Cheerleading Moves

Teaching New Cheerleading Moves

In general, you should expect to spend one full practice teaching the new cheerleading moves, another full practice or two fine tuning the routine, and then the rest of your practices going over the routine, conditioning and fixing any mistakes. Whenever you teach new cheerleading moves, you're going to break it down into the following steps:

Step 1: Teach the routine eight counts at a time. Teach the routine slowly so that everyone gets the new moves precisely.
Step 2: Put four sets of eight counts together at a time and speed them up to music. It's very important to make sure that everyone has it correctly before moving on.
Step 3: Teach the entire routine in this manner, move first through eight counts, and then through four sets of eight.
Step 4: Put it all together without music, first slower and then up to speed.
Step 5: Do the routine to music. Fix any mistakes or go over any difficult parts. If you've done the first parts carefully, you shouldn't have to spend a lot of time fixing but rather fine tuning.

Make sure that you stretch and warm up before you start to work on the new routine.

How to Create New Cheerleading Moves

Being unique in this age of cheerleading is a real challenge. Cheerleading, as a sport, has exploded with competitions in all 50 states as well as televised National Championships. Coming up with something no one has seen before is a trick. With that said, read on to find a few ways to come up with new cheerleading moves.

Hire a choreographer

One way to always have fresh moves is to hire a choreographer. There aren't very many teams that can afford to do this. However, you may have a parent or someone else in your midst that is willing to donate some time to help teach your squad new routines. Most squads have new cheerleading moves choreographed by their coach or the squad captains. If you have the funds to hire a choreographer, make sure you consider the following:

• Make sure the choreographer enjoys working with young people.
• Make sure the choreographer has some kind of cheerleading background, especially if you're choreographing stunts into the routine.
• Make sure to have a clear contract for the choreographer, even if he or she is a volunteer. Nothing is worse than thinking that you have your competition routine covered by a choreographer only to have him or her bail at the last minute. Clear communication is essential for a successful year.

Music Videos

While music videos will not provide you with brand new and original moves, it may provide you with new ideas. Let's face it; when the squad performs the latest move in unison at a game, the crowd loves it. Be wary of copying your entire routine from a video, and be wary of creating too many moves that are too sexy for your squad. If you're a middle school squad, your dance moves should reflect that.

Study Dance Technique from Other Disciplines

If you watch competition videos from other squads, you will see a little jazz, a little ballet and sometimes a little of something else thrown into the mix of the routine. Adding something that's a little out of the ordinary from another discipline not only shows your skills as dancers, it also heightens the creativity of your routine.

You Tube

If you're stuck trying to come up with new dances and moves, one of the best places to get ideas You Tube. Check out these videos for some new and fresh ideas!

• An excellent teaching video, this video shows a dance routine being taught that is an great example of traditional cheerleading moves blended with a little hip hop.

• This hip hop dance to Wind It Up by Gwen Stefani is not only a good example of the way to break down a dance for teaching a squad, it also has some cool moves to try if your squad is looking to incorporate more hip hop style into your routines.

• These senior cheerleaders demonstrate an excellent blend of a variety of dance moves. Notice in particular how the leveling and timing add complexity to the routine without making the moves more difficult.

Check out LTK's slideshow Give Me Motions to Cheers!