The practice of a competitive cheerleader
When I think of the word “practice” my mind automatically jumps to the sport I love most, cheerleading. All my days of competitive cheer I've learned practice is essential to having a successful hard working team. We leave our blood sweat and tears on that blue 9 panel mat most of us consider a 2nd home.
We hear our coaches say we earn our first place in that gym with nothing but a few fans and then we retrieve them at our huge competitions. Practice is a place we are told to leave our drama outside that big black door before you enter and as soon as you pass that white wall separating the athletes lounge from that 9 panel mat you give your 110% and forget about the stress you were once enduring.
When we start our full outs tumblings going, jumps are flying, we are dancing and throwing people as high as we can being lifted by my teammates encouraging words throughout the entire routine. We hear “Keep pushing.” “Almost there.” “You got this.” We scream those words at each other for that 2 minutes and 30 seconds aspiring to get that hit and to add another golden star to that white cardstock poster titled full outs in black and orange letters.
We want all of our practice to pay off, all of our twisted ankles, sprained wrists, aching backs to mean something at the end of the day. Then after practice we pass that big white wall again back into that athletes lounge then out that big black door either discouraged or empowered.
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ReplyDeleteHii Janessa! I like how you connected the art of practice to something that you love. I also found it interesting how you connected the practice of cheerleading closely to the importance of teamwork. When the word practice comes to mind, I’ve noticed that people tend to associate it with sports, but only in the individual aspect. Even in sports commercials and media ads, you'll often see soccer and football athletes depicted in their individual practices zones. Your blog about practice opened up to the teamwork side of it which I think is really cool!
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