Under Age Marriage

Levels of Cheer Pt. 2

Last week we talked about the first few levels of cheerleading, IGCA, middle school and high school. This week we will continue talking about the  different levels of cheerleading, just the more intense levels.

While you are still attending elementary, middle, and high school you have a second option of cheer, competition squads. The competition squads are more intense and include a precise work ethic, they are also called Elite. On competition squads you are not cheering to cheer for the boys or the girls, but to win the ranking and prize trophey. Competition squads include cheers, extreme dances, tumbling, and off the wall stunts. All these elements combined to become incredible performances.

After high school cheerleading there is college cheerleading. It is overall the same as high school cheerleading  just more extreme. They cheer at atheletic events and he compete with other teams. After college you have semi-pro and pro cheerleaders. Semi-pro and pro cheerleading are the same thing except that one cheers for the pros and the other semi-pros. Both semi-pro and pro cheerleaders make public appearances and perform on the regular in the community. They do not do all the jumps,fancy stunts, or tumbling. They mainly dance and cheer. They do not travel with their teams. They cheer at home games.

Well cheerleading has an exciting world of its owns. It can be started at a very young age and carried out into adulthood. Here are some photos of college, pro, and  semi-pro cheerleaders.

Levels of Cheer

Usually a cheerleader starts her “cheer life” when she’s young at about 5 or 6 years of age with Pee Wee. In Pee Wee you learn all of your basic, need to know cheer. Like motions and simple jumps, and easy stunts. After that she’ll usually move up to IGCA. IGCA is the Irving Girls Cheer Association which cheers for the IBFA which is the Irving Boys Football Association. In IGCA it becomes slightly more intense. The girls might build slightly bigger stunts and they learn more dances that are harder and a little more fast. After IGCA, comes middle school cheerleading. Which involves a cheer camp at the beginning of the year, that helps to teach new cheers, dances, stunts, and even jumps. Middle school cheerleading is when the games really begin. You have more practices, games, and now you hold pep rally’s for the school as well. Next is high school cheerleading. In high school cheer, practices become apart of your everyday routine in order to help the squad grow as a whole. It usually can range anywhere from an hour to two and a half hours, and includes perfecting jumps, cheers, stunts, chants, dances, and tumbling. Also you have to prepare for games that occur every week and pep rally’s, that occur every so often. As you get older cheerleading becomes more intense and difficult, but will no doubt always stay exciting. These are the first levels of cheerleading.

Here are some Pee Wee cheerleaders

Cheerleading Uniforms

           Cheerleading uniforms should be made so that the cheerleader can move easily and not be confined to little movement. In the uniforms movements are supposed to look flawless. Cheerleading uniforms should also be stylish. In today’s world cheerleaders wear a variety of attractive uniforms. The basic uniform consists of a shell(top) and a short skirt. The tops are perfectly fitted and flatter the cheerleader’s body, midriff and boy cut briefs are also part of the latest trend in cheerleading uniforms.Cheerleading shoes add an essential spice to cheerleading uniforms. As the routines become more challenging the type of shoes become more important. The shoes must provide ankle support and cushioning. When you purchase cheerleading uniforms for a squad, they should all look alike.  The way the uniforms are cut, tailored, and otherwise  designed, will see to it that the cheerleading team is seen as one unit, and not a gaggle of disparate performers. The uniforms should have markings so that when movements are done in sync, there is a dramatic  affect that the audience can discern. It gives the squad a more dramatic look. And no matter what, always make sure the uniforms are functional. There is nothing worse than having to fuss with a badly-tailored cheerleading uniform right before you have to go on at halftime during the big game or at a competition. Be sure to have a dress rehearsal.

 

Basic Cheer

Cheerleading doesn’t seem to be what everyone thinks it is. It’s not a lot of girls running around with high pitched voices or mean girls plotting to run the school. We’re actually very nice, and we work hard for everything we do and achieve. Practicing everyday after school, running, conditioning, eating right, lifting weights, and pushing ourselves is just a minor part of the entire cheerleading experience. Here’s the basics of cheerleading:

1. Cheering

2. Dancing

3. Jumping

4. Stunting

To cheer to the crowd, you have to be loud and use your diaphragm, while also trying not to lose your voice. You need to be sharp with your motions and hit every move with a pop. All while keeping a charming smile glued to your face. When it comes to dancing, you also have to keep your movements sharp and work on learning the material at fast pace so you can go home and practice more.  While of course keeping your smile. Jumping is on a completely different level than cheering and dancing. To be a good jumper, you have to be flexible and have good abdomen and leg strength. If you want good jumps, you have to practice more than anything else, because you never get any better if you don’t try. A stunt group is composed of four people; two bases, a back spot, and a flyer. The two bases lift the flyer into the air by her feet, while the backspot offers support to her ankles. Stunting requires a lot of strength in your triceps and good communication with the rest of the group, because the flyer’s life is in your hands. Since i’ve given you the basics, hopefully it’ll be easier to understand whenever we talk about these things. Here’s the video of the week:

This has a little of everything, cheering, stunting, dancing, jumps, and even tumbling. But that’s it for today, have a good day tomorrow!