Cheerleading
Cheerleading is recreational activity and sometimes competitive sport involving organised routines including elements of dance and gymnastics to encourage crowds to cheer on sports teams. It is most popular in the United States. A cheerleading performer is a cheerleader.
History
Evolving in (all-male) colleges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries purely as attempts to encourage crowds at their sporting competitions to cheer, the practice spread and became largely a female activity as time progressed. A significant factor was limited availability of female collegiate sports. Organised cheerleading contests were formed; most high schools around the U.S.A. had formed cheerleading squads by the 1950s. Today cheerleading competitions are a ubiquitous feature of American public schools and universities as well as American professional football. State and national championships for school and college teams are common, and top squads take their routines extremely seriously.
While cheerleaders regard their sport as a serious endeavour, this is not a universal opinion. Cheerleaders are stereotyped in numerous television shows and movies in a sexist way as vacuous, sexually attractive and vain. In this view, cheerleading performances are purely showing off of the cheerleaders' bodies rather than a "real" sporting competition. Cheerleaders point to the athletic and aesthetic qualities of their routines, and the extensive physical training and rehearsal required to win competitions - or, more often, simply ignore this reputation.
Performance elements
Motions/Jumps
- Common cheerleading motions are high V, low V, half-high and half-low Vs, diagonals, K's, L's, T's, broken T's, touchdowns, low touchdowns, tabletops, and punches.
- Toe-touch is a jump with legs split sideways while grabing both insides of the ankles simultaneously (not toes touched in fact).
- Herkie is a jump with one leg bent and another high sideways. Hand position varies. Named after Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer. Also misspelled as: Herky, hurky
- Hurdler is similar to the herkie. The free leg is either forward (a front hurdler), or sideways (a side hurdler.)
- Pike is among the most difficult jumps. Both legs are straight out, knees locked. Arms are stretched forward to create a folded position in the air. This is often performed at a ninety-degree angle to the audience in order to show off the air position.
- The most common approach to a jump is the "prep" jump. On counts 1-2 arms are clasped, knees are together and bent. On 3-4, stand up on toes and raise arms in high V. Swing arms around in front and jump on 5-6, stand stationary and stand up on 7-8. Other approaches include power, banana, and double whip (actually two or more jumps.)
Stunts/Tumbling
- Pyramid is a cheerleading stunt that involves 5 or more persons to form a type of "pyramid" standing on each others backs.
- Flyers are cheerleaders held or thrown by others into the air. Bases or mounts hold and throw them. Spots are cheerleaders who stand behind the flyer and the bases that have two duties: 1. To make sure that the stunt does not fall and to help catch the flyer if it does fall and 2. To help the bases by lifting some of the flyer's wieght, making the stunt more stable and less heavier for the bases.
- Stunts that groups perform include bow-and-arrows, liberties, scorpions, the Matrix, basket tosses, elevators, and cupies* (the ultimate in cheerleading athleticism.)
- In competition and most collge level cheerleading tumbling is a requirement. The basic tumbling is a cartwheel or a round off. The more difficult skills come when you a back hand springs and round off back hand springs.
Cheers/Chants
Every team has their "signature" Sugar & Spice (2001)
