I'm Back!

Sorry for the delay! I had some doubts as to whether I should continue writing my blog or not. With much deliberation and though put into it, I have decided to continue to write. We have much to catch up on since my last post!

Last Friday night was one of our first performance as a team. It was at Homecoming's Rock Rally. We first went to the IAC to warm everything up, we over estimated how much time it would take. We were done in no more than 20 minuets, this left us with a little less than an hour before show time.

The waiting game was our next battle we had to occupy our time in the tiny crowded hallway next to Plachta Auditorium. Thank the lord for the invention of smart phones. I'm not going to lie i spent the majority of the time defending the reasons I wanted to buy my tree. Its this Halloween tree from Target, its all black and sparkly. I really don't know why I want it but I'm in love with it.

Finally it was time to move to the back of the auditorium and wait even more. The band and the football team were on before us and watching them really got me excited.

It was our turn. The MC gave us a nice introduction and we were on. I honestly forgot how much I miss performing. The nervous jitters easing away to the excitement of hitting a routine. We nailed our routing, getting off the stage everyone was all smiles. Looking around I realized I can't wait for all of us to be down in Florida and doing our routine.

Now onto Saturday.

Saturday was our Homecoming game. Small was able to cheer the parade. I was all cute with my hair looking good and everything. Then the weather decided to be muggy and poof! there goes my perfectly straight hair. Oh well, the parade was a ton of fun anyway. A picture of us cheering even ended up on Central's Homepage!

After a group of us went to Lil' Chef and ate some breakfast. I stuffed my face...and then some. We were exempt from walk of champions, so when we went to the IAC we got to lay around and let our stomachs settle.

Once the rest of Small showed up we warmed up portions of our routine and showed off to the Alumni. It was super cool hearing all of the positive feedback from them. The ooh's and Ahh's that went along with each element were even better!

Once the rest of the team got back from we warmed up for the game. Then we went out to tailgate. My parents showed up five minuets before we had to go onto the field. I wish I was able to spend more time with them. I haven't been able to go home in over a month. I'm just a little bit homesick. Nothing the game couldn't fix!

The game great! We had a great time, Alumni is allowed to cheer the game, it was funny watching them fool around on the sidelines.

As you can see the alumni were not the only ones having a great time!

Sunday's practice.

Since it was about a week ago and we have had two other practices since then I don't remember much so here is what I can recall.

We learned an alternative team stunt, which consumed a mass majority of our time. We also took time to work on the elite.

We worked on Delgado's side of the pyramids they made a ton of improvements.

With a half hour left we moved the mats over and worked on cleaning up our tumbling. While working on our tumbling we were running different elements of our routine.

I ran the entire first part of our routine. One third of our routine! I was beyond thrilled, we actually did a little more than a third because we did run a few other elements but that was besides the point. I can't believe that its only October and I ran a third of our routine. I don't think anyone realized how excited I was.

Wednesday's practice.

Wednesday was also the two year anniversary of my Oda's passing. To have practice on this day kind of felt like a blessing. All day I thought about him and how proud he would be of me and my sisters. He has two granddaughters competing in D1 athletics at the collegiate level. One of his favorite things to do was come and watch me cheer. Knowing how far I've come from making my 7th grade cheer team to having the opportunity to go down to UCA Nationals I know he is looking down on me with pride.

Wednesday we had a theme practice. It was 80s theme! Needless to say we looked great.

 

 

The majority of this practice was spent on pyramids. We had a former cheerleader come in and help us with our elements. We mostly worked on cheer pyramid. Although it was a bit rough for everyone I believe that we made some great strides.

 

Delgado's side of first pyramid also got a full out hit, which is super good! I still can't believe that its only October and were so far into our journey.

 

We worked a little bit on team stunt and elite. Team stunt is frustrating me. I know that as a team we could hit the elite elements in it, but it may not be clean. Its mostly a personal thing. I want to be able to do an elite stunt on the mat. Maybe with the fire lit under our butts we will be able to.

 

Not going to lie that's about all I really remember from Wednesday's practice.

 

Thursday's Practice.

 

The first part of practice was game practice. It went well, we have another game verses Akron on Saturday. All girl had 24 girls throw standing tucks! It is a new record in CMU cheer history! That was super exciting.

 

After that bit, we divided into our Young Champion groups. I am a little bitter sweet about this clinic, just because it is my older sister, Audrey, Big Ten Cross Country Race, and my entire family is going. Not just parents but extended family and like I said earlier I am a little homesick. But I do enjoy working Young Champions! I get to private coach pretty much all day, I love private coaching because you actually get to work one on one with a team and I love putting together stunts! This clinic will also be our biggest one in our history!

 

At smalls practice we had about 25 minuets to work through our elements. We again switched team stunt, and got a new back up. The more I think about this, the more I agree with it. It will be a lot cleaner. Then we worked pyramids for the last bit. Our side of the pyramid had a pretty close to perfect hit, it was beautiful  not going to lie.

 

Sorry about the delay again! And for such little detail, I'm in a rush to get to the football game! FIRE UP CHIPS!

