Yesterday, exactly 16 practices before the first competition, my girls did our first run through of the entire routine, full out. While the stunts were an easy version of the routine (all double legged stunts and straight cradles), it is the back up routine for if we can not hit the more difficult stunts.
Our routine starts with jumps and since I have been drilling them jumps every practice since August 1st, their jumps looked phenomenal. I keep telling them that practice is really making them look perfect. Opening stunt hit with a tiny bobble on the cradle from the left stunt group.
Tumbling looked alright. Because of the lack of skills our tumbling is what I am trying to downplay the most. I am trying to make the routine a stunt, jumps and motions heavy routine so that judges will give us higher points on that instead of focusing on the lack of tumbling.
Since we only have nine our "pyramid" is a bunch of stunt tricks which then connects two full liberties to a shoulder-sit. The catch is that one of those liberties is a three man stunt (two bases one flier). I am hoping that we can get to working on it a lot next week as it will be by far the hardest point in the routine and there is no down-grade. We need a pyramid and with only nine its not going to be easy.
The cheer was the last thing we learned so it was a little shaky. The girls are having a fine time with the baskets, their half up extensions need some work (we need to work twisting in general) and the crowd involvement section looks fantastic! End stunt hit and ending dance looks amazing as they get it more solid each week!
Overall it was an amazing feeling to know that we have a month to make that look clean and if we do just that we will be fine. But it was even more amazing to know that over the next 15 practices I can up-grade it to the MAX. I will post videos as they start achieving some of the more difficult stunts!
5,6,7,8
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
The Last Month & High School Try-Outs
The past month has been crazy to say the least. It started off with a far from perfect trip to Smith Mountain Lake with my boyfriend's family, followed by one "normal" week of work in which I had to say good bye to the little ones at the All-Star Gym for a little while, and then try-outs for the high school team I coach.
So in the spring, I had at least 15 or 16 girls come out to practices for the competition squad at the high school and then on the day of the try-out, there stood nine. Do you know how discouraging it is to only have nine girls try-out for your team? However, as the days went on I realized that this may be the best nine that any coach could ask for. Instead of having 16 with seven of them only wanting to be there, I have nine who are all ready to work hard and push themselves to compete and hopefully win.
We have three standing tucks and three round off handspring tucks. We have two full libs and a bunch of crazy ways to dismount from them including working on 540 dismounts. The only thing we can't have with nine is a good flippy pyramid, but I think I have even found a solution for that. We are getting brand new uniforms, warm ups, and sneakers. We are putting in three hour practices in hopes to only get better and stronger. But the best thing that we have is an anti-drama zone. In a town where cheerleading is the miss-fit sport instead of taking a team full of drama queens who only want to be there for the skirt, we have a team of dedicated athletes.
The best part of the past two weeks of practice happened the other night. It was not the night where I did three handsprings to a tuck and landed on the hardwood floor which landed me in an air-cast and on crutches ever since. It was the night in which one of my athletes texted me and said, "Do we have practice tomorrow?" I said, "Yup", waiting for her to come back with, well my mom's cousin's uncle's grandpa has a sore big toe so I can't be there. But instead she wrote back, "Awesome. I did two minute squats today and I am ready for more tomorrow". On the team of 16 I thought I had back in May that text would have never come. But with the "nasty nine" as they have dubbed themselves (I am not really okay with that name but I am letting it go for now) I have a group of kids who want a taste of something great more than anyone else I know and I am honored to coach them.
5,6,7,8
So in the spring, I had at least 15 or 16 girls come out to practices for the competition squad at the high school and then on the day of the try-out, there stood nine. Do you know how discouraging it is to only have nine girls try-out for your team? However, as the days went on I realized that this may be the best nine that any coach could ask for. Instead of having 16 with seven of them only wanting to be there, I have nine who are all ready to work hard and push themselves to compete and hopefully win.
We have three standing tucks and three round off handspring tucks. We have two full libs and a bunch of crazy ways to dismount from them including working on 540 dismounts. The only thing we can't have with nine is a good flippy pyramid, but I think I have even found a solution for that. We are getting brand new uniforms, warm ups, and sneakers. We are putting in three hour practices in hopes to only get better and stronger. But the best thing that we have is an anti-drama zone. In a town where cheerleading is the miss-fit sport instead of taking a team full of drama queens who only want to be there for the skirt, we have a team of dedicated athletes.
The best part of the past two weeks of practice happened the other night. It was not the night where I did three handsprings to a tuck and landed on the hardwood floor which landed me in an air-cast and on crutches ever since. It was the night in which one of my athletes texted me and said, "Do we have practice tomorrow?" I said, "Yup", waiting for her to come back with, well my mom's cousin's uncle's grandpa has a sore big toe so I can't be there. But instead she wrote back, "Awesome. I did two minute squats today and I am ready for more tomorrow". On the team of 16 I thought I had back in May that text would have never come. But with the "nasty nine" as they have dubbed themselves (I am not really okay with that name but I am letting it go for now) I have a group of kids who want a taste of something great more than anyone else I know and I am honored to coach them.
5,6,7,8
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