The Diary of a University Cheerleader

    “Here we are, back again with our second edition to show you what the Chester Vixens have been up to over the month of November.” Cheer All Girl Level one  All in all, training has been going really well. The stunt groups are strong, the athletes are all picking up the terminology and stunts brilliantly and we’re getting new skills each week. People are really pushing themselves, it’s great! The main issues we are facing is attendance and focus. Many of these athletes have only been cheerleaders for the past two months, and therefore haven’t yet mastered the cheerleading – life balance. We’ve had a lot of absences recently. Some absences are genuine, but others don’t realise that we can see them on Facebook. So when they say they’re too ill to turn up and just watch a session, we can see that they’ve just been tagged in a post on Facebook, having a great time at someone’s birthday celebrations… Absences can be really disheartening as a coach. Why do we spend so much time planning sessions, aiming to be the best team, when the team don’t give us their best? Especially when I too have a degree and a dissertation to complete. It’s really easy to get caught up in the negativity, so a lot of the time I have to take a step back to remember why I do this in the first place. And the people that do turn up to training week in week out, they see the benefits, and they are becoming fantastic cheerleaders! Here is what Millie, our Vice Club Captain had to say about what she’s been up to recently: She said: “One of my main roles as Vice-Captain has been the music. As many of you will know, the right music can make or break the overall vibe of the routine, and as I often point out, if my cheer music doesn’t make me feel like I could lift a car it’s not the one for me! For the past few months I’ve been working hard to source reasonably priced voiceovers and production companies which has not been easy. Saying that however, it has been really fun to dig out some great tunes. I’m excited to get our choreography so I can start piecing it together” Pom Unfortunately, I train with my All-Star team during Pom’s training session, so I never get a chance to visit their training sessions. However, Millie (Vice Captain) attends them regularly and the Pom Captains post progress videos each week so the girls can go and practise at home. Ellen and India (Pom Captains) have really thought outside the box this year with the routine. It’s looking really good. Here’s what Ellen has to say about her experience so far as Pom Captain: “With an aim to have the whole routine choreographed by the Christmas holidays, my role as Pom Captain alongside India has included many hours focusing on formations and inspiration for our routine. We’ve been looking at different dance styles to create a vibrant and visually effective routine for competition, while keeping in with Pom style of Dance. “Time-management as a committee member is hard. Working 20 hours a week and doing my university work can get very stressful. However, I look forward to Pom sessions and enjoy the choreography. As a committee member I have also helped with fundraising towards our uniforms which are going to be a big pay out this close to Christmas! But it’s worth it! In a few years it will be a great memento of my university cheer days! I love cheer and it makes university easier as having a focus away from studies can be a real help.” Prep Squad Over November I’ve been attending more of Prep Squad’s sessions. Whilst Pom and Cheer don’t have its first competition until February, Prep Squad start performing at the end of November. Therefore, training sessions have been very packed in order to be ready to perform at the Men’s Basketball game during half time. Maybe because Prep Squad aren’t my sole responsibility, but I feel a lot less anxious attending Prep Squad’s training sessions. I’m not their first port of call as they have two team Captains, and there’s no pressure with competitions. In the sessions I have attended, I’ve helped clean up the routine and created the stunting and tumbling section of the routine (new to Prep Squad this year). The girls really seem to enjoy themselves and I really hope all their hard work pays off in their first performance. I know Summer and Deena (Prep Squad Captains) are getting a little stressed as performance day is getting closer, but I’ll definitely be there at the fronting shouting the counts and motions on the day. New Uniforms Myself and Millie didn’t realise just how time consuming the entire uniform process would be. Cheer have had the same uniforms for the past five years, so we thought it was about time for an update. However, the process to do so was something we could never have imagined. You have to shop around for the best deal, taking into consideration student budgets; you have to agree on a design, which was no easy task; you have to take into consideration every single body shape in order for everyone to feel comfortable; and finally get a sample made and continue making alterations until you are happy. It probably took about six months, but we got there! Pom just seemed to find a design they liked really quickly, and then liked the first sample they had made. They were easily pleased. Which in this case, is definitely a good thing! In previous years Prep Squad have worn t-shirts and skirts because they haven’t needed a proper uniform as they don’t compete. However, since we were rebranding Prep Squad this year, we thought it only fair for them to have a new uniform too. Therefore, Prep Squad have adopted Cheer’s previous uniform. The first task of