Cheerleading is recreational activity and sometimes competitive sport involving organised routines including elements of dance and gymnastics to encourage crowds to cheer on sports teams. It is most popular in the United States. A cheerleading performer is a cheerleader.

Table of contents

1 History 2 Performance elements 2.1 Motions/Jumps 2.2 Stunts 2.3 Cheers/Chants 3 External links

History

Evolving in (all-male) colleges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries purely as attempts to encourage crowds at their sporting competitions to cheer, the practice spread and became largely a female activity as time progressed. A significant factor was limited availability of female collegiate sports. Organised cheerleading contests were formed; most high schools around the U.S.A. had formed cheerleading squads by the 1950s. Today cheerleading competitions are a ubiquitous feature of American public schools and universities as well as American professional football. State and national championships for school and college teams are common, and top squads take their routines extremely seriously.

While cheerleading is a serious athletic endeavour, unfortunately cheerleaders are stereotyped in numerous television shows and movies in a sexist way as vacuous, sexually attractive and vain. Cheerleaders point to the athletic and aesthetic qualities of their routines, and the extensive physical training and rehearsal required to win competitions - or, more often, simply ignore this reputation.

Performance elements

Motions/Jumps

• Toe-touch is a jump with legs split sideways while grabing both insides of the ankles simultaneously (not toes touched in fact).

• Herkie is a jump with one leg bent and another high sideways. Hand position varies. Named after Lawrence "Herkie" Herkimer. Also misspelled as: Herky, hurky

• Quite a few moves are borrowed from dances (Breakdancing/Hip Hop) and acrobatics (e.g., Cartwheel).

Cheers/Chants

Every team has their "signature" cheers and chants.

External links

RoseCheer's Cheerleading