I'm confused.
The girl down the street, an eighth grader, is a competitive cheerleader. As in, she's on a squad. She goes to competitions. She takes tumbling classes to improve her performance. But she doesn't cheer for any team. The squad is sponsored by a local cheer coaching gym or something like that.
I kind of get this. If she's investing all this time and energy into cheer because she eventually wants to make the high school squad, I can see it. In fact, I asked her mom if she would be trying out to be on the the freshman squad.
"Maybe."
Apparently, you can't be on both. If she cheers for the high school, which has actual teams, she can't cheer on her club squad. So she thinks she might rather stay on the club squad. Which doesn't cheer for anything. They just put on their cheer uniforms and go to competitions where they cheer against other cheerleaders who also do not have teams.
I do not understand this. Someone please explain the point. And let me clarify, I support cheering as a sport just like I do gymnastics. I like watching the national high school and college competitions on ESPN. But those cheer squads all have teams they cheer for during their athletic seasons.
I'm trying to figure out the concept of cheer squads that just cheer . . . because?
I don't get it.
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Maybe it's a self esteem thing? Maybe they're cheering for each other? They're part of their own team instead of cheering for another one?
I've never even heard of this. I was too busy judging and being bitter against regular cheerleaders.
They're cheering for themselves and their own awesomeness.
I guess.
Apparently, my wife and I never talk...
I was on Varsity Yell in High School. As in, I was "a cheerleader".
There are two parts to cheer: 1) going to games and cheering on the team and the crowd and 2) practicing and performing routines that are vastly more complex than what is performed on the field.
Many of the arts had roots in a practical application before a more abstract artistic form emerged. Before music, there were bird calls, before ballet there were rain dances, before wooden bowls displayed in your living room, there were wooden bowls in your kitchen. You get the idea.
Cheer has evolved into a form of dance, though it is still hangs on to it origins.
I was a cheerleader in high school, so I am qualified to answer this question.
It's flat out retarded.
The end.
PS: Did you slip something in Kenny's drink?
I was never a cheerleader, but I made second runner up for the JV team once. Ppfffft.
Like you said, cheer is a sport now. It's like really peppy gymnastics. I wonder if at some point they'll take out the actual cheering element. I guess if you like the sport for sport's sake, and you're invested in the success of the cheer team you're currently on, you'd be disinclined to switch just to be able to cheer for a bunch of boy's teams that you don't really care about anyway? I'm guessing.
It actually makes me respect the kid more. She's not in it for the popularity and ability to wear short skirts to school, she just loves her sport and her team.
I'm sorry. It hurts my brain too much to try and and understand this.
So you're sort of against cheering without cause?
Weird. Sort of like the beauty pageants for little girls. They do everything possible to remove all traces of the real beauty in each girl and train them to act in ways that are generally against their nature ("sexy feet...sexy feet...SEXY FEET!!!") and then judge them on it. Really very, very strange.
As a former cheerleader and one who taunted Kristina, I would give much the same answer that Kenny did. It has evolved into its own sport. They just don't know what to call it besides "cheerleading." I was never on a competitive squad -- I just enjoyed a front row seat to all the games.
I would imagine that a lot of the competitive cheerleaders are hoping to do it for college scholarships or on the professional level. Though they'll have to learn the rules of football at some time...
I don't even understand how you people don't run away screaming at the very idea, much less consider being on a SQUAD! :shudder:
I can barely understand the point of football or other sports, much less the cheering of it, so I also don't quite get it. And I married a college football player, while he was still on the team.
I do like the explanations some of the commenters gave, though. I guess I can sort of understand. (Loved your husband's comment)
I'm just laughing. It does all seem a wee bit absurd. . . but understandable, I suppose.
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