getting all the uniforms sorted was finally done. Then it came to sizing everyone. It was a tedious task, but didn’t take long. The next task was getting everyone to pay by the deadline. You’d think a team of university students, always writing to deadlines would take a payment deadline in their stride. Oh no. These guys must be the students writing right up to the deadline. It was quite stressful checking the payment list every 10 minutes. Another uniform change we’ve made in training t-shirts. Usually we get grey hoodies made with our names and “Chester Vixens Cheerleading” on. They’re great. However, with the new look we’re going for, we wanted to add some new training tops instead. That way we’d look uniform for choreography day and when we post videos online. And if nothing else it’s easier to get ready for training as you know exactly what you have to wear. Uniform Fundraiser As we all know as cheerleaders, uniforms don’t come cheap. Cheer’s uniforms are the most expensive, closely followed by Pom and then Prep Squad’s are the cheapest. We offered returning members of Cheer the opportunity to sell on their uniforms to Prep Squad. That way they’d be saving money on the new uniform. The second thing we had planned to save money was a fundraising event at a local night club. Each Captain told their team about the event and what the event was for. Since the money was going towards Cheer and Pom’s uniforms, we knew we couldn’t ask Prep Squad to take the time out of their evening to help us, but it would be nice of them to get involved somehow. Out of the 40 members on Pom and Cheer that could have attended, only 13 showed up, including committee. We ended up raising less than half of our target. We were so disappointed in the team. As we didn’t raise much money, there was no way we could have put it towards the uniforms. We have instead put it aside to go towards training facilities in the run up to competitions instead. We did also get a little something for the members that did help out too, to show them that their dedication did not go unnoticed. Choreography Choreography day came around so fast. We had really pushed the girls in training, practising every Level 1 stunt possible, just in case we were given it. Whilst myself and Millie were nervous, we had complete faith in our athletes for choreography day. The day was held in a different location to our normal training sessions, so we had to turn up at 8am (in the snow) and transport our mats across campus – which was no easy task! It probably took us 30 to 40 minutes to transport the mats and get them set up. As we were warming up, our Choreographer, Lorraine, arrived. Just from seeing us warm up she commented on how strong the team looked. Choreography day was on my birthday. Since we were there from 8am-6pm, I wasn’t really able to celebrate. However, during our lunch break, Millie came in with this huge cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday. I was so humbled and grateful as it was the last thing I was expecting. It’s the small things like this that really bring a team closer together. It was a long, hard day. Most of the girls had never cheered before coming to university, and perhaps didn’t realise the pure physical and mental endurance needed. Many people started to lose focus and feel disheartened when their stunts weren’t hitting. Cheerleading is all about resilience, how well you can pick yourself back up and carry on with the next thing, how you can leave that bobble in the past and hit the next stunt. It’s the hard sessions that really bring the team together. So I’m hoping to see a new level of focus at our next training session. Other events we’ve been involved with Christmas Light Switch On The Garden Quarter is a small area around the university, where many students live. It is however highly residential as well. Each year they have a small Christmas Light Switch On Event which sees the local primary school, choirs and orchestras perform. We were lucky enough to be invited to perform as well. Only a handful of our members were able to perform, and due to it being such a small stage, we had to come up with a completely new routine. It only lasted a minute, and probably wasn’t one of our most impressive routines, but the crowd seemed to really enjoy it. All in all, a success! We were really impressed with the girls who performed as well, considering they learnt the routine in just two hours. Christmas Card Each year the University puts out a Christmas card which is signed off by our Vice-Chancellor. There is a physical card and then an online animated card too. For the first time this year, a sports club has been asked to be the face of the Christmas Card. We were that sports club! We had to choreograph yet another small routine for the Christmas Card, and perform it numerous times outside in the cold, but it was all worth it! The card is getting sent all over the world so it’s such a privilege to involved. Overall  We’re getting into the thick of it now. Teams are drilling their routines, everyone has become closer and more people are getting involved in our events. We’re finally seeing our hard work begin to pay off. We have some more charity fundraising coming up which we’ll be able to share in our next edition, as well as our in-house showcase and uniform reveals. We’ll also be running full outs of our routines, and will have a better idea of how well we’ll do come competition season. Thanks again for reading, Rachel Thank you Rachel for giving us an honest reality of uni cheer and showing us what strength it takes to be a university cheerleader.  We can’t wait for next month edition :)