10:20
Faizan
Cheerleading practice should be enjoyable for all concerned, but sometimes the hard work necessary to get up to scratch can get in the way of the fun. While practicing moves and routines is essential to performing well as a team, cheerleading routine can benefit if time is set aside just for fun. These entertaining activities typically help the team progress too, either by serving as practice or as team building exercises.
Shouting and Clapping
An important part of cheerleading is being able to bellow out words clearly — while moving. Practicing this can be entertaining but also help to improve your ability. For improving your voice, try moving while calling the words out loud, concentrating on retaining clarity and volume. Try lying down on your stomach and shouting out the words from your belly to learn to rely less on your throat. Another technique to practice is snappy clapping. When you clap, you should keep your movements contained: your arms should stay between your shoulders even after the clap. You can turn this into a fun practice activity by teaming up with a partner. Your teammate puts pressure on your shoulders to stop your arms going too far while you learn to clap in a controlled manner.
Themed Clothing
Not all practices have to feel the same as the week before. You can inject some variety into cheer practice by deciding on a clothing theme and then enacting it the next week. For example you might choose to dress in a certain way: consider all wearing the same color clothes, dressing up as superheroes or with animal face-paint on. Just ensure that whatever clothes you wear are safe to practice in.
Pepping
A session of tough cheer practice needs a few breaks to stop everyone getting overly tired. Before you carry on with the practice again, get into the habit of forming a positive circle as a team. This feels fun but it’s also a useful thing to do. You can each take turns to give a few sentences of motivational speech to the team to encourage everyone to keep giving 100 percent. This helps prevent people from realizing how tired they are. Sing-a-longs such as fight songs may help in this way too.
Play a Game
The occasional game can offer a new way to practice, preventing monotony. For example, to play the "Mummy" game, split the team into at least two groups. Each team elects a model. The coach then hands the rest of the team some toilet paper and begins a countdown of two minutes. The teams then rush to turn their model into an Ancient Egyptian mummy by covering her with the paper as coherently as possible. After the time is up the coach judges the most realistic mummy.
Shouting and Clapping
An important part of cheerleading is being able to bellow out words clearly — while moving. Practicing this can be entertaining but also help to improve your ability. For improving your voice, try moving while calling the words out loud, concentrating on retaining clarity and volume. Try lying down on your stomach and shouting out the words from your belly to learn to rely less on your throat. Another technique to practice is snappy clapping. When you clap, you should keep your movements contained: your arms should stay between your shoulders even after the clap. You can turn this into a fun practice activity by teaming up with a partner. Your teammate puts pressure on your shoulders to stop your arms going too far while you learn to clap in a controlled manner.
Themed Clothing
Not all practices have to feel the same as the week before. You can inject some variety into cheer practice by deciding on a clothing theme and then enacting it the next week. For example you might choose to dress in a certain way: consider all wearing the same color clothes, dressing up as superheroes or with animal face-paint on. Just ensure that whatever clothes you wear are safe to practice in.
Pepping
A session of tough cheer practice needs a few breaks to stop everyone getting overly tired. Before you carry on with the practice again, get into the habit of forming a positive circle as a team. This feels fun but it’s also a useful thing to do. You can each take turns to give a few sentences of motivational speech to the team to encourage everyone to keep giving 100 percent. This helps prevent people from realizing how tired they are. Sing-a-longs such as fight songs may help in this way too.
Play a Game
The occasional game can offer a new way to practice, preventing monotony. For example, to play the "Mummy" game, split the team into at least two groups. Each team elects a model. The coach then hands the rest of the team some toilet paper and begins a countdown of two minutes. The teams then rush to turn their model into an Ancient Egyptian mummy by covering her with the paper as coherently as possible. After the time is up the coach judges the most realistic mummy.
Posted in: cheerleading
