Competitions

Every cheerleader knows that the most stressful months of cheerleading is Decemeber through the beginning of February. Competetion season. 2 and a half months competing for the same place as everyone else. Then having it all come down to the first weekend in February.. State. Every cheerleaders dream is to go to state and to win or even place. Only the best of the best get to go and that is determined at sectionals. The last weekend in January. Competition season usually starts around October sometimes even earlier to learn your rutine and then as days of practice go by you end up changing your rutine about 700 times. The time and effort we all put into competing is unbelieveable. We practice every day sometimes twice a day or even have weekend practices to make sure we have it right. Then the next day you wake up early and it is 3 minutes that will cost you everything you have ever worked for. Getting that first place means everything and you know when you nail a perfect rutine because you walk off that mat crying. So much hard work gets put into every count every stunt every move every motion every word/scream that goes into a rutine. 3 minutes to prove yourself seems like forever but in the end it all pays off. Before every cheerleader competes you have a warm up room, and competitions aren't show up and compete.. your there ALL day long. You get there and your half asleep and then your coach tells you to get ready.. hair... make up... uniform on... ready to go even if you get there at 8:00 a.m. and you don't compete till 4:00p.m. your still ready to go. Either the squad is held in a gym or a classroom and you sit there and wait and wait and wait. About 2 hours before you compete your coach will want to mark through everything and stretch and then do somethings like everything but stunts or everything but tumbling and make sure everything is going smoothly. After about doing that a hundred times... It's your offical warm up. You go to a seperate gym no where near the competition area and there are 3 different mats. Mat number one is your tumbling mat, you warm up tumbling here. Mat number 2 is your stunting mat, this is where you warm up every stunt in your rutine and have about eh... 2 minutes to do it. If it doesn't hit... you hope for the best and move on to mat number three. Mat number three is the mat where all the anxiety comes out and the nerves, this mat is your full run through mat. You do your whole rutine as if you were going on right then in there. Each mat has a time limit usually 2 minutes for the first two mats then 5 minutes for the full run through mat. And this is exactly the reason why you practice 2 hours before you actually compete... so you don't mess up everything competely during warm ups. After that you line up by the door to enter in the gym and that is when you are absolutely terrified and you can't stand still to save your life. The doors open and every single person in that gym as there eyes on you and nothing else. The judges stare you down like its go time and they watch every little move you make. You step off the mat and your just about done. There is no hope unless your rutine is amazing and there aren't drops or falls or touches and everything is synchronized to the T. 3 minutes on that mat and thats all it takes. Then after you wait till awards and that is when everyone is just freaking out beacause you want to know what place you got. During competition season every one on your squad is cranky, tired, on their period, pissed off, hates the world, has a ton of homework, stressed out, crying all the time because there is just to much going on and there is a lot on their plate. Worst time to make a cheerleader anger... worst! Aside from all the blood, sweat, tears, and hard work everything pays off and you just have memories after memories of what happens and what you were feeling like. I can name every feeling that I ever felt in my 5 years of competing. Cheerleading becomes your life those months. If you get hurt competing you keep going no matter what you can be full of blood and they will not stop the rutine you push through it or else you just threw away everything you worked for by stopping. "When football players get hurt, everything stops. We wait. They walk off the field. If we get hurt competing we finish and worry about it later." spoken like  a true cheerleader.. hahah so true though!