Blog#5
There are three main parts of cheerleading; stunting, tumbling, and chants. Stunting is the term for when the girls are thrown up or held up in the air by their teammates. Stunt groups consist of four positions; two bases, a back-spot, and a flyer. The set up consists of the two bases facing each other, flyer in the middle/back, and the back-spot directly behind the flyer. Bases are in charge of holding up or throwing the flyer, they are the main support of every stunt, hence the name base. The flyer is the little one that gets put up in the air. The back-spot is usually taller; her job is to support the flyer and control the stunt. It is hard to define each individual stunting position, because every stunt requires different movements and actions from each individual.
Tumbling is floor gymnastics. Cheerleaders are often not considered gymnasts because they do not perform vault or beam. However, I have noticed that a lot of cheerleaders used to be gymnasts at a younger age. Most all high school cheerleading teams also go to team tumbling at a gymnastics facility. The first year or so of cheer my team had two guys come up to our cheerleading balcony and teach us gymnastics. Eventually, we began team tumbling at Grand Blanc Gymnastics http://www.region5.com/gbgymnastics/. I was very glad to be going to a real facility with all of the equipment that we needed to gain new skills. Tumbling is also categorized in standing and running tumbling. Some examples of running tumbling would be: round-off back-handsprings, round-off back-tucks, and round-off back-handspring back-tucks. Standing tumbling includes: back-walkovers, standing back-handsprings, and standing back-tucks.
Chants are my least favorite part of cheerleading. Chants include vocals/words and executing motions. Chants are performed at football and basketball games, also known as sideline cheer. Chants and cheers relate back to the roots of cheerleading, it’s in the name. Chants are used to bring school spirit and get the crows involved. Cheers are different from chants. Chants are short, almost always rhyme, and are used for sideline cheer. Cheers are longer, more complex, include several formations, and possibly stunting or tumbling.
This is an example of the equipment used at team tumbling: trampolines, foam pits, and various other mats and runways otherwise unavailable.
Many people would say that cheerleading is not a sport. After reading your blog, it can easily be said to be one. Its really funny to the whole gymasticts part of cheerleading. This include black flipping, cart wheels, and the flyers being thrown in the hair. What i dislike about cheerleaders is the fact that that yell through the entire game. That is most often distracting so it is hard for me to pay attention to the game I am watching.
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