Epic Cheerleading Picture #4

Maison, spokesmodel from 2by2

I'm obsessed with cheerleading, you know it. The first thing I do when I get home is search new cheerleading videos I haven't looked at before. When I was on You Tube I found this channel named 2by2 which was all cheerleading videos! But it wasn't just cheerleading teams competing at national competitions, they were tributes to many different girls and boys on different cheer teams. I loved watching videos about all the team members, but Maison especially stood out to me. She's an incredible flyer with crazy awesome flexibility and fantastic tumbling ability. She's the spokesmodel for the channel and you can see her featured on many different videos. If you're obsessed with cheerleading as I am you'll check out this channel. Their always putting up new videos so it's never old.

This was just a quick little blog I wanted to get out there because I've been pretty busy and nothing new has been going on with my cheer life. However we start our regularly scheduled practices in exactly one week, and I'm so looking forward to it! Our first game is in a little less than a month, so excited to play our rivals Alhambra and kick their butts! Hope everyone had an awesome weekend, don't forget to comment or feel free to message me :)



Pre-School Performance

This morning the College Park Cheerleaders were invited to Kidz Planet out in Clayton to do a performance for the little kids! I was so excited to meet the little kids and get them excited about cheerleading. Who knows, maybe they'll become the next great cheerleaders of our generation.

So we drove all the way out there and performed our camp dance that we learned at, well where else but Camp. Then we did a couple chants to get the spirit going. We also did some thigh stands with the more older and mature ones, which they did awesome! Lastly we did a meet and greet and had cookies and lemonade with the little ones.

Overall it was just a really fun day. Conditioning tomorrow at frickin' 8am and I am so not excited! So tired right now... Goodnight to all and hope you are having an amazing summer!

Epic Cheerleading Picture #3 & Update

Twisting skills are awesome :)

So for today's Epic Cheerleading Picture I purposfully (spell check?) went on the internet and looked specifically for an interesting picture I could blog about. And I came accross this picture of a tumbler finishing her cross pass with some sort of twisting skill. This cheerleader has pretty good form for it, the only thing I would change is that her knees are a little bent. However, it's an exceptionally hard skill to master so I think I'd give that a B+ don't ya think?

Also I'm a little more inclined because her uniform is absolutely gorgeous! I love the cut off shoulder and the design pattern. Whoever designed that put alot of hard work into it. The colors are really gorgeous too! But I love all cheer uniforms :)

So just a little update on what's going on cheer in my life: We start Saturday morning practices again, and considering we've all been to camp already and even the newbee's have some experiance under their belt I hope we can start working on more skills and stuff rather than conditioning. Don't get me wrong, I love conditioning as much as the next person, but I think that was more to get us in shape for Camp, and now that the ship has sailed for that we should work on perfecting our halftime.

Also, whilst we were at camp the Captains and Co-Captains were revealed for each squad. In the morning I woke up and there was a sign on my door that said "Congrate Larissa, Varsity Co-Captain" and my name was in sparkly pink writing. I made Co-Captain! I was actually a little shocked because we had alot of good candidates submit applications. With that noted though, I'm gonna do my all time best and work with my squad to make this a great season. Varsity is looking pretty good this year! Can't wait to start cheering at football games and stuff. Keep cheering!

Cheer Camp at the Maritime Academy!

I literally just walked through the door, and the first thing I thought of was "I need to go blog about Cheer Camp!" We were there from Thursday to Sunday, and we did so much! I wish I would have gotten some pictures and stuff, but we weren't allowed to have any electronics for like the whole day until we got back to our dorm. But anyway I'll just get right into it.

So on Thursday we left at 10:00am to go to camp. Taylor and Maddy came in my car, along with my mom who drove and Darcy (Maddy's mom) who was there for support. We get there with all our luggage and we have to walk down all these stairs. It was crazy excercise, and not even the last time we were going up and down them. But anyway we were introduced to the staff, and got right into working out and learning the camp dance and cheer which is so cute! Then after a long tiring day we had Crazy Clothes Dress Up Night. We were all crazy and spirited, and played really fun games.

Then Friday we got up at 6:30am to go to down to breakfast, so that meant we had to be up at like 5:45 or something just to get ready, and get our hair up and perfection. That day we did a warm-up with jumps, and cardio and it was fun, but a little squished. During jumps Taylor and I were in the back and there was no room to jump where you wouldn't kill anyone with a toe touch! So we did mini motions and just dealt with the close corners. Then we got to go to our electives, and I of course wanted to go to tumbling. It was either that or stunting, a cheer, or a dance. Don't get me wrong, the dance was cute, and the cheer was cool, and of course I love flying. But there's so many flyers on Varsity right now I think tumbling is all I have to offer. Then we got our second round of electives, and I chose tumbling again cause it was the more advanced stuff such as back handsprings and back tucks. I basically have my standing tuck on the floor, I just need to practice practice practice. Then we got three hours with our personal coach Lessandro working on our cheer for evaluation. We perfected it so well that for our evaluation we got Superior, which is the highest you can get! At night, we had our skit night which was pretty fun.

