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Dallas Stadium Research Paper

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Last year, I was struck by an epiphany about how to react to the troubles of life because of a simple cheer competition in Dallas. At the time however, it was not just a "simple competition." Placing first in the Dallas Spirit Festival was imperative to not only me, but also my team. It was so important to us we practiced for hours on end, day in and day out to ensure our routine was perfect. Going into the competition, we were all very nervous but by the end of this experience I was able to discover something I never realized before; something that would change my outlook on life forever. After nearly three hours of driving, we made it to the Dallas stadium. Groggy and slightly frazzled, I jumped out of the van with my cheer squad toting …show more content…

There, we were told that we were to go down to the floor level of the stadium to warm up our routine in two hours. In the meantime, we got ready and toured the massive stadium. It was quite a sight to see; thousands of seats surrounded the field below. Rooms and stores surrounded the array of seats and large screens and speakers hung from the ceiling of the stadium showing a live feed of the teams already performing. On the ground below, a large black curtain divided the field horizontally into two sides: one side for practicing and the other for performing. On either side lay large sheets of light blue mats for stunting and tumbling. After meandering around for a while, it was our turn to practice. We trekked down the long corridors down to the field and performed to the best of our ability while out coach looked on, scrutinizing out every move. "Remember, there aren't many of us so if we want to place we need to make sure that the quality of the routine is outstanding," she reminded us. All of our grueling 6:00 practices weeks in advance had lead up to this. In just a few moments we were going to perform in front of the slew of stern judges. Rehearsing our routine beforehand, however, did little to fend off the anticipation we all …show more content…

My apprehension only seemed to grow as the time dragged on. Suddenly, I heard our school name. Adrenaline rushed through me as we ran out onto the mats with gaudy smiles on out faces. The music thundered behind us as we jumped, stunted, and danced. It felt like it was over in a heartbeat. The experience as a whole left me utterly exhausted; so much in fact that when it came time for awards, I was quite frankly too worn out to care. We had done our best and there was nothing we could do to alter our fate at that point. Still, I couldn't help but attempt to play back our performance in my head. "We were nowhere near as natural or well put together as the other teams." I muttered. As it turned out, I was correct. We placed last in our

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