 

ps. I will start bio's on my next blog! Ran out of time!



Time Crunch

Today we started practice an hour later than usual because the Tigers were on. No, I am not lying. My coach postponed practice a full hour because of a baseball game...but to be completely honest, no one was complaining. Good news is they won!

The majority of our practice was a game practice. This weekend is homecoming, needless to say all of us vets are super excited. This game practice was much more laid back than usual. We didn't have to go out on the field which was a relief because it was raining all day. We had to practice in our warm ups and some of the new people are not used to it. I will admit the new warm ups we have are a tad more difficult to move in than the old ones.

Everything went decent, nothing amazing. It wasn't like we were switching around anything. Once we broke into two teams we worked on our individual skill set. Again nothing too exciting. All-girl has sweet new pyramids. Its exciting to know that everyone is still progressing. Not that I think they wouldn't without a handful of vets. The vets on the team are good leaders and are taking the team in the right direction.

After the game material, coed and all-girl broke out and left. At this point Small moved onto our nationals elements. Pat addressed the team and let us know that we have about 25 minuets to test out of all the elements. We were racing the clock.

We started off with tumbling. Easy as pie. Then moved onto the elite, all-girl did good, we still need to work on timing. Coed made some great strides today each group did the elite dismount. Already an improvement and we were only ten minuets into our practice.

Next was first pyramid. Our side did one rep, it was a hit, so the majority of the time was spent on the other side. Again more improvement.

Now onto the cheer pyramid. Jessy's side ran full out, the first two were shaky. We moved to our side. Pat gave us a little pep talk, and we hit it! It was not pretty by all means but a hit is a hit. After Jessy's side also got a hit and we moved on.

The last thing we worked on was team stunt. My group did good. We just need to spend time on cleaning it up. Its one thing to hit it, its another thing to hit it clean. I think it will get better with reps.

We got out of practice a little bit late. But within the half hour that we had time to work we were able to improve and that is one of the main focuses of this point in our journey.

Starting Sunday I am adding a new segment to my blog. Meet the team! At the bottom of each post I will write a short bio and provide a picture of a different member of my team.

I was searching CMU Cheerleading on the Internet and I found this. Old CMU Cheer Website Enjoy!

One Step at a Time

Last nights practice was run by Nicky. In my opinion it was one of our better practices since switching around the routine.

The way he ran it we did everything for a limited amount of time with a reasonable amount of repetitions. We started off with our elite sequence. We took 15 minuets to warm up then we would ran it. My group is killing the elite! Its funny because this is the part that should be hard but I guess the elements the All-girl groups are doing are pretty basic.

The next thing we worked on was the cheer. I'm not going to lie I was pretty nervous about doing the cheer pyramid again. Even though I did it after I got my bloody nose, I was just a little nervous. I think I had a right to be, I caught the girls with my face for Gods sake. They pyramid went really well! Our side is working especially hard to save every rep. I feel like the more we get into the habit of that, we wont have to worry about saving it, we will just be hitting it. Jessy's side was looking great too, with multiple full out hits.

We then moved onto team stunt. The last time we worked on team stunt it was pretty bad. I know everyone in my group wanted to do better and we did. We only dropped one, which is pretty good stats. As we were reping team stunt, Pat showed up. I think this made everyone a little more tense than they were with Nicky. But even with Pat there we did good.

After team stunt we worked on first pyramid. We did middle layers like twice then our side ran full out. The first one was decent, being as we hadn't done it full out in over a week. The second one something was off in a part so the counts stopped and we popped down on one instead of five. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal but if we were to do that in a routine it would be totally off. Then again our counts wouldn't be off in a routine. Carter sassed at us because of that, I was just glad that me and molly were on the same page because it could have been 100 times worse if one of us popped down and one didn't. But other than that our side of the pyramid is going smoothly.

Delgado's side of the pyramid made some great strides also. They just have to add two more elements into it to run it full out. I was very proud of Pep. Me and her don't have back spots during this pyramid and she is holding her ground like a champ!

The last portion of practice we worked on baskets. I love that Bri is not afraid to go for anything. We had to start with the basics to get her used to being back on All-girl, but I really think that being on coed for that little amount of time helped both her and Alyssa on their baskets. They at least feel a ton better. We got to the first part of our elite basket which was pretty cool.

Overall the practice went good. Although at one point I felt as though everyone was stressed you would have never been able to tell based on the performance we were giving.

At the end of practice Pat mentioned how happy he was to come into practice to a full out hit to team stunt. I know I really didn't see our progress in the elements, so it was a breath of fresh air to hear Pat tell us how well we are doing.

Nicky did a great job with handling us. I like the way we got to work on everything in a timely matter, practice seemed to go by faster than usually. It felt productive. Game on Friday versus Navy,  as much as I love doing nationals stuff, I can't wait to be out on the field again!

 

Top Gun All Stars do not compete against us, but just like HPU they are a fantastic team. They also put on a ridiculously cool routine and have won worlds multiple times.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

We spent the majority of yesterdays practice preparing for our next football game. Working on our skill sets and fight songs. It was a lot of fun being over with all-girl again. Although we just worked on team stunt and elite stunt. Its kind of a bummer that were not in any pyramids, but it would be a lot of relearning and pretty much taking a step backwards for all-girl, so I understand. At this game small coed will be doing some of the elements from our routine which I am pretty pumped about.