This is our crazy Camp Leader, he was College Parks first male cheerleader!

Saturday was another hectic fully packed day starting off at 6:30am and ending at 10:30pm. Again more jumps, and cardio for warm-up. When electives came I was dying to take another tumbling class, but our Advisor wanted Cassie and I (the two tumblers) to take the stunting class so we can fly. So we did, and we did full downs, which were gorgeous! We got to show that off and it was pretty awesome. Then our second set of electives was a dance. It was really fast paced, but it looks so awesome when you perform it to music. After electives there was a tumble off, which I was nominated to go up for. I did my round off four back handsprings! I focused alot on form and technique. Then we had another three hours to work with Lessandro, but this time on our halftime. We have a really cool pyramid in it, and it looks good. However the dance was a bit of a mess. There was decision on changing it to something harder and challenging ourselves, or keeping it the camp dance. We changed it.. sadly that didn't work out in our favor. For our evaluatioin we did everything really well until the dance. That's when the entire teem got up there and just froze. It was humiliating! Luckily everyone got a second chance to perform so we did much better the second time (and we switched the dance back). Our theme for the night was 80's dress up, our outfits were too cute. Also, Varsity won the Spirit Stick!

Finally, Sunday came, and we were going to go home. But not after being evaluated on what we learned of course. We got up and performed all the dances we knew, all the chants we were taught, and then that final performance. We performed the cheer because we got Superior on it and we felt confident. We got superior again! And then they announced awards. The first night I got a "Great Example" award for being a good role model. Seconldy, I was called up for the top five tumblers and was awarded third place out of 11 squads! College Park Varsity went home with the Sprit Stick once again, and a trophy for best jumps.

This was a super fun experiance for all of us, and I hope next year I can spend it there again. Thanks to all my fellow cheerleaders for reading, I know this was pretty long, but I had to get it all in there. Peace, love and Cheer <3

2 Days Until Cheer Camp!

So excited, cheer camp is in two days! I still have major shopping to do for Secret Buddy gift and whatnot. But this is our first time going to a sleep away camp! Well it is for all the going to be Juniors and lower classmen. But I'm sure we'll have a great time :) It's all the way out in Vallejo, and we'll be there with 10 other high schools! It'll almost be like a competition, but with a giant sleepover. I have finished packing, for the most part, all that's left is getting everything finalized with my job and stuff!

Anyway, today in Cheerleading Class we went over the stunts with all the groups, and it looked really great! I mean, sure their only thigh stands, but their also 9 years old so I'd say that's pretty boss! Yes, it ranges from grades and stuff, but the majority is pretty young. Each of the stunts went up cleanly and on counts. Also, we convinced out Advisor for high school cheer to let us use the mats that we normally use for CP in our class. I think that's super sweet, and it gives the girls a confidence boost cause they know theirs something soft beneath them, even if it is a foot off the ground. Hopefullly this inspires them to do high school cheer when they get older. And hopefully they'll bring the class back next year too!

Well, I should probably be finalizing my packing and stuff, don't forget to send in those pictures and stories!

Sharing Stories

Yeah I know I just posted something, but if I waited any longer to tell you guys about this I know I'd forget. Just letting you all know, this is not my first blog, it's actually my second. If you remember way back when to my first ever post on this blog you'll remember me saying how I created it because cheer takes up so much of my life it just needs it's own blog! But if anyone is interested in reading that blog as well, feel free to check it out. Here's the link to blog :) http://rissyterry.blogspot.com/

So what I've been waiting to tell you is this new idea I got. As much as I love telling you guys all about my life, I'd like to learn a little about my readers as well, so here's the plan:

You can e-mail me at larissa_terry@comcast.net a picture of your squad, team mate, or just you and send a me a story of something that happened to you regaurding cheer. I'd love to share that on my blog with the rest of the cheer community out there reading. Or it can just be for my eyes only, it's whatever you wanna make it. But I'm always open to hearing your personal cheer experiances, maybe we have alot more in common than I would have thought. So have at it, message me, leave a comment, or e-mail me about anything and everything. I'm looking foward to reading your stories and getting to know you all more! :)

