Cheerleading is totally misunderstood. To most, cheerleading is not considered a sport usually because it seems more of an annoyance to the crowd than anything else. But what the crowd does not see is the time, sweat, tears, pain, and even sometimes blood that go in to making a squad successful. There area few different aspects of cheerleading that are needed to make a squad successful; dancing, stunting, and cheering itself.
Dancing is important in distinguishing a cheerleading squad from a kickline team. Kickline is a dance team that is more ballet, jazz, and modern based. Cheer dancing, on the other hand, is more sharp motions, ripples and level changes. Motions and timing are just as important here as they are in actual cheering. Although it might come easier with a beat to keep to, a dance can become disastrous if one or more individuals are off from that beat.
A part of cheerleading that separates it from any other sport is the stunting aspect of it. Stunting probably takes up the most time during practice, requiring and unbelievable amount of strength and communication. If asked which was more important in stunting, strength or communication, most spectators would likely reply strength. But a cheerleader knows better; communication and trust are the most important parts of any squad. There is an unbelievable amount of trust required for a stunt to be successful. A flyer, the person who is actually up in the air in the stunt, must trust her bases, the two people who hold up the majority of the weight in the stunt, to catch or break her fall. The back spot is one of the most important people in the stunt group. Many times this job is overlooked and seen as not as important as the bases. This is not so. It is the back spot's responsibility to control a stunt. This is the only person that can actually see the entire stunt, whereas the bases can only see half of the stunt.
