Risk of Injury

My all-star team in 2007

Cheerleading really is a dangerous sport. You can get hurt very easily considering I tore my ACL tumbling. You can break any bone in your body pretty much and you can mess up some of the organs inside of your body as well. Now they are starting to make different kinds of braces to wear over your chest so that when or if you fall out of a stunt or when you are caught in a cradle, you don't land on your stomach and mess up organs inside or hurt your ribs/back. You can get doing anythings in cheerleading. You can hurt yourself tumbling, stunting, running, jumping, or even dancing. People don't understand the risks people take and that it takes skill to do everything, all while trying not to hurt yourself.

What It Takes To Be Cheerleading Coach

My coach Jason and I at Worlds in Orlando

To be a cheerleading coach, the first thing that you need is experience or knowledge because you need to know what your talking about to be able to coach a cheerleading team. Being a coach takes hard work, determination and patience. If you don't have any of those qualities then your team probably wont succeed the way you would want it to. I admire my coaches so much because they put so much time and effort into each individual as well as the team. You want to be dedicated to your team, have fun with them and not hate any part of your job. If you don't like the sport and hate what your doing, then being a cheerleading coach isn't for you. Jason Manhart is my all-star coach. I admire him so much. I've known him for 7 years and I consider him as a father figure. He has done so much for me and has helped me out so much with a lot of different things. I know that he will always be there for me along with his wife Tiffany, whether it has to do with cheerleading or if it is something going on in my personal life. He has influenced me so much and i hope one day I gain some of the great qualities he has. You need to be a true fan of cheerleading to be a coach and love all of your athletes.

The CheerLeading Worlds

The Cheerleading Worlds is the biggest competition in all-star cheerleading. It is held in Orlando Florida every year during April vacation. My all-star gym has gone the past 4 years. The only way that you can compete at this competition is if you get some kind of bid, which means you have to go to another competition where they give out the bids, compete and if you do good and meet a certain score, then you get a bid to go. Competing at the cheerleading worlds is the scariest/ best thing ever because all the teams that you are up against are really really good, so therefore your team wants to do really good so that you can beat some of these teams. This competition gives bids out all over the world. Teams come from all over the place like Jamaica, Australia, France, China, Japan, etc. It is so cool to see teams from all over compete and see all the cool new stuff that you have never done or seen before that is popular in other countries. Since I am not on an all-star team down here at school, I won't be able to compete, but I am definitely going to watch. Being able to compete and watch The Cheerleading Worlds the past 4 years has been one of the best experiences of my life.


This is a link of a team that won The Cheerleading Worlds for Unlimited Coed Level 5, Top Gun All-stars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxtdQlGeWz8

All-star Cheerleading

Like I have been saying, all-star cheerleading is way different than high school cheerleading. When your on an all-star team it doesn't have anything to do with your school, it is something that you want to go and do on your own. All-stars is out of a private gym and there are thousands of them all over the world. I am on an all-star team that is out of West Bridgewater, MA, and it is about 20 minutes away from my house. Since I have been at this gym we have been to The Cheerleading worlds 4 years in a row. The Cheerleading Worlds is the biggest competition in the all-star world. I have been doing alls-stars since i was in 7th grade and I absolutely love it! But one downfall is that at one of my practices I was tumbling and tore my ACL going into my sophomore year of high school, which kind of sucked because I couldn't cheer for 8 months. I was out half the season for high school and all star cheering. Being on an all-star team helped me get back to my skill level after i tore my ACL because I could go there whenever I wanted to and work out. I wouldn't have to wait until high school practices and since I was on two team I had double the practices of mostly everyone. That helped me get better and stronger faster. Most people on high school teams do all-stars as well. At one point about 17 out of 20 people on my high school team were on some kind of all star team. All-stars allows you to become friends with people from different towns and be on teams with people just as good as you that you might not even know. All-stars for me has made me a more well rounded and determined person.


This is a link of my all-star team at a competition, I dont know if you will be able to see it since its on facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150095757575788

High School Cheerleading

High school cheerleading is totally different then all-star cheerleading. High school involves going to football games and basketball games and cheering them on, doing sideline cheers and half time routines. When your on a high school team you have to follow the rules of what the school sets for you and your coach has to obey the rules of the athletic director as well. Most people that I have talked to say that cheerleading isn't a sport. I think it most certainly is. Maybe when we cheer at the games, that shouldn't count as part of it, but when it comes to competitions, the things that we have to do are very hard. Someone who has never done it before cant just walk into a practice and expect it to be easy....it isn't at all. My high school cheerleading team was very dedicated and we put in a lot of time and hard work to get what we wanted..and it paid off. My sophomore year of high school, 2008, my team won States. We got grand champions, which means we got the highest score in the state out of all the divisions. It was one of the best moments of my life, and its moments like that, that keep reminding me why I continue to do what I love.


This is a link to a video of my team competing at States
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJbo3vwBzO0