All-star cheer is a competitive sport where there are levels, different teams for ages. There’s also Coed teams and all girl teams. This means boys can be on teams too. All-Star cheer teams practice in gyms which have multiple teams with multiple levels, 1-6. Each have their own team names and routines. The routines we preform for competition include, Tumbling, Stunting, Jumps, and dance in our choreography. There’s also custom music, custom uniforms, and some teams have themes.
In All-Star Cheer, were most likely to travel for competitions. Competitions can range anywhere from a nearby city with a convention center, to the other side of the country, like Florida. Either way, the goal is to get to the world championships, by getting an invitation from other competitions that my team attended. The world championships for levels 1-5, attended “The Summit”. But level 6 teams, attended “worlds”. Both are at the same place, Disneyworld Florida, ESPN sports event center, but are just a week apart. This happens In April and maybe early may, depends on the year.
Cheer can be a very pressuring sport; it can cause anxiety and stress. But I do it because of how fun it is to preform and the strong bond I create with my teammates. Me being on a higher-level team, level 5, It is a risk for injury. Cheerleaders most common injuries are to the ankles, and the ACL. This is why you will see a lot of cheerleaders with knee braces or ankle braces. These injuries are most caused by tumbling. They can happen straight away in one bad fall, or slowly develop in rough landings. I luckily never had any terrible injuries, but for about a year I was struggling with ankle pain in a bad fall I had.
That’s all for my first post, I will link some all-star cheer videos/articles below for you to explore. Come back next time for my next post!