Cheer Up
In college, we had an annual competition with NCTU. The competition was called the “Meichu” tournament. “Mei” and “Chu” are the symbols of our schools. It included some official competitions and some exhibition matches between the varsity teams of NTHU and NCTU. The cheerleading squad also attended the whole activity.
I was so proud of myself for being one of the members in the cheerleading squad. So today I am going to tell you about how we prepared the halftime show during the “MeiChu” tournament period.
The purpose of the performance was to cheer up the varsity team and make the audience feel excited at halftime. So we needed to design a creative and energetic performance to please the audience. We choreographed by ourselves and combined some interesting punch into the performance.
But before that, we needed to do conditioning training since we were a competitive cheerleading squad. The basic components of a cheerleading performance are cheer, dance, stunt, jump, and tumble. So in order to meet the expectations of our coach and enrich our performance, first of all, we needed to work out, for example, went running on the track and did strength training, such as wall sits and handstands.
Secondly, we stretched violently because flexibility is very important for every cheerleader. It was very terrible and painful, but in order to do the stunt perfectly, we were willing to do that no matter how painful it was.
During the period of “MeiChu” tournament, we got up early in order to prepare well, including to put on make-up. Because the stage was very big, and there was a long distance between audience and us, we exaggerated our facial expressions in order to show our spirit and energy, so our make-up looked like a monster. Also, our hair style should be eye-catching. We always put a lot of hair gel and hair spray with sequins to make it sparkle. As a consequence, after every performances I needed to wash my hair more than three times to get rid of the sequins. You could understand how crazy we were about the performance.
And then, before the show time, we needed to warm up. As you know, before doing any exercise, the most important thing is to warm up. For us, we didn’t know when to go on the stage, it depended on the competition, so we needed to keep our bodies warm until the show time. As you can see, we tried our best to warm up anytime, anywhere.
Eventually, it was the show time. On the stage, we shouted the name of my school. Cheered for it. Showed our creative performance. We were so proud of ourselves that moment.
In conclusion, I thought that was a wonderful time for me no matter which school won the game. We put a lot of effort into the performance. We all suffered tears and pressure. We tried our best to finish the stunts and make the performance stunning. It needed all members to practice it together. We failed, we cried, but we were a team! Bases, flyers, and spotters were indispensable. If someone got hurt during the practice period, the performance needed to be rearranged and it would influence our moral. So everyone was indispensable.
After the performance we always cried loudly, because the process of preparing the performance was too difficult and stressful. But the process was harder, the feeling of achievement we gained was bigger, that was why we still loved it so much.
For me, it was not only very unforgettable but also encouraging. Actually, when I was a child, I wasn’t good at physical education. I thought I was born to be bad at sports. I’d never joined the school sports day because I ran too slowly. But now I can run 8,000 meters non-stop, which I couldn’t imagine when I was young. So what I learned is that if you give yourself a chance to try, you will be capable of more than you know.
I hope this story can cheer you up, as well!
