#CheerFaceFriday

Nervous about what face is the "right" face to make while performing on the mat?

Well here are some pictures of me and Lil Jess warming up our cheer faces before competing on the  UCA Nationals mat just a few weeks back! There is no doubt that these cheer faces are what got us through to Finals! 

Just remember  you should always warm up your cheer faces before you perform, you do not want to pull a muscle! And most importantly,  DO NOT be afraid of making a fool out of yourself! 

*DO NOT FORGET TO UPLOAD  PICTURES OF YOU AND YOUR TEAM  MEMBERS MAKING  FUNNY CHEER FACES AND BE SURE TO USE THE HASHTAG CHEERFACEFRIDAY! 

Thanks,

Dani

Senior CLB, Cheer Humor

My Story

I have had personal experience with a Mental Block. It is not an easy thing to live with because you get very upset and stressed out about it. I developed my Mental Block after getting hurt at a practice and little by little I stopped doing tumbling skills until I stopped completely tumbling. What compacted it even more was I had a coach who did not understand what was going on in my head and she would yell at me for it. Almost everyday I would go to a tumble class to help myself get “over it”, to get better. I just ended up getting more frustrated because when I would go my coach would be there and she would make me run around the whole gym every time I did not pull my tumbling. As time went on my parents became concerned for me because I was so upset. My mom and I did a lot of research online and called many experts to see who could help me. I ended up seeing several people to help me with my block, including Kristen Perri who was my mental coach from Cheer360. I have also had sessions with a Sports Hypnotist. Thankfully at this time today I have over come my fear of tumbling and I have become me again. I have gotten my tumbling back and I have also gained more skills with the confidence I have now. It was a hard, frustrating and scary journey and it has made me appreciate my strength as an athlete more than ever. If you or a family member has dealt with an issue like this, we would love to hear from you and maybe share your story in how you have over come your fear!

What’s On Your Team's iPod?

We all know the importance of music considering it is the component that puts together the routine! The type of music and the lyrics you listen to can have a direct effect on how you perform. 

So what’s your tradition? Do you listen to a certain song while getting ready the morning of competition or with your team before you begin practice? Is there one song in your routine that really pumps you up and helps you finish you compete? 

Feel free to share and think about finding your song for next season! Having that team song can really form a bond between you and your teammates and create contagious positive energy!! 

Here’s a link to SWVC’s team song this past season, "It’s My Time"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqlbqIw-v90

Musical Fun Facts: 

*Some studies suggest listening to classical music while studying and doing homework can increase brain activity and intelligence for a short period of time

*Termites work quicker and more efficiently when listening to Heavy Metal/Rock Music

Jessica, CLB

Think Smart, Cheer Smart

With the high school season just ending and Allstar Competition season just starting up again, teams are starting to train even harder, you should really think about ways to keep yourself in check with ways to keep safe while training. Sports injuries are very serious, they can come in many variations, for example broken bones, sprains, and mental blocks. Mental blocks are a big problem when it comes to cheer, it can make people end up getting scared to do things. It could also be with one or more things. Mental blocks are almost always in tumbling. Most of the time the cheerleader gets hurt doing a skill and the next time they go to perform that skill they get scared and stop. They are not something you can joke about. It can take different amounts of time for each person to get over this injury, it could take from days, months to about a year to completely get over this injury. The athlete needs support from family, friends, and teammates to help them through it. It is also good to have some strategies, which will be named in future posts. If you or someone you know has been through this let us know in the comment section!

#CheerFaceFriday

Need some help on those cheer faces?

Well check out this picture of Delia and I working on our cheer faces!

You will be surprised what type of cheer faces you and your teammates make while performing!

Share some pictures of you and your teammates making awesome cheer faces and be sure to get #cheerfacefriday trending! 

Thanks,

Dani

Senior CLB, Cheer Humor

Team Mottos

This past season, my team practiced and competed by a motto we liked to call “212 Degrees”. It helped to keep us focused and motivated. What will your motto be for this off-season?

The Extra Degree 

At 211 Degrees Water is Hot

At 212 Degrees Water Boils

And With Boiling Waters Comes Steam

And Steam Can Power a Locomotive

One Extra Degree Makes All the Difference

And The One Extra Degree of Effort

Separates the Good from the Great

This is Your Time, Turn up the Heat!

Jessica, CLB

#TheCheerMom Motivational Monday

                        Staying positive is key...                            Every Monday I will be posting motivational quotes to get us through the week on a positive note.... 

Tara

#TheCheerMom, CheerLEADER Advocate

February's Bow of The Month

Welcome to our first ever Bow of The Month!!! This week's theme: pink cheetah! 