Epic Cheerleading Picture #2

Most everyone seems to think that cheerleading isn't a sport. Well we can prove them wrong because we can defy the aspects of gravity by flying, throw our own body weight into the air, flip head over heels, and land safely on our feet, and stretch so far our leg is next to our head. I'd like to see a football player do a round-off back-handspring double full, or a 360 up scorpion. What we cheerleaders do is death-defying craziness! But once you go cheer, you never go back :)

This is a saying I hold to be true,especially when someone who doesn't even know the sport of cheerleading starts saying we're not athletes. First off all, if you've never tried it, it's alot harder than you think. I'd really like to see someone with no experiance what-so-ever try and do what we do. It really offends me, as well as the rest of the cheer community, when someone judges us. And generallly, these people only see the short skirts, high ponytails, and happy faces. But they don't see the work that goes into everything. Countless hours a night stretching and rehersing a new routine. The long hard practices that go into making a performance perfect. The injuries we all face.

The smiles the crowd sees are a make-up, because as much as we are athletes, we're entertainers as well. Football players, basketball players, soccer players, all of them! They don't have the need to look pretty while playing their sport. Us cheerleaders are different because we're the only ones who have to look pretty, AND do some hardcore stunts. So next time you feel like judging one of us, think of the consequences. First of all, you lost your chance with being with a cheerleader, no cheerleader will even talk to you after you insult their sport. Secondly, we know how to kick to our head, and that could do some serious damage. Think about what your saying before you say it or you'll regret it later. Hopefully all my cheer sisters can relate to what I'm saying!

Epic Cheerleading Picture #1

So this is just a little something I'm gonna try to do maybe every day or so, it's just a really cool picture that I liked about cheerleading. I'll like evaluate and say what I like and dislike, or anything I might change. And it doesn't have to just be stunts, it could be tumbling, or a really awesome jump, or anything! I'll either just be searching cool pictures and come accross something I feel like sharing with you guys. Or I'll purposely find it because I had something in mind that I wanted to express to my public audience. But yeah here's to the start of Epic Cheerleading Photos!

So this is a picture I found on the internet while I was just surfing around looking at awesome heel stretches. And she's an All-Star cheerleader, as you can tell by the Worlds 2011 sign behind her. And she's pulling an extension heel stretch and it's really good! You can tell because her leg is as close to her head as it can be without breaking her perfect high-V motion with her arms.

You can see her stunt group really paying attention to the flyer because their focusing on if their the same height, and making sure she's sturdy in the air. The flyer has an open mouth smile on her face. She actually might be saying the words to her cheer music, because after you practice and listen to it so often, you learn where certain words come up and you mouth them as your on stage. Their hair is half up half down, curled and I think that always looks really pretty :) Overall I think it's a great picture. Thanks for reading, always feel free to comment or message me, or even post a reply to this.

Cheer Hair!

Best friend and me after the Las Lomas vs. College Park Game! That was a fun game. I remember that was the day when everyone had to make their hair spot on perfect. Perfect cheer hair means bangs out of your face, clipped back and hairsprayed the crap out of! And then a super high pony tail that just screams spirit. This was taken after the whole game ended, and cheer hair goes through alot. I mean there's stunting; you get tossed in the air and someone may happen to pull your ponytail. If you're a base you could have your bangs pulled out of your clip. Tumbling; my hair was always super long, so my ponytail needs to be super high because otherwise I step on it when I tumble.

But this isn't the only type of cheer hair there is. If you watch All-Star cheerleaders perform you see they have the big poof, and it's generally curled and put half up half down with a big glitzy bow :) I wonder how long that takes to do all together! But in the end it looks absolutely gorgeous, and it only needs to for that 2minutes and 30seconds that you're on stage cheering your heart out.

So go ahead and experiment with lots of different cheer hairstyles. Straight hair or curly, poof or slicked back, all up, half up, or no up? It's whatever you want, and you can express your cheer individuality through it!

Message me your cheer pictures and I'll feature them in my next blog, or send me a comment and let me know your perfect hair style. Until next time :)

Saturday Swim

Today, like every other Saturday, I got to get up at 7am and go to cheer practice. However, this time it was a little different. Since the last two months I'd gone to every practice, which was more like conditioning to prepare us for Camp! Well the Advisors thought it'd be nice to give us a break, and considering how hot it's been, let us use the pool at our high school.

