I spent my Valentine’s Day with my high school cheerleading squad at the 2009 Winter Tri Valley League Cheerleading Championship. Our performance was okay, but I feel like we could have done a lot better. Some things that I think need improvement are our stunts, our tumbling, and our spirit.
In our first stunts, two out of three flyers fell. The falls were minor, but by now, we should really be able to hit them solidly. An explanation for our stunts could possibly be that we change them so often. For example, we have kept the same pyramid for nearly two months, and execute it perfectly each time that we perform. To improve our shaky stunts, I think that we need to add two more practices a week, in which we only work on our stunts. I also think that we should stop changing our stunts and polish the ones that we have. Although stunting is only twenty five percent of our score, it is very embarrassing when one falls and it tends makes the routine look sloppy.
Another thing that our squad needs to work on is our tumbling. Our tumbling is basic compared to that of the squads we compete against. Many people on my team have tumbling, but execute it messily, with their legs open or toes not pointed. A few people on my team have good tumbling but are afraid to throw it. To improve upon this, I think that everyone on the squad needs to start attending tumbling practices. Our scores would dramatically increase if our tumbling was cleaner and more advanced.
At the beginning of our routine everyone is smiling and high-spirited, but after throwing tumbling passes and hoisting girls into the air, many of my teammates’ spirit has dropped significantly. We need to work on smiling, even if we mess up. Our cheer is very quiet, partially because there are only twelve girls on the squad, and partially because some are too tired from tumbling and stunting to say the words. If we were loud, we would come off as being more confident, thus raising our scores. The spirit has to stay up, in order to improve our scores.
We didn’t do as well as we had hoped at our Valentine’s Day competition, but with a little more practice I think we can become a lot better. Together, stunting, tumbling, and spirit make up a large portion of our score. We have to practice extremely hard in order to progress, but I think that we are capable of it.
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Hey. You explained your competition well with giving good detail about everything that went wrong and what needs improvement. In the second paragraph you wrote 'tends makes' and it would make sense if you wrote 'it tends to make'. Other than that it was good. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteYou seem a very determined cheerleader. I liked reading about how confident you are, and how you want extra practices. I don't really know what tumbling is, but thats just my lack of knowledge about cheerleading. One thing I would change is : ...one falls and it tends makes the routine look sloppy. (tends to make the routine...) Good job.
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ReplyDeleteCaroline,
ReplyDeleteYour blog had a lot of information in it and you clearly know how your team can improve in cheerleading. When I was reading your blog entry, a few wordings did not make sense. One of the sentences that seemed to not make sense was " Many people on my team have tumbling" This is a little bit confusing when you say "have tumbling" and needs to be reworded
Caroline-
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear about your performance at the Valentines Day Competition :( At least there will be plenty of other ones to redeem yourselves. Your description of exactly what you can work on was really good and helped me to picture exactly what can be worked on. I noticed the same mistake that Olivia pointed out, but also another.
"... when one falls and it tends makes the routine look sloppy." I think there is a "to" missing from this sentence between "tends" and "make".
Other than those few things, great entry!!