I know we’re heading into summer, which is the closest we get to “off season”, but I wanted to
touch on something we often take for granted as cheerleaders. Some of you may have attended FC Bournemouth, as spectators or athletes. Living in the North West, I’ve never actually been. This past weekend I did, however, judge and adjudicate at a cheer and dance competition in Mid Wales, Dance Creation Competition. I can only recall one other occasion I attended a competition not as an athlete, not as a coach, not having any stress or pre-performance anxieties. And that was following knee surgery, so I was still supporting my team. Don’t get me wrong I love the buzz of waiting for
your music to play stood on the mat with your fans sat on the other side, but I loved this stress-free version of comps! Watching from the other side had me realise a few incredible skills that we forget we even have. We do ourselves such a disservice by saying, oh it’s only a showcase, or it’s just a regional comp. It sometimes even feels that way at nationals.

At Dance Creation Competition, there were a lot of cheer and dance routines, but there were more solos than I’ve ever seen before. Maybe it’s a dance thing (that I wouldn’t know), or maybe covid has something to do with that (pesky covid, at it again). I spoke to a few athletes who were experiencing stage fright and gave them words of encouragement. There were some that I hadn’t spoken to beforehand, that were doing brilliantly, and then suddenly forgot where they were, panicked and ran off crying – hey, we’ve all been there! The most heart-breaking thing I saw, was an athlete
making a mistake mid-routine, and you could see in their face that they were petrified of what their coach/teacher would say. Yes, I know sometimes our coaches have that tough love approach, and they too can feel disappointed when something doesn’t hit or you lose out on your goal – but that should always come from a place of love, and you should be able to tell that.

The point that I will eventually get to, is that we forget just how much courage it takes to get on that comp mat, or a stage, and be truly vulnerable to tens or hundreds of people in the audience. It takes a lot of knowledge to perform your tumbles, jumps and choreo – hours of practise in fact. It takes heaps of teamwork to show seamless timing, to put up a simple stunt, and to make it through your pyramid. It takes confidence sing along to the music, to perform those cheer facials and to really have a good time. We see it as the same as every other full out. We’ve had over a year out of competitions (virtual comps aren’t the same), and so it might feel weird or more stressful than usual
to do all the things you used to do with ease. You might walk back onto the mat as if you never left. Whichever scenario you fit into, give yourself time, give your teammates time, and remember just how talented you are for doing exactly what you do. Remembering choreo, counting, stunting, singing, cheering teammates, tumbling all at the same time is some mega level of multi-tasking.

Whether you’re on a level 1 or a level 7 team, you got skills!
Amongst the INTENSE facials and lip syncing going on at the comp, I saw so many faces that weekend that looked so scared, so full of doubt and insecurity. It was such a shame because they were doing so well with fantastic technique. For far too long I was that girl. I was that girl whose coach (lovingly) made jokes about how moody I looked performing. The reason being, which I’m sure so many of you can relate to, is because I never felt confident in my abilities, I didn’t feel like I deserved to perform with the incredible athletes on my team. I had all that going on in my head as
well as the multi-tasking throughout the routine, I didn’t have the capacity to let myself have fun. The truth is: if you didn’t deserve to be on that team, you wouldn’t be. If you didn’t have the skills needed to perform that routine, your coach wouldn’t have put you doing them. And when I say skills I don’t necessarily mean tumble passes or hyperextended jumps. I mean the skills that I mentioned
earlier, the ability to multitask, your role within the stunt group, the ability to learn choreography, keeping in time with the music, supporting your teammates, stamina, flexibility, strength,
performance, self-awareness, confidence and self-belief. We don’t all start out with those skills.

The lucky thing about our sport is that cheerleading an environment to build those skills in a safe space, to learn and to flourish. This was a relatively short and sweet article. But I wanted to remind you how talented you are. It can be tough to remember when we’re branded with labelled levels and surrounded by athletes who were throwing fulls in the womb. And when performing becomes second nature, it can be easy to forget just how much goes into being a cheerleader.

I hope you’ve found something useful in this month’s blog post. As always, if there is anything in
particular that you’d like us to cover, drop us a message on any of our socials. If you would like to
feature online, tag us in your photos and use the hashtags #CFHTT and #UpsideDownTime

Ta’ra,

Rach x

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