While basic stunts may not be the most exciting they are essential to learn before progessing to more advnaced stunts. It is important to always remeber perfection before progression. These stunts are easy to learn and you can master them in almost no time at all. They will take two to three people to execute each stunt. The shoulder sit is simply when you have a base with a flyer sitting on her shoulders and if you would like you can have a spot around to assist with getting into the stunt and the dismount but a spot is not required. Then you have a shoulder stand which is quite similar the only difference is that the flyer will be standing on the bases shoulders instead of sitting. Both of the previous stunts can be loaded into in several different ways. The last but not least we have the thigh stand, now this stunt requires three people. tow bases and one flyer. Your bases will start out in a lunge towards on another and the flyer using the bases shoulders to push off of witll step and lock into a standing position on their thighs.

Today we are going to talking about the very basics of stunting, and those are stunting drills. There are various drills that you can do and they are all intended to prepare you for certain stunts or certain parts of a stunt. They also help build your skill set to ensure everyone is safe while stunting. A few stunting drils all the trophy drill, the cradle pop drill and the four corner drill. to execute each of these drill you will need four to six people. Lets start with the Trophy drill, it takes four or five people and is used to prepare you fro basket tosses. You will start in the stunt as if you were beginning a basket (which will be explained in greater detail in an upcoming blog)  and then as a group you will lift your flyer up without releasing her and hold her up for three seconds before bringing her down. In the cradle pop drill all members will set as if you just cradled out of a stunt and then you will pop the flyer into the air having her pull up with her core. This drill helps all group members prepare for the impact of a cradle and it ensures proper catching. Finally we have the four corner drill!!! in this drill simply have one person get down on all fours and have your flyer stand on top staying very tight, have the remaining four people stand at each of the four corners and catch the flyer if she falls in your direction.Always stay alert while doing this drills because while they are simple you are still at risk of falling.

Okay so my next several posts are going to be about my favorite part of cheerleading..... STUNTING! Stunting is on of the more exciting part of cheering i mean who doesn't love watching girl flying through the air. When stunting you can take one of  the four positions you can be a Flyer/Top Girl, a Base, a Back spot and last but not least a Front spot. All positions are very important to ensure the stunt goes up without any problems. You have to remember the most important part of stunting is safety because it is a very dangerous task. So when trying something new or something that you aren't comfortable with make sure you have extra people around to spot the stunt and perfection before progression. Soon enough you too can master the high flying tricks that everyone watches in awe.

Another basic element of cheer is the jumps! There are five basic jumps and those are the toe touch, right hurdler, left hurdler, herkie and last but not least a pike. Now jumps are a little bit more challenging to master, but with hard work and dedication it's more than doable. When practicing your jumps it's important to remember to keep your head, chest and arms up. NEVER EVER EVER bring your chest to your legs. If your upper body is pulled up it really doesn't matter how high you get your legs. Your jumps are all about making pretty lines so always point your toes! I know that is a lot to remember but it becomes second nature after a while.

For any readers that don't know much about cheerleading my goal this week is to break down the basics! Lets start with motions shall we? We have right basic motions and they are the high V, low V, T, touchdown, right L, left L, half T and punch. These motions are what we use to make up the movements that go along with our cheers so they are pretty important. But no worries they are super easy to master and all you have to remember is stay sharp! No matter what stay sharp and your motions will always look flawless

Cheerleaders do a lot more than what everyone seems to think. We do not only stand in front of the fans jumping up and down waving our Pom poms around. There is so much more to it, and I'm going to break it all down for you. Of course there are times when we just jump around and that's called spiriting we use it to get the crowd going and while its important we don't put much emphasis on it at practice. We spend out long grueling practices doing cheers and chants and of course stunting and jumping. For those of you that don't know yes there is a difference between a cheer and a chant, but I can explain that later. Next we have our jumps and tumbling which while it all looks pretty they are a beast to master! Finally we have stunting which is almost everyone's favorite part because it is flashy, difficult and impressive. To some it is like magic how we can make humans fly. But as you can see we do much more than you realize hence the crazy long practices!

When you hear the word cheerleader what is the first thing that pops into your head? Many think of the beautiful, popular, ditzy, loud girl that is dating the quarterback of the football team. well not to burst any ones bubble but we are not all like that. All cheerleaders are different and we all have very different personalities and character traits. So i would like to explain why this stereotype that we as cheerleaders seem to get. First off beauty is in the eye of the beholder there is no set definition of beauty. Ive been told that all cheerleaders do is chew gum and lose brain cells, but that is entirely untrue. For starters we are not allowed to chew gum while cheer leading much like in other sports because of the choking hazard, and for many schools you must maintain a certain GPA to be eligible to participate in any sports including cheer leading. When it comes to being loud yes i will admit we are loud but that is our job we must be able to project our voices to get the crowd pumped if we couldn't what good would we be.But that doesn't mean that we are loud all the time i know quite a few cheerleaders who are very quiet,but as soon as you get them on the track they are as loud as can be.  Clearly it is unreasonable that we are all dating the quarterback of the football team because the ratio of cheerleaders to quarterbacks is about 20:1.Many of these stereotypes come about and are continued through various types of media like television and movies, but i am happy to inform you that we are not all like the girls you see on TV. Just like many other stereotypes those about cheerleaders are 100% false.