Varsity Cheerleading Update
Jefferson Junior High School
Weekly Practice Information
3:35-3:40: Attendance, Announcements, and Jewelry Check in Room 101
3:40-3:50: Stretches in the Hallway as a Group
3:50-4:10: Sideline Chant Review/New Material
- Our goal is to know a total of 30 sideline chants by the end of the week.
4:10-4:20: Cheer Review
- We'll Review "Get to It" and the Tryout Cheer that Emilija taught you at clinics on Tuesday.
- Wednesday you'll learn a new halftime/quarter cheer.
- Friday we'll review the new cheer and clean up all three.
4:20-4:25: Break for Bathroom/Water
4:25-4:45: Group A does Tumbling Runs/Group B does Dance Clean-Up
- We'll be working on the goals Kayla and Parker set for each of you individually.
- The goal is to have the dance SOLID and SHARP by the end of the week so we can work more on stunting next week.
4:45-5:05: Group B does Tumbling Runs/Group A does Dance Clean-Up
- We'll be working on the goals Kayla and Parker set for each of you individually.
- The goal is to have the dance SOLID and SHARP by the end of the week so we can work more on stunting next week.
Cheer Resources
Because we are learning so much new material so quickly at practice (which is AWESOME), I will work on pulling girls this week at practice (while we have some time off stunting) to make and post videos of our sideline chants and halftime/quarter cheers, so the girls can practice and review at home if they'd like a refresher.
The dance we've been learning can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K9vArFuhGo . We've made small tweaks, but for the most part, we are following the UCA extreme routine for Swagger Jagger. The lyrics were up for debate at practice, so here they are (without the counts and instructions) if you just want to practice to the music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKdMF1CVF20.
Tumbling Goals
So... we have some good news and some bad news. Bad news first: One area of weakness on this year's team (which the girls know about and we've discussed) is tumbling. We have a few girls that are strong in this area... but we are going to face off against teams where EVERY girl on the team has a standing back tuck... some even have standing tucks and synchronized roundoff flip-flop tumbling passes. Now for the good news: we have great resources and practice space to strengthen this area. We have a few girls that are great spots and can help coach the other team members through strengthening this area of competitive cheer. The DGN varsity cheer coach said their biggest tips to prepare for tryouts: have strong tumbling and have a positive attitude towards work and learning new things. We had two high school cheerleaders at Saturday's practice who helped set two-week tumbling goals for each girl on our team. This is something they do on many competitive cheer teams to help grow as tumblers. The high school girls set pretty ambitious goals for our girls, but we will work on it! I will set aside 20 minutes per practice for the next week to help girls work on achieving their goals.
Individual two-week goals are as follows:
- Sarah - back handspring (standing or running)
- Rachel - back handspring (standing or running)
- Giuliana - standing tuck/running round-off back hand spring, tuck
- Malina - standing round off/solid running round-off
- Jaresa - standing back handspring/solid running round off
- Emily W - standing tuck/running back handspring, tuck
- Mikayla - back handspring (standing or running)
- Charli B - back handspring (standing or running)
- Kayla M - back handspring (standing or running)
- Grace - back handspring (standing or running)
- Lora - ariel (so you don't put pressure on your injured wrist)
- Julie - standing back handspring
- Rakiya - back handspring (standing or running)
- Karissa - back handspring (standing or running)
- Sophie - running back handspring - layout/standing full or tuck
- Abby - N/A (injured)
- Amaya - standing bank handspring/solid running round-off
- Jaccara - standing round off/solid running round-off
Our manager, Amiyah, has been a great help at practice! Another girl expressed interest in being a cheer manager, so we may have two! After some thought, we will not have managers practicing stunting or tumbling... but they are welcome to learn cheers, chants or dances if they'd like to work on strengthening their cheer skills. The managers will also be taking attendance/tardies and helping with music and making sure everyone knows what they need to know! :)
Sideline Chants
- Jump Ball
- Take it to the Hoop
- Yell, Bring It
- Big Blue's in the House
- One, We are the Wolverines
- We Strive for Perfection
- Hot to Go
- To the G, To the O
- Go, Wolverines, Let's Go
- JEFF xx ERSON xx (The Clapping Cheer)
- De-Fense XX/ Off-Ense XX
- We Will Rock You
- Fire It Up, Fire It Up, We're the Best in Town, We're the Best Around...
- Wave Your Hands
- Dribble It, Pass It, We Want a Basket!
- Let's Go Jefferson
- Free Throw Chant (Yeah, Yeah, Let's go __________)
- Hey, Go Wolverines! Heyyyyy, Go Wolverines!
- TA KE Take that Ball Away
- J-J-JEF, F-F-FER, S-S-SON, Jefferson Wolverines! (line switch transition)
Calendar Update
- When I made the schedules, I accidentally put the Villa Park competition on Saturday, February 8th. It is actually one week earlier - on Saturday, February 1st. It works out nicely because it's exactly one month before Jefferson's cheer competition for conference cheer teams.
- When I made the schedules, I also did not include January 7th's trip to Eisenhower Junior High for a cheerleading clinic. That's the week of our big state trip to IESA... so we may add a competition practice afterwards (as a double header practice) because I'm nervous about missing a practice right before competition. We'll play that one by ear based on the needs of the girls and the team.