So I get to the school, I'm wearing my swimsuit and I'm ready to go in the pool, but I see everyone waiting outside the school gates. I realize, it hasn't been opened yet, and we've got to wait for someone to open it! So we stood out there for an hour until the pool guy came and unlocked the gates for us so we could swim. Then we all get in the pool and what does our lead Advisor tell us to do? Swim 10 laps there and back.. Are you kidding I thought this was supposed to be fun! Nope, we did leg kicks, stair runs, and pull ups on the diving boards. But after that we got to play around, and try some new stunts. I flew in a prep lib, half, extensions, and basket tosses. The only problem there.. Cassidy got hit in the chest and got the wind knocked out of her. I felt super bad cause I was the flyer in that stunt, but she walked it off and was ok. She said it wasn't anything to worry about, but still I felt really bad.

But yeah, that was as much cheer as I could handle today! I'm super sore from yesterday's tumbling class. I didn't think that did much, but I sure can feel it in my abs.Keep cheering everybody!

Cheering on Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th my friends.. and I spent the day doing crazy flips and defying gravity?! Shouldn't that be something to avoid on such an unlcuky day considering all the unwanted possibilities? Well good news, I left my gym without a scratch! And I'm gonna tell you all about it :)

About two hours ago I got back from Tumbling at CheerGyms.com. I take the Round-off back-handspring back tuck class. I used to have my tuck back before tryouts during the off-season after Sophomore Year, but due to an ankle injury I had to stop and rest it, now I'm just getting back into it and I see how hard it's gonna be to catch up. And of course, I hurt my ankle during.. cheerleading! It really is a dangerous sport to any who haven't tried, or think it's too girly. I have tendonitis in my right ankle, and I was stuck in a boot for 6 weeks! It was so hard walking down the hall hearing *click, click, click* everytime I stepped with my right foot.

But anyway back to my cheer filled day. So the class was kind of hard, but kind of easy if that makes any sense. Like I felt sweaty and stuff, but that was just cause it was hot and we were in a gym without air conditioning. All we did was standing tucks on the tumble trak. I used to have my standing tuck on the floor with like.. a little spot, but after the recent injury mentioned above I sorta lost it. So now I have to start training all over again. So basically just an easy tumbling day, hoping it'll get harder though! Comment, message me, share this blog, let me know I have readers :)

5,6,7,8, Introduction!

It's not enough that I have just one blog about my entire life, I needed a cheer blog for my CHEER LIFE! I'm sure alot of you are thinking, "what could be so important you need to start a whole 'nother blog for?" Well ya know, I think cheer takes up such a big part of my life, that it's not enough to have it be the center of "My Life" blog. It needs it's own seperate blog where it can thrive on it's own :)

My name is Larissa, I cheer for my high school team at College Park, and currently I am on the Varsity squad :) I'm going to be a junior in high scool, and I cannot wait to get back into cheer, especially on Varsity!

My freshmen year I was on the Frosh Squad, and it was a really fun experiance. I remember on the day of clinics I was sick on the first day, and on the second day when I forced myself out of bed to go and try and catch up I was so overwhelmed. I didn't have the courage to go to tryouts and see if I made the team. If it wasn't for Veronica, a senior on Varsity who messaged me on Facebook asking if I wanted a second chance at CP cheer, I never would have done it. But thank god she did cause that was the best thing that ever happened in my life! I even got my three best friends to come try out too.

Sophomore year I was on the Junior Varisty Squad, now a rolemodel for the incoming freshmen who didn't know as much. We tried something new that year, picking Captains, permanitley. We used to switch off being captains every game, and those would be the people who called out chants. The advisors picked these lucky beings, but this year it was different. We all submitted applications and I was picked to be a Co-Captain. You'd think I wouldn't be happy about that, but I was in awe that someone though I could be in a position of authority, and a good influence to CP cheer. There may have been some drama and issues later in the year, but I look back and think it was a good experiance.

So this year, I was thinking about trying out for the Competition Squad. My coach Jodi hounded me about it, because I was a good tumbler, and a flyer. I never really considered myself a competitive person. I always loved cheering on the sidelines, rooting for my team. However, I always love watching the All-Star Cheerleaders perform. Their the sport everyone watches and pays attention too. Side-line cheer is a sport, within a sport, and it's hard to be recognized for that. So I tried out, and I made the "To-Be-Considered" list. But.. as it neared closer to making a final decision, I got nervous, and quit. It was too much pressure, and I knew I was gonna be swamped with schoolwork and Sprit, Comp on top of that? I don't think I would have time to sleep. But, Yvonne (our coordinator) understood, she always does :)

Now we're 6 days and counting for the day we leave for... CHEER CAMP! It's my first time at a sleep-away camp, and I'm hoping it'll be a blast! So, any fellow cheereladers out there? Comment or message me below, feel free to share any of your stories with me! Anyone thinking about trying out for cheer? Do it. It's the best thing that happened to my life, I assure you, it's awesome!