I have cheered for 6 years, and it is fun, keeps you active! However, cheer is not always fun and games therefore, I will go through the parts that people may not be aware of.
Cheer can be challenging or stressful, make you feel accomplished or dumb, not as good as others or athletic. Cheer can provide you with a sense of belonging or that you don’t belong.
But cheer can also develop lasting friendships, keep you fit, and foster happiness.
My favorite skill when at cheer is stunting. What people see is the cool stunts, the tight form and how we can make it look. What people don’t see is practicing for hours, trying your best, but still getting criticized, feeling like you are not good enough. You can think you were perfect and then when you come down you think, coach has an area to improve. There are people that will say good job, even you think that the cheer stunts are perfect, but you don’t see how the flyers and bases have negative self talk. Sometimes we think, ‘I better be good this time, I’m supposed to be good.’ Or ‘I hope I don’t drop her, then I will look terrible.’ Without being at practices, you don’t know how challenging stunting is. 
Another skill is tumbling. We don’t tumble much, but there are still ups and downs on the subject. You see straight legs in the cartwheels and the clean ending in round offs or other tumbles. However, at practice you wonder while looking at someone doing a handspring and think, ‘I wish that I could do that like her.’ When you are in cheer squad, someone will always be better than you, and you will always compare yourself, not matter how good you are doing. You will mostly have someone tell you to fix this and fix that even when you do well, but others will compliment you too.
Most cheer skills are performed on the field. The crowd see the bright smiles, loud cheers, perfect moves, and outgoing spirits. What the people don’t see is how hard we practice perfecting moves and memorizing the cheers. They don’t see are our thoughts like ‘I wish I didn’t have to smile, I look so bad…’ Sometimes our voices hurt, sometimes our bodies hurt, sometimes we are cold. Basically, we are feeling down while trying to pump everyone around us up! In conclusion there are fun parts in cheer and bonding moments, but there will always be ups and downs, but you will always find your way through it with a big bright smile on your face
In conclusion, there are fun parts in cheer and team bonding moments, but there will always be ups and downs. You will always find your way through it with a big, bright smile on your face!
