History of an Uncommon Cheerleader

My History of Cheerleading

If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I would ever be a cheerleader, there is a solid chance that I would laugh in your face and quickly say no. I was a major tomboy from 3rd grade to probably the end of 6th grade. I had far more friends that were boys and I was always wanting to play football and roughhouse with the boys. I played softball in my preteen years and was just far more interested in being a jock. The only impression of cheerleaders that I had was what I had seen on tv. I only knew the stereotypes and I was not about to give myself that rep. I had done gymnastics before but didn't ever go very far with that. One day, at my grandma's house I was doing cartwheels and handstands in the back yard when my dad offhandedly said that I could never be a cheerleader. I don't think he meant it seriously, but it lit a fire inside me and made me want to prove him wrong. I just kind of snarkily told him to watch me and at the end of 7th grade there I was trying out to be a cheerleader. I had gone to tumbling for a few months before tryouts and taken some private lessons because I was really serious about proving my dad wrong. I remember that my first year of tryouts, it was still set up to where the dance team and the cheer squad tried out on the same day, and you could try out for both with a preference of one or the other. There were so many 7th and 8th grade girls there and I was extremely intimidated. The 8th graders that were trying out for the second time were really good at what they did and I was so nervous. The song that our tryout dance was to was One, Two Step by Ciara and I still remember most of the dance we learned to it! I worked SO hard that week to make a strong impression and learn the cheer, chant, and dance. I think the highest tumbling skill that I had at the time was a front walkover maybe not even that yet. I don't remember much about my actual tryout but I remember waiting so anxiously for the results to be posted. After a few hours, we all went back to the school when the list was posted and I couldn't believe it. I made the cheerleading squad! I was so shocked but I had actually done it! I was a junior high cheerleader. Our squad was so talented and we always got the crowd pumped up with our pep rally performances. It was such a flip in my life. I understood then that all the stereotypes about cheerleading were not true. I was more active than I had ever been in my life, I was making more girl friends than I had ever had, and I felt more like I was involved in my school than ever before. I realized that you have to be VERY strong to be a cheerleader, both physically and emotionally, because practices are exhausting, stunting is extremely hard, and being around 15 other teenage girls is emotionally tiring. 

I quickly fell in love with cheering. My favorite thing to do was to perform at pep rallies, especially the dance sections of our routines. My body definitely wasn't used to this kind of activity and I had to start wearing knee braces on both knees and started experiencing some back pain. When the time came around for me to tryout again for 9th grade, I was so pumped and ready to start a new year with new girls. Tryouts went really well except I made a goofy mistake in my tumbling sequence. I still wasn't confident enough to throw a back handspring so I just did some random combination of a cart wheel, round off, front walkover and felt silly doing it. Prior to that, I had been working with my best friend to help her get confident in her tryout. When we saw the results, we were ecstatic! All of our hard work paid off and my best friend and I made the squad together! I was also announced as the captain of the squad! Shortly after that though, we found out that our coach was leaving and we would be getting a new one. That made me incredibly nervous but I knew that we would still have a great team. That year I got to make up the routines and mix the music which was very stressful but also so rewarding to see how much the crowd enjoyed my routines.

Tenth grade was a time for a big change in my cheerleading world. Tenth grade is the first year of high school where I'm from and high school cheer is a very different world than junior high cheer. the first thing that is different is the tryout. Dance and Cheer tried out on different days and it felt like the tryout itself was just harder in general. Being with juniors and seniors was an intimidating thought but I knew that I could rock the tryout after having been captain my ninth grade year. Our tryout dance was incredibly hard, because the choreographer made it somewhere between 32 and 40 eight-counts and the song was just a crazy mashup of things. We also had to create our own two eight-count part at the end of our dance routine. I don't remember the cheer or chant being especially difficult. I think I threw my standing back handspring during the cheer portion, which was such a big thing for me because I was so afraid to throw it for nearly 3 years. We went to cheer camp in Hot Springs to learn better skills and I had another new cheer coach. High school cheer was just a different world for me. My best friend and I were the only two sophomores on the squad and we were pretty nervous about this bigger squad. I think cheer in high school definitely helped me become more confident in myself because I had a whole squad of girls who I was close with and had those connections. My sophomore year I became much more confident in my tumbling with doing standing back handsprings and roundoff back handsprings, but tumbling lead to my back becoming very weak. It felt like I kept injuring it and eventually I was in so much pain that I thought I would have to quit cheer. I saw a doctor about it and he basically told me that I would not find relief until I stopped cheering. I absolutely did not want to quit and give up on my sport that I had become so passionate about. I just had to keep pushing forward for my team. At the end of my sophomore year when basketball season was over, we started doing the workout program Insanity. At first, it was truly insane and I had trouble walking down stairs for a few days after we started, but over time, Insanity seriously helped me get into the best shape of my life. I think it also helped me better prepare for tryouts my junior year.

