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