Competition routine Tips:

Planning your routine:

• 1. Play with your pyramids
  
• 2. Play with your stunts
  
• 3. Evaluate your tumbling
  
• 4. Try your baskets
  
• 5. Plan your routine
  
• 6. Where's the Cheer
  
• 7. Strong Beginning
  
• 8. Place your skills
  
• 9. Smooth Transitions
  
• 10. No Big Breaks
  
• 11. Not too rushed
  
• 12. Solid Ending
  
• 13.NOT too much in it
  
• 14.NOT too difficult
  
• 15.Be creative
  
• 16.Not too easy
  
• 17.View other teams (tapes)
  
• 18.Put in your best skills
  
• 19.Hide your weakness
  
• 20.How to hide your weakness: Tumbling
  
• 21.How to hide your weakness: Pyramids
  
• 22.How to hide your weakness: Stunting
  
• 23.How to hide your weakness: Baskets
  
• 24.Explain your routine
  
• 25.Be open to suggestions
  
• 26.Let them choose
  
  Starting the routine section:
  
• 27.Practice the begining without counts
  
• 28.Allow the team to give ideas
  
• 29.Placement for 1st part with counts
  
• 30.Walk with counts
  
• 31.Add skills with counts
  
• 32.Have team throw skills with counts at slower speed
  
• 33.Tie skills together
  
• 34. How to finish each skill clean
  
• 35. How to move to the next skill
  
• 36. How to start each skill clean
  
• 37.Tweek your routine, placements, and count
  
• 38.Video Tape it
  
• 39. Music for the 1st half
  
• 40.Don't waste too much time cleaning up YET!
  
  Starting the Cheer section:
  
• 41.Adding the Cheer
  
• 42.Placement of Cheer Items
  
• 43.Little movement
  
• 44.Get everyone else involved in the cheer
  
• 45.Play to the crowd
  
• 46.Leaving enough breathing room
  
• 47.Work heavily on signs
  
  Starting the Ending section:
  
• 48.Start ending section smooth
  
• 49.Make sure everyone is not rushed
  
• 50.Make sure skills in the end are not the most difficult
  
• 51.Make sure the ending is going to hit solid
  
  Throwing the entire routine together:
  
• 52.Mark through entire routine
  
• 53.Fixing Movement issues
  
• 54.Throw with just pyramids
  
• 55.Allow individual skills
  
• 56.Add the other skills to the entire routine
  
• 57.Make it easy on your tumblers
  
• 58.Throw it all for the 1st time
  
  Clean up:
  
• 59.Outside line game
  
• 60.Add Extras ("Yah!","Let's Go",etc.)
  
• 61.Punishments (signs, drops)
  
• More to come soon!!!

Cheerleading is becoming more of a competitive sport every day. A Cheerleading Competition is where teams compete together and display a routine with music and incorporate a cheer. Stunts, Tumbling, Baskets, Pyramids, Dance, Jumps, Motions, and Transitions are all displayed for the judges to see. BUT this can be overwhelming to anyone trying to get their routine together. So how do you incorporate the best routine for your team? Here are some tips to lead you to the right direction:

Lesson 1: Beginning your routine: You need to plan it out first.  Decide which stunts, pyramids, and tumbling you what the team to do.  It will all be based on the talent that you have.  You need to pick something that will eventually hit 99.9% of the time.  Now at this point of the process your team is new and may not have even tried some of the skills that you are planning, so let them try some of your suggestions and let them have a say so in what they like and feel comfortable with.  This way they feel like they have a word in the routine and will take more of an active role. Here are some more beginning pointers:

1.)Does the routine have a strong beginning/ending?

2.)Does the routine have some difficulty?

3.)Are you showing the squads strengths and hiding the squads weaknesses?

4.)Make sure everyone in the team has given their input of the routine.

Lesson 2: Incorporating your routine: Actually Teaching your routine.  Once your routine has been planned and counted out, it is time to put the team into place and walk through each spot.  Start small at first in order to not overwhelm the team.  You do not want to give them the entire routine on the first day.  If you have a 1st half, a cheer, and a 2nd half then teach them the cheer OR the 1st half for the 1st couple of days.  Once the walk through is complete and individuals learn where they are going, then add in some cheerleading skills one at a time.  Once the walk through with a couple of skills looks comfortable, now go on to the next part of the routine.  Here are some incorporating pointers:

1.)Do you have fillers in the routine (IE squad saying YEAH,…or something like that!)?

2.)Is the routine innovative and/or exciting?

3.)Make sure the lines have been watched and NO one is near any?

Lesson 3: Troubleshooting your routine: Fix your routine.  After running through either part or most of your routine a couple of times you are going to see many problem spots.  Start breaking them down one by one until you come to an agreement of what you want and what is comfortable to the team.  Here are some troubleshooting pointers:

1.)Does the routine hit?

2.)Have you cleaned up everything from motions to stunts to smiles?

3.)Watch your sync!

Lesson 4: Performing your routine:  After all troubleshooting has been complete, then take the team through a mock performance.  Bring in family members, classmates, and friends to the performance. It will excite the team and force them to go through it full out.  It will also give you and the team an idea where you stand.  Once the mock performance is complete you will want to perform it again at a school function (games, etc.) and/or a smaller competition to give the team more confidence and experience.  NOW you are ready for your performance.  Here are some more performing pointers:

1.)Make sure NO one is slashing?

2.)Is the routine crowd effective?

3.)Make sure all girls are smiling!

Lesson 5: Where/How do I get the cheerleading routine music?  You can either go to a professional, a radio station, any DJ, purchase lots of expensive equipment, or do it yourself on your computer with a Music Maker software.  I personally use Music Maker 6 and 7, but you can use whatever you want.  Here are some pointers when making your music: 

1.)Does your music have sound effects?

2.)Make sure you have 3 copies of the music.

3.)Make sure the music falls at least :30 secounds to 1 minute  below recommended time.  Some CD/tape players can be slower than yours, and you do not want to get deducted points when you don't need to.

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