Junior year brought another huge change for my cheer world. We had another change in coaches (yes that is a different coach for every year that I cheered, so far) AND we were transitioning into a competitive squad. We had to work EXTREMELY hard at cheer camp, which was a competition style camp, teaching us how to become a competitive squad from nothing. We spent long hours in the summer practicing and we were required to attend tumbling class to try to better our skills. By this point my tumbling was getting better and I had a series of standing back handsprings and my most advanced running tumbling pass was a front walkover roundoff back handspring series. My back was still causing my a lot of problems and with learning more advanced stunts for competition my wrists were getting weaker.  We did fairly well for our first year competing! We got first place in a couple comps and we ended up placing 3rd at State. Some of the girls who I had cheered with my whole career were graduating that year and it was pretty emotional. On Senior Week, we got to pick one of our seniors who we would be giving gifts to throughout the week. I got to pick one of my best friends and I was so ecstatic to be able to give her the themed gifts during the week and provide her with some of her favorite things. The other two juniors, who had become my absolute best friends, and I got to pick out outfits for cheer camp the next year which was so exciting because we were going to be seniors!

Then it was there, my senior year and last year as a cheerleader. So many thoughts, feelings, and emotions were flowing through my head and heart. I was chosen to be captain of the squad and I was ready to take our team to the next level. Finally, we had the same coach as the year before and she was ready to make our team the best it could possibly be. This team was so determined to be successful and we were looking forward to come out on top. We went to a competitive cheer camp again in the summer and I made the All-American Cheerleading Squad and we placed 2nd in the competition at the end of the camp. It was such a fun year from the get-go. Our goal as a team was to be able to go to Nationals in DisneyWorld. We did a ton of fundraising and continued to work our butts off to be able to get to Nationals. We were still required to go to tumbling and I didn't feel like I was benefiting from the local gym so I decided to go to Conway to a better gym. I immediately started seeing results. The coaches there were pushing me harder than ever to get my skills and it was happening! I never thought I would see the day that I did more than a back handspring, but a few months into tumbling I got my roundoff tuck. I was kind of in shock and didn't believe that I was really doing more advanced tumbling than a back handspring. I had to wear a stiff brace for a month because I got a severe wrist sprain. There were a lot of pulled muscles and tendons in my wrist (I don't really remember how I hurt it.) That put a road block in my tumbling for a while but then the day I went back to tumbling from my wrist injury, I got a roundoff back handspring tuck! I couldn't believe it and I was so ecstatic. I had overcome my biggest roadblock in cheer and I had achieved my goals that my coach had assigned me. We did fairly well in our competition season, with only one bad performance, but it just lit a fire under our butts and made us work harder. We went to State and we felt really confident. Our performance was killer, with only a few mistakes, but we got 6th place. We were so confused as to why it happened, but we figured out that it was because of the company that was running the competition. The company switched from our first competitive year, where the first year we were judged on cleanliness, so that is what we prepared for, but the second year, the judges were judging more on difficulty, which we didn't really have. We didn't score high enough to get a bid for Nationals, but the director of cheer for our state didn't believe that we should have scored the way we did and told us that we deserved to go to Nationals anyway, so he arranged for that to be possible. We were so pumped! We wanted so badly to redeem ourselves and so we worked as hard as possible for the next two months until it was time for Nationals. It finally came time for us to go to Nationals and we were ready! Not only were we excited to be missing school for the sport that we loved and for being in Disney, but we were making history for our school! No other team had ever been to Nationals and we were there to prove ourselves. Our first round of performance went so well and we scored so high, that we advanced straight to finals and got to skip the semi-final round. We could not believe the results! We got to enjoy ourselves in Disney after that round and then when it came to the finals round we felt really prepared. We ended up placing 4TH IN THE NATION!!! I was so proud of my team and it is still one of my favorite stories to tell. Our team got to be on our local news and it was just an all around incredible experience. Outside of competition we had some really fun routines that I got to put together and I have so many cherished memories from that season. My secret gift givers for Senior Week did such a wonderful job and one of my very best friends was one of my secret people! As part of the Senior Week tradition, on the last day we got scrapbooks with pictures from the season, pictures with our other teammates, and letters from each one of the underclassmen. It was such a special gift to receive and I look through it and read the letters a lot when I want to reminisce. At our end of the year cheer banquet, I was selected to be part of the All-State athletes for Cheer. We had a beautiful slideshow that our coach put together of pictures from the year and it was such a special way to end my time as a high school cheerleader. My senior year of cheer was absolutely phenomenal and when it came time for the season to end I was truly sad.

Me, flying? I couldn't believe it either.

Had to do a Lib for Senior Night 

 I definitely don't regret retiring from cheer because my body is so relieved from the pain, but I definitely miss getting to go cheer at football and basketball games and making hilarious memories with my teammates. I am so beyond grateful for cheer because it brought me some of the best friends I will ever have, it shaped me into the young woman I am, and it gave me some of the best memories I have ever had in my whole life. Cheerleading, I am so appreciative of the impact you had on my life. Though I didn't think I would ever say this earlier in my life, I love you cheer and you are so special to me. I will forever be proud to be an RHS Cheer Alum. ~Em