Performing in front of an audience for the first time, or even if you have done it before, can be very nerve racking for many people, varsity cheerleader at Sedro-Woolley high school Charlize Kesti says,
“I get nervous when it’s the first game and other than that I’m not. What I do to not be nervous is think about how fun it will be and try not to focus on being nervous or what could happen.”
Kesti has been cheerleading for three years and says that she joinedcheer to carry on her family legacy and give it a try.
“My mom was cheer captain and my cousin was cheer captain, so I thought I would give it a try too and kinda carry on the legacy and I ended up really liking it.”
To people who believe that cheer is not a sport, Kesti says that, while high school cheer is not a hard sport, competitive cheer is a sport.
“I wouldn’t say high school cheer is a hard sport, though competitive it is but I am not a part of that, I would say that stunting is hard in high school and that’s really all so.”
Harper Dickman, a varsity cheerleader of two years, says she doesn’t get nervous normally before performing if she has practiced and is confident in what she is doing.
“Most of the time I’m not nervous if I’m confident in what I’m doing, but sometimes right before performing, I can overthink about not doing well, but once I get it over with, I feel accomplished, ” said Dickman.
Dickman joined cheer because it looked fun and interesting, but was always scared to just go for it and try out. She thinks that cheer can be a hard sport when it comes to learning the cheers and the counts and thinks strongly that cheer is a sport.
“I have always thought that cheering looked fun, but I’ve always just been too scared to do it until my best friend last year wanted me to do it with her, and I did, and I loved it ever since.”
“It can be hard sometimes memorizing all the counts to everything, but once you get them down it’s not hard anymore and it just gets easy and fun, I would consider it a sport because you have to put a lot of time and energy into perfecting everything that you do but I understand why some people dont think it’s a sport because our job is to cheer for other sports.” said Harper,
“My advice would be to always smile and not show you are nervous and cheer. It takes a lot of dedication.”
Rylie Stalcup is an All Star Cheerleader and high school varsity cheerleader. She
says she does get very nervous performing and is scared about messing up in front of an audience.
“Yes I get very nervous, falling or messing up in front of people.”
Stalcup has been doing highschool cheer for two years and All Star Cheer for 11 years and joined when she was very young.
“I was like 3 or 4 when I joined and I was just trying out different things and different sports and cheering just stuck to me.”
Stalcup says that High School cheer is not a sport and All Star competitive cheer is,
“High School cheer isn’t really a sport, All Star cheer it is because it is more active movement and you are doing way more,” says Stalcup,
Her advice to younger girls wanting to try out is, “Listen to your body, cheer can be hard on your body and you need to listen to it, I have had many surgeries done.”