Are You Ready?

Competition is one word that describes a flood of emotions. Excitement, nervousness and happiness are just a few of the feelings that flow through a cheerleader’s veins during competition season. So what’s the best way to prepare?

Mentally

When you’re at cheer, be sure you’re focus is razor sharp. Prepare yourself mentally by envisioning yourself hitting every stunt and tumbling pass just the way you want to do it. Envision yourself nailing your tumbling pass. Think of how you should start, where you should be mid-way and how you should land. There is a difference between tumbling through focus and tumbling through anger. Raw emotion may bring you a quick boost of adrenaline, but will overall not allow you to succeed in consistently landing your tumbling passes. Training through focus will give you more of chance at hitting your tumbling pass every time.In order to help further your cheer mentality, watch videos of your practices. Pinpoint yourself and learn from your errors. Get completely immersed in cheer. Watch other team’s videos as well to get a full perspective of your competition. Know who you are up against and prepare to bring your best!

Physically

Get as much practice as possible! Make sure you are prepared and on time for every practice. If you are 20 minutes late to practice time, you are essentially missing an entire practice per week!  The elite gyms will either send you home or make you sit out the whole practice. That’s missed time for you and your stunt group is now out a person. Pack all your gear the night before. Leave it in the car if you have to! In addition tough practices, be sure to prepare your body in other ways as well. A good night’s sleep and a steady, clean diet throughout the season will help keep your cheer physique in the best condition possible.

Emotionally

Cheer is tough. Break through the brick wall and be the best you can be. Clear your head of everything except the goal ahead: winning competition. Of course, there is life going on outside of cheer, but those emotions need to be set aside in order to be successful.

Emotions can really take a toll on your mind and body. Remember that you have control of your emotions; your emotions do not have control over you. If you let your emotions take over, it can not only be consequential to your cheer career, but to your team’s prosperity as well.

For example, there was once a cheerleader named Kristy. Kristy had recently gone through a breakup. During practices, there was a significant difference in her performance. She had low energy, and was often distracted. Kristy’s stunt position as a base began to suffer. She was not keeping her flyer stable. The top level of the pyramid wasn’t hitting. Her stunt group had to constantly re-do the same stunt because she could not get it together during practices.  As frustrating as it may have been for her to keep repeating the same stunt, her team was getting frustrated with her lack of attention to what was happening at that moment.

Think of the day you tried out. Think of how hard you tried, where your mindset was. You were probably nervous, anxious and excited. You had high energy and were ready to bring it. That’s how you need to come to practice every time. If Kristy was performing at tryouts the way she is now, she would have never made the team. It may sound harsh, but remember, being part of a team requires everyone’s effort, attention and focus at all times.