So Bri and Eboni have been planning a surprise for Jasmin's birthday the past three weeks. They planned on having everyone over after practice and then we were all going to Wayside. Well, Jasmin just got a new kitten (pictured below with my best friend Jackie) and she got her shots and some sort of surgery so someone had to be with her at all times. Since Jasmin didn't know that everyone was going out for her birthday she was just going to stay in. Obviously Bri and Eboni had to then tell her about her surprise and we needed to find a cat sitter for her to go out. They kept asking everyone at practice and finally Church said that she would watch the kitty. Bri was so thrilled she was screaming across the track bay to Eboni, "CHURCH IS GOING TO WATCH THE CAT." It was just a funny moment from our practice.

 

After we broke back into our three teams we started reping our elite sequences. Pat was happy with how much we progressed. From the elite we went to the cheer pyramid. We made really good strides on both sides. When we have people spotting Pat told me to just run out of the way if the pyramid is falling. One of the reps our side was going down and I tried to get out of the way but there was not enough room for me to run. So I did the obvious other choice I dove through a gap between Carter and Jimmy. It was quite entertaining. Pat looked at me on the ground and I just said "You told me to get out of the way."

Then he had us run a block of our routine, we were running the cheer full out and team stunt full out. The first one our side of the pyramid fell and my team stunt was...disastrous to say the least. The second time our side of the pyramid fell again and I caught Bri and Delgado with my face. This was time where I couldn't dive out of the way. As I was getting up to go to team stunt I realized that there was blood on the ground and not going to  lie I didn't even realize it was from me until I saw more blood.

This was the first time I've ever gotten a bloody nose. I didn't know what to do, so I went in the bathroom and thank the lord Samme came and helped me out. It took a little bit for it to stop bleeding, I think its because I have a big nose. Anyway, when I eventually made it back to practice I got asked about 50 times if I was okay. I told them that I was going to be out the rest of the season. HA!

We jumped right back into running the block and my side of the pyramid still could not get a hit, and my team stunt was just as bad. Finally we just did the pyramid step by step and we got a hit. We ended practice on that.

At the end of practice, Pat gave us another lesson. This journey is going to be filled with bumps and bruises and we have to remember that its all going to be worth it in the end. So we can't sweat the small stuff and just push through the pain. Being as I lost half of the blood in my body through my nose, I was allowed to break out of practice. Which is just saying what we thought about our practice and then we go home.

Time to Step it Up

Since I forgot to inform everyone about Thursdays practice that is where I will begin today.

Thursdays practice went as expected, lots of reps. Bri officially was moved to top girl on my side of the first pyramid and we took one group out of the elite sequence. We also added in spring tucks. As me and Gera like to say..."sweating." We were supposed to have a 6am on Friday morning but since we had so much to learn Pat gave us the option of staying until 11 that night. Which we all took thankfully.

It was like beat up Laura day on Thursday. While the two sides of the cheer pyramid were reping our middle group was doing our stunt. Sander, our flier for the stunt, came down weird and body slammed me into the ground. She didn't get hurt though thank the lord and all she did was knock the wind out of me... and rip off my nail. I have fake nails by the way. Then at the end of practice we were throwing our elite basket and somehow Jaclyn came straight down and her foot slammed into my leg and I just felt my leg smash down into my ankle if that makes any sense.

Other than getting beat up practice went well. Team stunts were very good. At one point a bunch of us were hitting the wall and that turned into us getting very very slap happy. Finally the people in charge of closing the IAC kicked us out.

Now onto tonight's practice. Let me just say this. I am starting to understand what Pat is saying when he has me repeat "I am a machine" because today one of the first things we did was redo our first pyramid. So after all these long practices of tying to get the first pyramid to hit, he changes it. Though I will say this, this pyramid is a lot more visual and its a little bit easier to hold.

We spend most of our practice on pyramids today. We repd team stunt for a little bit, while the coed couples were working with the coed team. My group struggled a little bit today. We are hitting the stunt fine, we just need to clean it up... a ton. That's just one of the things on my list to work on.

Here is the kicker of today's practice. I have officially been given the hardest part in our routine. I now am holding the cheer pyramid. So on top of doing everything else along with holding the other two pyramids... I have another one added on. Today was my first day even attempting it and I'm pretty sure we could have given a doll new hair with how much was pulled out of my head. My shoulders have more shoe hickeys than they have all year, but as much as it sucks now, it will be worth it in a few months.

Pat asked me what I thought of holding the pyramid. If its for the benefit of the team and where the team wants to go then don't hesitate to put me in. Therefore...I'm in.

I kept telling Kelvin when we were done with each rep, "I need a harder workout plan for sure now." There is no way I will be able to hold this without working my ass off outside of practice.

They don't compete against us or anything, they are just so damn good and I need some inspiration if I am ever going to be able to make it through this routine.