First, here's Angie's pink sequined cheetah bow 🎀

This bow looks super cute with any practice outfit or even your fierce uniform! 

Next is Dana's pink sequined cheetah keychain bow!

Perfect for your pink glitter nfinity backpack 😍

Do you like the pink cheetah look or are you into a rhinestone bow?

Tell us what you think!! 

Dana and Angie, CLB

2014 Varsity Spirit Fashion Show Recap!

     The 2014 Varsity Spirit Fashion Show took place in Nashville, Tennessee, and featured many different styles, fits, and athletic wear for all different types of cheerleaders. The fashion show displays styles for camp wear and uniforms for both the collegiate and high school levels.

     This year’s trends in campwear include bright neon and pops of color. Have you noticed the increasing bursts of color, not only in cheerleading, but in all athletic wear and on athletes everywhere? Most of the tee shirts feature many graphics and fun text fonts pleasing to the i (get it?)

     This season in cheerleading uniforms, grey is the new black! As a fashion enthusiast, black will never be out of style, so I don’t know what Varsity is trying to do here.

     Uniforms have evolved over the many existing years of cheerleading. In 2014, it appears that uniforms are all about geometrical lines while still maintaining cleanliness. (So my thing) However, there is also the opposite side of the spectrum, where uniforms are metallic or have a one shoulder detailing.

     Some uniform materials incorporate special motion flex, body hugging, and performance-driven technologies, so that cheerleaders are stylish without compromising comfort. Personally, I love these features because I can actually breathe when I have my uniform on instead of thinking about how great it will feel when I take it off!

     What's YOUR favorite style?! What do you think about these trends for the year of 2014? Watch the video or look at the catalog if you’re interested in finding out more of this years’ cheerleading trends! Comment below and let us know!

Xoxo,

Ally, Senior CLB Fashion and Beauty

http://varsity.com/event/1682/art/1753/varsity-spirit-fashion-show

http://www.varsity.com/event/1686/2014-varsity-spirit-fashion-catalog  
 

How to Handle School, Varsity and All-Star Cheer

School is hard enough as it is, but adding two or more different cheerleading teams is even harder! Here’s three easy ways we handle it.

Always make sure your homework is done first: school should always come before cheer, so we make sure all of our homework is done before our first practice of the day. For us, we have about two hours before Varsity practice to do homework and go to review sessions with our teachers.

Eat healthy and make sure you get enough sleep every night: eating healthy will give you more energy and make it much easier to get through your long days. We always bring fruits and healthy snacks to practices and eat healthy throughout the day. Getting at least 8 hours of sleep each night will keep you focused and alert so you can give 110% in practice. We try to get to sleep at nine every night so we can be ready for the next day.

Manage your time and don’t overwork yourself: even if that means having to leave your school team’s practice early and going late to all star! Always make sure you have at least 30mins of down time to just relax and unwind from school. Work out a schedule with your coaches that will give you enough practice time without pushing yourself too hard.

With these three things in mind, handling school, all star and varsity cheerleading will become much easier and less stressful! How do you juggle your grades and cheer teams? 

Comment below or tell us on twitter at @Cheer360 !!

Thanks,

Dana and Angie, CLBs

Cheer Life LI Special Report: LICCA Finals Recap

With the season coming to an end, Super Bowl weekend means more than football to Long Island cheerleaders. LICCA varsity finals took place on Saturday at Happaugue High School and Sunday at Suffolk County Community College with over 30 teams who qualified this year. The weekend started on Saturday morning with Medium varsity. 

West Islip started their routine off with standing tumbling followed by 4 low to high heel stretches in their partner stunt. They spelt their cheer with 4 unassisted one men reading W-E-S-T, and different color signs made it unique! Smithtown West stunned us all with their no handed one and a quarter ups that they made look as easy as pie. Their energy throughout the routine was great and their cheer was catchy and fun!

The session ended with the cheerlebrities of Long Island, Rocky Point. While a familiar face at LI Championships, we can't seem to take our eyes off them when they take the mat. 5 unassisted full ups hit along with the rest of their flawless routine. I think what most of us would like to know is how they don't get dizzy by spinning non stop!

Before awards, teams come together to put on a patriotic tribute performance which is always fun to watch. Gina Caputo puts together these performances, and they always turn out great. The sportsmanship award was called out first for West Islip. After that followed the top 5 which were 5-West Islip, 4-Bayshore, 3-Macarther, 2-Smithtown West, and the LI champion-Rocky Point. 

