Striking Balance In Cheer Practices

It's the beginning of the year and many teams have already started recruiting talents into the team and have begun their training. Although things are starting out fresh and full of enthusiasm, it may all soon fizzle out without a proper training programme.

In this blog entry, I am going to help you achieve an effective training programme while keeping it fun for everybody.

An effective training programme is comparable to a bar of soap. Hold it too tight and it will slip through your hands but holding it too loosely, the bar of soap will slip away as well. The same could be applied to your members. Does that makes sense?

To achieve that, a balance must be met. If your practices are militaristic, as if preparing for a world war, it's not going to work. You'll have members leaving the team because being a cheer Nazi will murder out the fun.

Now we know that fun is good for your well-being. Same could not be applied to excessive fun. Imagine having to play a computer game for 48 hours straight. Doesn't sound so fun anymore ain't it?

A list of must-dos:

1. First and foremost, I would like to address the importance of using the right tone and words in practice. Nothing could be more discouraging when members in the squad says something negative when something does not work out. If you see a stunt set failing, do give your friends the much needed encouragement. I'm sure they are all stressed out and telling them that they suck might lead to suicidal thoughts. By giving encouragement, you are practising in what psychology calls "positive reinforcement". Praising something that is positive will lead to the constant occurence of that act which is praised.
2. The right use of "negative reinforcements" is equally important as positive reinforcements. Negative reinforcements reduces and obsoletes the behaviour/act that is being criticized. However, the way you deliver the message and the right tone, sets the outcome. For instance, you see this shingz girl doing a really bad toe touch that makes you wonder if it's a toe touch at all, don't shout to the team to tell her how shitty she is. Instead, opt for a kinder approach: Hey, good try! Just point those toes and it'll be much better!". I've learnt this from the Americans coaches who are really good at encouraging people to be the best they can. We have to remove this pessimistic Asian mindset for the betterment of the team. Note for team captains: if you have problems with a certain member of the team, voice out your opinions in private. The reason being is because, gossip and personal attacks may arise when the problem is made public.
3. Practice progression. I know it's easy to be caught up with other team's standard but before you push to a higher level of stunting, work on your basics. Unless you have an intelligent of an amoeba, go ahead and do a basket toss without mastering your elevators first. Basic movements of the stunts have to be mastered first before proceeding to a more difficult one. It's all in the muscle memory, the ability to do a thigh stand liberty will help you progress to a liberty prep because the same movement is applied on a thigh stand liberty and a liberty prep.
4. Have practices planned out beforehand. The recommended time of practices should be 2 hours. It's all that's needed if practices are effective. Allocate time to each element in cheerleading that needs to be worked on. For instance, the team might lack in stunting capabilities hence the allocation of time for stunts should be more. It is important for the coach and captain to analyze the team's strengths and weaknesses to set an ideal practice schedule. I also highly recommend the team to do specific strength work to condition the body for cheerleading.

I've only covered on what I feel is fundamental to make an ideal practice and I've not gone into the specifics. I will cover that soon so keep logging in to check out.

Thank you for reading,

Eric x