Athletes lift weights... Cheerleaders lift Athletes

One of the first questions I always seem to get asked once someone discovers I am a high school student is, “Do you play any sports?”  I cannot even count on my hand the number of snickers and rude remarks I receive when I reply saying "I’m a cheerleader".  While many people look at cheerleaders and only see short skirts, tight tops, and a whole lot of hair spray; there is so much more to cheerleading than what meets the eye.

Friday nights in the fall are consumed with a rowdy crowd, body paint, and a line of cheerleaders standing on the track rooting for the football team to victory.  To an outsider, cheerleaders may seem like a group of high pitched, annoying girls, who continue to repeat themselves over and over again, but what these people don’t see is the competitions.  Competitions are what cheerleading is really all about, and it consists of jumping, tumbling, stunting, and dancing.  In only three minutes we put together a high-energy routine that consists of all of these elements

Jumping is the skill that requires agility and flexibility.  In cheerleading jumping is also referred to as “toe- touches”, even though we don’t actually touch our toes.  It is the skill of bringing our feet up so that we can hit a perfect “V" in the air. There are many different jumps that all require different body positions and flexibility.   

Tumbling is the act of performing acrobatic movements on a mat. This is the skill where we must learn to flip ourselves backwards and forwards, and backwards again.  This takes a lot of practice and a lot of hard work.  We must overcome fear and we most have the motivation to push ourselves further and we ever thought we could go. 

Stunting is my favorite category and din my opinion is the most enjoyable to watch.  It takes a lot of balance and strength to be able to lift our teammates into the air.  While tumbling we flip ourselves, in stunting we flip each other. 

Dance in the last component of the routine.  Dancing take a lot of synchronization and memorization, in order for the while team to look as a single unite.  If those pictures weren't convincing enough that cheerleading is hard work, then check out our cheerleading routine from this year,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Vm4CjF9MY! The stunting and tumbling only gets more difficult as you get older, and if you are interested in seeing how intense it can really get then click here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Vm4CjF9MY.

We train hard for competitions.  We run, condition our muscles, and practice every day.  While people love the movies Bring it On (which I myself am guilty of knowing one too many lines by heart), these moves about cheerleading only continue to ruin our reputation.  They make us seem like all we do is stand around and hope that our high school football team will make it to states. Pleaseeeee we have way better things to do than that.  Cheerleading takes a lot of hard work, blood, sweet, and tears.  I myself can speak for the blood part since I have broken two bones in my hand, and my nose from cheerleading alone!  Both happened to be from stunting but I can list so many cheerleaders that have torn ACL’S, broken their foot, and dislocated their elbows, all from tumbling and or stunting.  These are the things that people don’t hear about.  So the next time you want to laugh at cheerleaders, or say “It’s not a sport”, why don’t you march down to the gym while we’re practicing and try to do half of the stuff we do. 

kelseykirkman96@gmail.com