Positions

Being a good cheerleader also requires you to know your position and to make sure you do it right. You have 3 different positions you can be, base, flyer or backspot (sometimes frontspot) Being a base is all about lifting the flyer and making sure she is not going to fall and eat shit and to lift her up and keep her steady. Without the bases (yeah its plural meaning you have a secondary base and a main base) the flyer will not get up. To be a base you really do need to have good upper body strength and all the lifting is in your legs. If you use your arms to lift your going to have some serious back pain (believe me!). Being a base you always need to catch your flyer no matter what , even if the stunt is falling or your coming down from a stunt. Next you have your flyer (top girl) that goes up and hits whatever it is that she needs to do, the flyer seems to get all the attention because she is the one getting thrown in the air and doing the tricks. Being a flyer from experience is alot of work, you may think its not but it is, the flyer needs to hold her weight and make sure she is tight. Squeeze everything you have in your body and smile! don't forget to smile or you will end up looking scared (and that is not cute). If the flyer falls it can most of the time be her fault if she isn't doing what she is suppose to do. That is why it is very important to communicate with your team mates and help each other out. Finally you have your backspot, the backspot is THE most important person in a stunt group in my opinion. The backspots job is to lift the ankles of the flyer and to pull up and relief some of the weight for the bases. Especially when the flyer comes down from a stunt (cradle, full down, or double etc) the backspot catches under the arm pits and makes sure that flyers head and top part of her body is safe. key thing to always remember... NEVER LET YOUR FLYER HIT THE GROUND!!... ever. Being dropped sucks and it hurts really bad. The flyer can get seriously injured ( it has happend) that is why you work together and communicate. Being a cheerleader takes alot of work, more than people give us credit for...

How do I know?

The reason why I know how to be a good cheerleader is because I was Captain of my cheer squad my senior year of high school and I cheered for 5 years, danced majority of my life and did poms for a couple years. Being Captain taught me a lot about my team and helping each other out and getting to know each individual team mate. All my years of cheerleading there is something that I take from each year that I learn from and that helps me become a better cheerleader watching my Captains in the past and learning from each one of my team mates and working my ass off to get to where I wanted to be. Being cheer Captain is a lot of responsibility and you have to believe in your team even when times come to tough moments. You always have to motivate your squad and stay positive through thick and thin. Especially when it comes to competition season and your not winning anything you have to a bitch to get everyone to listen and to bring them back up. Being Captain really taught me SO much more about what kind of person I am and how I act towards others in different situations. I really took a lot out of it.