Is Cheerleading a Sport?

NO DOUBT!

Kathrin Moser, Staff Writer|December 15, 2013

Is Cheerleading a Sport?

I’m honestly tired of hearing “Cheerleading is not a sport” or “You do nothing” or “You just scream and wave your hands if someone scores.” It’s time for others to listen.

First of all, there are many different kinds of cheerleading. There is competitive cheerleading, cheer dance, partner stunt and cheering for games. It takes hard and long practices to be synchronous, no matter which kind of cheerleading you’re doing. It also takes skill and effort to make every single move look perfect–precision matters.

To understand the meaning of  “sport” I reviewed the definition from thefreedictionary.com.  It is said a sport is “a physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively and a particular form of this activity.” In regards to cheerleading, there are requirements and rules set everywhere. For example, how long the skirts have to be, which stunts you are allowed to do, which moves are inappropriate, how long your show has to be, which words you can use in a cheer, how everything has to look, and how many points you can get for what in a competition. The definition is continued to include “an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.”  This definition applies to cheerleading too.

The definition of cheerleading according to wikipedia.org : ” Cheerleading is an intense physical activity … of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers and stunting in order to direct spectators of events to cheer for sports teams at games or to participate in cheerleading competitions.”

Each kind of cheerleading has merit as a sport.  Competitive cheerleading is known to be the most spectacular kind of cheerleading–it involves every kind of cheerleading, such as stunts, group stunts, partner stunts sometimes,  jumps, dance and cheer. Depending on the level it can get very extreme. You can see an example video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YncPTI54hEs<

And my team at home (not an up-to-date video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsI7gpoU4yE

Cheer dance involves team dancing and jumping to individual kinds of music and performances.

Partner stunt involves one male person (base) throwing a female person (flyer), holding and stunting. Depending on the level, tumbling could be involved on the flyer part.

Cheering for games is what you in Galway. The objective is for the cheerleaders to entertain the crowd in the halftime, lead them to get the spirit and shout together with them on the sidelines to support the players on the court.

Cheerleading is one of the more challenging sports in the world. You have to keep smiling no matter what, remember moves and routines and words and work to be the very best. You are supposed to be as flexible as possible (or required, depending on the kind and team), strong, and conditioned. You should definitely watch the video on the bottom. The fact that cheerleaders and their movements and fit bodies can be perceived as entertaining or attractive doesn’t erase the fact that cheerleading, no matter what and in which kind, is, was and will be still a sport. If you are still not convinced cheerleading is a sport, or you are just interested watch this video.  It is it really worth it and will just take you two-and-a-half minutes : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsioXA9rAQ

My intention is not to attack anyone–everyone understands what’s up–you’re judging something without fully understanding what it is. So a piece of advice–try to do the sport and get first-hand experienceor don’t talk about what you don’t know about.

Everybody is very welcome to leave comments for advices for style, content, etc. or just general comments!
Sources: (12/05/13)