Stunting: The Four Types Of A Flyer

“All Star cheerleading is a competition sport that involves boys and girls performing a 2 minute and 30 second routine composed of tumbling, stunting, pyramids, dance, and

I have done both high school and All-Star cheerleading. I know first hand how each practice goes, and I have gone through the competitions, training, games, and practices. The first big difference between the two levels of cheerleading is the practice and training. At a high school cheerleading practice, every practice is usually the same. The practice starts out with the everyone circling up and stretching and laughing, it’s not taken very serious. After we stretch, we would usually train for twenty minutes. Training involved seeing how many push ups, sit ups, and jumping jacks we could do in a minute. Then, we would run a single lap around the football field, but most of the cheerleaders would walk. After training was over we most likely would practice cheers and chants for thirty minutes, dances for thirty minutes, and then stunt if we were lucky. We rarely stunted for the simple

* The bending of the knees and the use of the leg muscle groups to perform the skill.

In competitive cheerleading stunting is one of the most important things in a cheer routine. Stunting is something every team wants to be the best at, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to be the best. Throughout a majority of my cheerleading career I was a base. A base is the girl at the bottom of the partner stunt/pyramid who lifts up the flyer. I loved to base. I had lots of experience as a base and it became very easy to me. Coming on to the high school competition cheer team as a freshman, I knew there was a lot of new things I would have to learn as a base. I was very motivated and dedicated to be the best base I could be and that took lots of practice. The next year, coming onto the team as a sophomore my coaches had the idea for me to become a flyer. Flying is something I have never done. I was very nervous at first but I was

Cheerleading is simply entertainment for viewers and is a social club for its participants. “Sports Beat - The Sport of Cheerleading: It’s a lot More than Just Pompoms and Smiles,” points out that a main benefit of cheerleading is the ability to “easily transition into the entertainment industry” (Hatton C-04). This statement supports our belief that cheerleading should not be considered a sport. Cheer-leading, the leading of cheers at sporting events is not a sport. Entertainment, versus athleticism, is more of what cheerleading is. Team supporters are present at games/events to raise school spirit and encourage cheering. Cheerleading generally requires a competition to be in progress, so the cheerleading itself can occur. This is not an activity which can take place alone.

In this paper I am going to be talking about the difference between Sideline Cheerleading and Competitive Cheerleading. Although it may not seem like there is a big difference between the two, there is a pretty big difference between the two different types of Cheer categories. In this paper you will learn a little bit of history about both types of cheer categories and the differences between the two. Cheerleading can help you let out your anger or anything like that because you have to use your voice but in a controlling matter.

Right before a game, football players huddle up as a team and they get “hyped-up” to win. The coach of the team gives them a game plan and they follow it. This same thing applies for the cheerleaders right before they take the mat. Their “game plan” is the routine that a choreographer made for them. Coaches change the routine to make them win. Cheerleaders have to act as a team. (you build a bond with your teammates practicing so much together.) At competitions, all the cheerleaders match from bow to toe. Cheerleaders always encourage their teammates when they are discouraged or feel failure in not being able to complete a stunt.(they

Flexibility is especially important to help with jumps and stunting. Flyers , the people on top of the stunt, should perform different body positions in the air. Some body positions include: heel stretches, arabesques, scales, and scorpions. For jumps, flexibility is required to be able to thrust your legs into the air, pointed and straight. The types of jumps include: toe-touch, hurdler, and pike.

“Flying,” by Alice Miller is a complex story about a woman named Allie, who reminisces about a time spent when her cousin Mack taught her to fly when she was just a young girl. On different occasions when Mack visited, he would show her how to do new things. As Allie grew up she found herself thinking of the secret that Mack shared with her and how he told her not to tell anyone or she may get hurt. Allie longed for the feeling of flying, if she could just reach out and talk to Mack but too much time had passed. She dreams of flying in her sleep, not for long periods of time, but just enough to embrace that feeling she had years ago. She wonders if many people have experienced flying the way that she has and if she could fly by herself without Mack. One day, Allie tries to fly on her own and succeeds, soaring higher than she did with Mack. Before Allie knew it, she was flying through the clouds and around town. Now that Allie has experienced the feeling of flying again, more than ever she wanted to share with her kids. One night after the children were asleep she wanted to share her secret with her boys but instead chose her daughter. Miller suggests that when a person is afraid of doing something on their own, sometimes it just takes a little bit of courage to step out and let go of the things that could be holding a person back.

“Flying,” by Alice Miller tells the story of woman reminiscing on the time that her cousin taught her how to fly when they were kids. It begins with the main character, Allie, flying in the air with her cousin, Mack, when she was six years old. Allie has many questions and Mack tells her that all boys can fly and instructs her to not tell anyone that she knows this secret. He also tells her not to ever try to fly without him and compares this secret to the myth about Prometheus giving the God’s fire to man and being punished for it. As the years went by, Allie wonders if she would ever fly again and even doubts if the memory was real. She becomes a wife and a mother to two sons and a daughter but still wonders if flying is possible. One night, she decides to test her memory and tries to fly out of her backyard. She slowly ascends just as she did when she was young but even higher. Over the next few days, her urge to fly again grows. One night, she sneaks into her children’s room and picks up her daughter to take her outside and show her how to fly. The story ends with Allie telling her daughter to promise not to tell the boys what she is about to experience and excitement building in Allie for her daughter. The central idea of this story is the pursuit of satisfaction never ends.

The physical activity must have five elements, some include overcoming the resistance of a mass, competition against an opponent, and the rules must define time, space, the purpose of the activity, and the conditions under which a winner is declared. In addition to, acknowledgement that the competition is an evaluation of the skills of the participants and the key purpose of the activity is for competition. Competitive cheerleading fits into all five of these categories through stunts, tumbling, competitions, score sheets, time limits, and mat size. Cheerleading also fits into these categories through the Entertainment and Sports Programming Networks (ESPN) comparing cheerleading routines and a competitive cheerleader’s sole purpose is to compete. Most people in the world do not think cheerleading is a sport for several reasons. Some they think cheerleading does not have a strategy, while others think cheerleaders do not have enough physical ability. However, cheerleading fits into all of the categories of what must take place in order to deem it as a sport (Cheer

First of all let’s take a look at cheerleading as a whole and the basics of it. Well to start off there are two types of cheerleaders, competitive and noncompetitive.

The base, the catcher, and the flyer all must be in good overall shape in order to perform such a stunt. All good cheerleaders are good gymnasts. Gymnastics involve tumbling, which is a form of flipping. In order for this to be done the cheerleader must have more than great muscle power. Cheerleading involves much strength just as any gymnastics or basketball team does.

The level of difficulty depends on the level of the cheer squad. There are multiple ways points can be deducted. If a person falls while tumbling or jumping, if a routine goes outside the allowed area, if there is a time violation, if the technique is off, or if there is a safety violation. Cheerleading stunts tend to move around and be very fast paced, so it makes it very easy to fall from or drop from a stunt. A lot of the time there are stunts going up the same time people are tumbling, so the synchronization could be thrown off by a single person.

In stunting the more or less amount of bases there is, the more or less amount of gravity there is pulling down on the top girl. If the top girl is doing a one legged stunt then she has to center her gravity to the one leg that is being supported by the base. In tumbling the gravity is mainly in your core and is constantly being shifted. For example if a dancer is doing a back flip the center of gravity is moving toward the floor as you go into a backbend, when you are at your lowest in the backflip the gravity drops and as soon as you get back up to stand or spring up your gravity is centered. Jumps are effected by gravity the most, your weight distribution is not really not that important.