How We Spent Our Day

[Juniper]

All-star cheer squad; first competition of the year, at a local high school. She's on both a Junior and Senior squad. Juniors came in 2nd place, Seniors 1st.

I'll be honest, though -- these things are strange -- often there's no other squad competing in their particular division. The Seniors were the only ones today, so they could've stood there like trees and still won 1st place. It's not always like that, though. We consider it good practice for the bigger ones.




It's not easy being a star.




That's my little blonde blur, far left.

I always feel like I need to defend her sport of choice. She started out taking tumbling classes at age 5. By 6, she was doing back handsprings. At 7 she was ready for "power tumbling" but we opted to switch over to gymnastics instead. She competed for three years on a YMCA gymnastics team - all the goodies, bars, beam, vault and floor. I think she was pretty good at it, for someone who had a life outside the gym.

Big-time competitive gymnasts, even the young ones, practice an ungodly amount of time each week -- 4 days a week or more, 4 hours at a time -- and that's if they're NOT on track to be Olympians. My daughter trained at the gym that taught Jaycie Phelps and Amanda Borden, but we weren't remotely interested in that kind of sacrifice so we opted for the YMCA team instead. That's a lot more sane - 2 days a week, sometimes 3 if needed.

But she got burned out. Understandable. Wanted to try something new. Joined her school's PeeWee cheer squad last year, and they had a #1 undefeated competition season. Our school takes sports very seriously and starting even in 4th grade they have cheer tryouts and oh no, definitely not everyone makes it. In Junior high they had tryouts for football and basketball sidelines squads PLUS a competitive squad - only they would go to an event like the one pictured above. And in fact the school squad was there today, in a different session.

Well, unfortunately the tryouts in the summer were stretched over a 4-day "camp" and two of those days she was committed to a Girl Scout resident camp. That was more important IMO! So she didn't make the competitive squad but did get chosen as an alternate. Mind you, alternates get screwed. They have to go to practice anyway, have to pay all the fees (this year, $200 pay-to-play) but may never be in a competition. Forget that! We opted to go to a private gym and try out for their all-star squad. So here she is.

So yeah, she could've done soccer, basketball, dance, whatever. But it just happens that she likes doing gravity-defying flippy stuff (the handsprings, the back tucks...basket tosses and other stunts). When she started, she was a tiny petite thing. But by the time she turned 10, it became apparent to me that she was going to take more after her 6'3" father than her 5'2" mother. At 12 now she is officially taller than me and wears shoes two sizes bigger.

I can't tell you how much all of this has done for her health, strength, poise and confidence. This girl is BUFF. She has such a healthy attitude toward life - loves to eat veggies, drinks mostly water. Stereotypically cheerleader types are anorexic and self-conscious; not mine. I asked her if she ever felt pressured to starve herself and she told me that was nuts, she loves food too much for that. She was told a couple weeks ago that "the bases would like the flyers to lose weight..." (if you've gotta lift someone up, 90 lbs. beats 110, right?) But my darling daughter said, if that's a problem, she'd rather just be a base. Even if bases get kicked in the head sometimes. But she did agree to cut down the soda and drink more water. I think that's wise for anyone.

I've found that in real life, cheerleading is a lot kinder, more accepting and less shallow than its media portrayal and general stereotyping.

Sidelines cheer is pretty much what you think - rah rah, go team, pom poms rustling, toe-touches, big whoop. Competitive cheer is amazing -- a very intense dance routine, professionally choreographed, with difficult tumbling passes and, depending on the squad, with stunts like pyramids and girls being flung up in the air! Definitely requires top physical conditioning and mental agility, too.

And my daughter, like many kids, has always done a LOT better in school when given a regular source of intense exercise. It's really amazing. I saw this in my son when he started wrestling, too. When they don't have it, they're a mess.

We could really do without the eye glitter, though. Yuck!