The large varsity division was next consisting of only 8 teams who qualified. Although there were only a few teams competing, it was a fantastic competition full of difficulty and well executed routines. These teams did not let anyone else in their division get past them this season and will continue to hold their own when 7  of them attend this weekends prestigious UCA nationals in Disney. The awards came to 5-Bethpage, 4-Freeport, 3-Plainedge, 2-Kellenburg, Long Island champion in large, Mount Sinai. 

Sunday was our most exciting competition of the weekend at SCCC. Small varsity consisted of 14 qualifying teams all around the same level as eachother.  Spectators and judges came into the competition having no clue who would take home that championship title.  North Babylon hit their stretch to stretches in the partner stunt and clean tumbling throughout. Hauppauge had an injury during warm ups, but they still went out there and did a great job. Shoreham had to stop their routine halfway through but the girls recovered from their mishap and finished their routine strong. Smithtown East had a fall in their partner stunts, but their high to highs looked solid! One of the most unique, and fun routines to watch was Massapequa. Where did they come from?! 

The weekend ended with the LICCA all stars, Act member recognition, patriotic tribute and power four. The sportsmanship award went to Kings Park followed by the top 5 teams with 2 ties in the small division. 5-North Babylon, 4-Wantagh and Hauppauge, 3-Clarke and Comsewogue, 2-Massapequa, and the championship went to Smithtown East!

With the LICCA competition season coming to an end, it only means one thing to many of our Long Island teams, NATIONALS! In just a few days, teams will be headed off to warm weather to turn theirs dreams into reality at the most magical place on earth, Disney World. Good luck to all teams competing this weekend and congratulations to all of our Long Island finalists on a great season! 

-Cheer Life Long Island

Follow Them @CheerLifeLI

The True Cheer Mom Profile

#TheCheerMom

Wow so this is quite a little adventure my daughter has put me on! What adventure you might be asking? Well that would be being a Cheer Mom.  

So here I am wondering what is a Cheer Mom? Well, “A cheer mom is the mother of a cheerleader who is very involved and supportive of her child's sport.” Simple enough right? 

Well nothing is that simple!

Do you know how many times I have heard the definitions of what others think of "cheer moms?" Let me give you some examples.

• Cheer Moms are mom's who are living vicariously through their child/children.
• Cheer Moms were a cheerleader in high school or college.
• Cheer Moms always wanted to be a cheerleader and never pursued it so now they are "making" their child/children do cheer.
• Cheer Moms are single minded, overpowering, loud, obnoxious, snotty, ‘clicky’, mean and oh, my favorite…..
• Crazy with a capital C!  

Now that you have heard what everyone else thinks a Cheer Mom is, let me provide you with my definition.

• First, the above statements are NOT ONLY FALSE but not how I feel. 
• Second, a Cheer Mom to me is a parent who is just like any other sports parent. We are the same as your typical "soccer mom", "baseball, football, lacrosse, track.. and so on mom",  a person who helps their child focus, who is supportive, understanding, trusting, and a team player. 
• Yes we are loud. Yes we can be crazy....but more with a lowercase 'c. 

I know what you are thinking, "Some of these sound like my own personalbeliefs!" Wellgues what? Then it seems like you might be a cheer mom too!

Just remember one last thing. No matter what you are, know I'm proud to be "that mom." The mom who will help their child. The mom who will hug and kiss, listen, then tell them to go back in the gym and never give up.The trust your coaches and teammates mom. The mom that also has to trust in the same people her child has too. 

To me being all this, goes far beyond being labeled Cheer Mom.

Tara 

CheerLEADER Advocate, #CheerMom

WELCOME TO THE LAYOUT

You are now entering the FIRST blog of its kind that is run by the cheerleading community, for the cheerleading community. Feel free to click around! 

Every article is written by either a  present Long Island cheerleader (or what we like to call our CLBs) or a guest writer! Get to know our fun and quirky Cheer Leader Bloggers by clicking to their bios. We are focused on spreading the word about the hard work and dedication cheerleaders put into their sport everyday. Help us with our mission! Be sure to Like, Comment, and Share our articles.

We are always open to suggestions! 

Thank you for your support and interest!
Jessica, Editor-In-Chief, CLB

#CheerFaceFriday

With UCA Nationals coming up, it is very important to have the proper #CheerFace when competing on that magical blue mat.

Which face is the "right" competition face? 

1) The Cheer Professional 

2) Hey Cutie 

3) The Miley  

4) OMG

Let us know! Send us a picture of your or your teammates best facial expression during a competition! Tag us and use the hashtag #CheerFaceFriday

Thanks,

Dani

Senior CLB, Cheer Humor