minutes.
For competitive cheer you have to athletic if you want to be good. The cheerleaders are non stop tumbling, stunting, jumping, or dancing for more than two minutes. They never have a break in the routine that is pushed to the max with all the difficulty you can make and all of the legal things you can do in a routine. The sport
Unlike gymnastics, you must rely only on yourself to do what you need to do to win. Relying on the rest of your team, cheerleading is a much harder team sport. Gymnastics does have a team score but it only takes the top three scores form each event for the team score. Gymnast must perform wonderful but if they do not then they are the ones to blame. Cheerleading, the most team oriented team sport, relies on multiple people to get one job done.
The performance seen by fans is usually full of pep and school spirit. Behind every routine there is someone that helped create or supervise it. For scholastic cheerleading there are not multiple coaches, usually two. One coach for varsity and the other coach's junior varsity. Coaches are staff members with some type of performance
Ironically, cheerleaders get the name of a “snob” or a “brat”, however a cheerleaders job is to bring positivity and spirit to their school. To be conceited or a bully is the complete opposite of what a cheerleaders job is; which means their primary responsibility is to pump up the student body for the big game or to get others involved and support school functions. Aside from the stereotype that cheerleaders are snobby, another assumption is that cheerleaders only hang out with other cheerleaders, that they are very exclusive. In films, cheerleaders are seen as the girls that always sit at the same lunch table and no one else is allowed to sit with them, or the ones that walk the halls in the same cluster while they laugh and gossip about other girls. A cheerleader is taught to be inclusive and to get others engaged in activities throughout the school, and if cheerleaders are pushing others away by being exclusive they are not doing their
Cheerleading is fun! Of course we cheerlead because it’s fun! From cheer camp to laughing on the sidelines, cheerleading is always a good time, especially with your friends. The memories made my cheerleaders whether they be from practices, games, or spirit activities (like decorating for senior night or baking treats for football players) are memories that will be cherished for a cheerleaders lifetime. Cheering is such a positive and happy experience because we are always doing something fun or accomplishing something new, like learning our new pyramid or mastering our routine. I get to get dressed up in my uniform with my bow in my hair and my white, red-track stained cheer shoes and not only cheer on my favorite football team but run around and cheer and stunt with a team of fun-loving girls and bring my community
I believe that cheerleaders provide hope and gleam when it’s required the most. Cheerleaders are kind-hearted and continuously display it without hesitation. If you think about it, cheerleading is the only sport where it’s mandatory to smile; Whether it’s scorching hot or freezing cold. When on duty as a cheerleader, there is no time to slack off. The games would never be as enjoyable without the cheerleader executing their full
According to Brea Darnell, cheerleading is not a sport because of “the inability to compete against an opponent. One of the most important requirements of a sport [is] to compete against another opponent, not just cheer to support your team” (Daily Republic). Pom-poms and sideline chants are aspects of sideline cheerleading that lack in contributing to the definition of competitive cheerleading. Competitive cheerleading is a different side of cheerleading that consists of tumbling, jumping, and dancing, alongside a greater amount of contact activity in comparison to sideline cheerleading. Lori A. Selke, a writer for Livestrong.com, creates the argument that, “in order to gain and maintain those athletic qualities, a competitive cheerleader must train as hard as any other athlete… In addition to attending cheer practice to practice stunting, tumbling, and dancing, cheerleaders must also weight lift and work out several times a week” (Selke). The arrogation of cheerleading illuminates why it is a sport and not just an activity because of the overall devotion to the sport and time a cheerleader must generate to practicing, refining, and executing skills, similar to any other athlete in
I know that cheerleading is a sport. Have you ever got asked if you think that cheerleading is a sport or not. That is what I am going to tell you today. Cheerleading is just like football and basketball it is a game where you compete and get points. But with cheerleading it is not about throwing the ball accost a field or making a basket. It is about how well it is performed. To do good they have to prates a lot and they also have to have a lot of upper body mussel.
“Cheerleading involves skills which require the strength of football, the grace of dance, and the agility of gymnastics” (“Sport”). Many categorize competitive cheerleading as just an activity without any skill needed: there is nothing further from the truth! Competitive cheerleading is a sport that is dedicated to competition, fits the definition of a sport, and possesses a goal.
For example, they have practices every day after school to practice their routines and stunts (Remnick). They have to make posters for all sport teams, go to all of the sporting events, and support and volunteer for the community. Also, everything they do represents the school in some way, so they have to be on their best behavior all the time. Sometimes they even have to cheer for more than one sport at a time, so they will be cheering for a game every night of the week, and they are expected to get homework done and get to bed at a reasonable time for school the next morning. They are more busy than regular athletes, and sometimes cheerleading isn’t the only sport or activity the girls are involved in.
From an outsiders perspective one may see brainless and beautiful robots, which scream and perform neat tricks. This is not the case from the inside; cheerleading is so much more than that. Many people are under the impression that cheerleading is not a sport. I am the voice of reasoning that will let you in, and I will show you that cheerleading, in fact, is a sport. Cheerleading requires much physical demand from the body just as any other sport would. Cheerleading, in general, is a team effort. There are many sides to cheerleading, which make it a versatile sport. When it comes to cheerleading there’s more to it than what meets the eye.
Because some cheerleading squads don’t compete, society thinks of it merely as a physical activity. Even though cheerleaders’ main purpose is to support other athletic activities, cheer squads whom compete, follow all physical criteria to be considered a sport. Cheerleaders put forth an incredible amount of determination. They practice tirelessly to show off their skills, with little or no recognition for their efforts. Cheerleading is a sport because it requires physical fitness, skill, dedication, and stamina. Cheerleading should be considered a sport globally.
The best leadership accomplishment that demonstrates my potential to make significant contributions to the campus community and broader society is cheerleading. Cheerleading has made a huge impact on my life and has created many opportunities for me. It has paved the way for my high school career. Cheerleading provided me with opportunities to lead, volunteer, perform and show the athletic ability of our squad.
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.
The New York Times states that cheerleading is the fastest growing girls’ sport, yet more than half of Americans do not believe it is a sport. A sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature” (dictionary.com). Cheerleading at a competitive level is physically demanding and requires team work to be the best. The misconception of cheerleaders being weak, nonathletic crowd entertainers makes people believe cheerleaders are not athletes and that cheerleading is just a hobby but cheerleaders that compete at a competitive level are in fact athletes because it meets the standards of what a sport is, which includes rules and regulations, and overcoming air resistance.