Flying High



In this blog post I will be talking about basic stunting, and how to perform these amazing high flying skills. Just like with tumbling skills, there is different difficulty for the different levels of cheerleading. The most important stunt for cheerleading is the prep. This stunt is the base of any cheerleading stunt. For any cheer stunt the beginning is the same. The bases catch the flyers feet with their hands, and the back holds onto the flyers ankles. Bases push up, while rotating their hands and wrists around, until they are holding the foot toe to heel. This “load in” technique is used every time you stunt. Once you master this stunt you can move on to bigger and better stunts that will wow your crowd even more. Stunts are done on two levels: prep and extension. Extension is where instead of holding the flyer at your chest, you extend your arms above your head and hold the flyer there. For every stunt the back holds the ankles and pulls up as much as they can to take off some of the weight from the bases. On both levels you can do most off the same types of stunts, just when you are in extension it makes it harder for the flyer to stay tight.

Flyers can pull many different “positions” while in a stunt such as a scorpion, arabesque, scale, bow and arrow, a needle, and a lib. These skills require different amounts of flexibility to perform well. A very popular stunt in both competitive cheer and high school cheer, are baskets. Baskets are where bases connect their hands and the flyer stands on top of the hands. The bases throw the flyer into the air and catch her after she is done falling. Flyers can perform many tricks while being thrown into the air, gradually getting harder as you go up levels. The simplest is a straight ride, where the flyer just stays tight and sores threw the air. Another popular one is the toe touch basket, which is where the flyer does a toe touch jump while in the air. Once you get to the level five teams you get into the amazing stunts that will blow your mind. They do stunts where the flyers flip, twist, and turn while being thrown through the air. If this doesn’t make cheerleading a sport I don’t know what does!

Scorpion