Cheerleading Tryout Tips

6 Months to 1 Year Before

            Enroll in a tumbling class and let the instructor know you want to learn tumbling skills that are specifically used for cheerleading. A front limber is a nice skill to learn, but it is the back flip or flip-flop you will use as a cheerleader. If you find the right gym and have some athletic ability (can already do a good cartwheel) you should be able to learn a back flip in 6 months.

             What is the right gym? If you are taking tumbling from a place that has you tumbling on a small flat little mat for 30 minutes or less per class, you are at the wrong place. You need to find a gym that has a rod-floor, in-ground trampolines, a tumble track and cheese mats. (You can see pictures of this equipment at the end of this article. The place you end up going to should look something like this.)

             Your class should be at least an hour long if not longer and you need to take more than one class a week. I have seen girls come to my gym and learn to do a round-off back flip in less that 6 months. You can too. Once you master the round off back flip you will be surprised at how quickly you can add to your tumbling skills. My teachers know I'm a high school cheerleader, so they are always coming up with new tumbling combinations for me to use at basketball games.

            My gym stresses strength and conditioning. I take a two-hour class 3 times a week. The first 30 minutes is devoted to strengthening exercises. We do a lot of stretching, including holding the splits on each leg for a few minutes. I have found that my conditioning program has helped improve my jumps, splits, kicks, and overall cheerleading form. The gym you chose should also do this for you.

            Check your local school or park district for cheer clinics. Almost all high school coaches have cheer clinics for young girls. These clinics are almost always conducted by the high school cheerleaders and teach a variety of skills. These skills are usually what you will need to know for your school districts tryouts. If you find one of the girls is especially helpful, get her name and then hire her to work with you privately to improve your cheer skills. This is also a good way for the high school to get to know you. Cheer coaches are always looking for up and coming talent. They may not always remember your name, but they will remember your face and if you came to one of their clinics. Check out our clinic pictures to see what we do at our cheer clinic.

            If you have a group of friends who are interested in cheerleading, you can look for a summer cheer camp and go to one. You don't have to be an actual cheerleading squad to do this. Sometimes all you need is an adult to supervise and a signature from someone connected to your school. Here in central Illinois, Bradley University and Illinois State have great summer cheer camps for junior high and high school squads. When our JV squad went to Bradley last summer, one of the groups who attended was a group of friends from one of the local junior highs. These girls all wanted to tryout for cheerleading but their tryouts were not until September. They asked one of their moms and a high school cheerleader to go with them and act as their coach. The girls learned a ton and all of them ended up making Jr. High cheerleading in the fall. If you do decided to do this make sure you get together with someone who has gone to camp before and can help you prepare for it. Most camps expect you to arrive already knowing a dance routine or at least one or two floor cheers. Just remember, these camps are for serious cheerleaders so you can't goof around; you must work hard every day. You can find out about these camps by looking on the web. Just type "cheerleading camp" into your search engine and it should bring up several organizations which do cheer camps.

            Get in the very best physical shape you can. Work on building up your arm and leg strength. Cheerleading is not an easy sport. It is hard work. If you are going to cheer you will be expected to be part of a stunt group. You will either have to be a base or a flyer. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about check out the stunt section of the website. It takes a lot of strength to be a base and you need to be in some kind of strengthening/conditioning program. Whatever you do make sure you have proper adult supervision. I would also suggest that if you are involved in some sort of athletic program you take calcium supplements. This is to guard against bone fractures. The last thing you want the month before tryouts is a stress fracture. I am currently researching an article for this website about the importance of calcium in young girls and how this can greatly reduce you chances of injuries. There is a great article online, "Preventing Osteoporosis...Why Milk Matters Now for Female Teens" (pg 23), that is very good.

The Week Before

            Almost all schools have several days of practice before tryouts and you can be sure every coach will be watching the girls, accessing their skills. You need to look your best everyday and be on your best behavior. Try your hardest at everything you do. When it comes to picking a squad it seems the first half is pretty easy to pick, but then when it comes to picking the last half, there are several girls who are very close in ability and only separated by a few points. Sometimes a little thing like attitude or even the way you do your hair can add that extra point or two, which is all you might need in order to make the squad.

            When you go home practice everything you learned in front of a mirror. Your motions must be as close to perfect as possible. The more you practice the more natural the movements will feel. Eventually your arms will only feel right if they are in the correct position, and after a while perfect form becomes as natural as breathing. You will be able to make a perfect high V or a T with your arms and not even think about it.

            This is not the time to start a diet, learn a new tumbling skill or get a new haircut. No major changes please. You do not want to do anything that might make you nervous or distract you from your goal of making cheerleading.

            Proper nutrition is especially important this week. Eat the right foods, no junk foods. Avoid foods that might bloat you and make you look puffy. Get plenty of sleep and drink lots of water. Pamper yourself! Take a nice relaxing bath every night in order to ease sore and tired muscles. Be careful that you do not lose your voice from all the practice. This is very common. So keep drinking the water.

            Usually You Have To Sign a Cheer Constitution On the first day of tryout practices, most coaches will give you a cheer constituion and parent permission slip. You need to read these carefully so you know what is expected of you during the cheerleading season. If you break the rules, you could be benched, kicked off the squad, or not allowed to try out next year. If you can't live up to these rules, then you shouldn't be trying out. We are a Christian school, so morals and such are more inforced on our cheer constitution, but public schools still have strict requirements. We have an example of our Cheer Constitution for you to see.

Tryouts

We have pictures at the bottom of the page of an actual tryout where Mrs. Perron judged.

            Smile, Smile, Smile. This is so important. Coaches are looking for a lot of different characteristic in their cheerleaders, but the one thing they all agree on is you absolutely have to have a great smile. Practice looking in a mirror or looking at a friend and smiling. Always make eye contact with the judges this is important. If she is smiling at you, smile back. This is another place where you can score a couple extra points. The judges will remember you if you have a great smile.

            Appearance is important. If the coach has given you specific instructions about how to dress then follow her instructions exactly as she said. Usually the best outfit is a dark pair of shorts (not too short) and a white T-shirt, which is tucked neatly in. Make sure the outfit flatters you. Ask your mom, not your friends, if the outfit looks good. Your mom will tell you the truth, your friends won't. If possible pick out shorts that are the darker of your school colors. For example if your colors are purple, gold and white, then wear dark purple shorts. I would also suggest you wear underwear which is the same color as your shorts. The last thing you want to do is have the judges catch a glimpse of white underwear from underneath your dark shorts. If you are doing the splits, a toe touch or kicking up your leg, this can easily happen. Make sure you wear clean white tennis shoes. If you're allowed to wear cheer shoes, they are the best and wear short white socks. If you are trying out in a group of 2 or more you should all wear similar outfits. When you do this, it really helps your group look like an actual squad. This will add points to the overall appearance score that the judges will give you.

            Watch the makeup. Do not go heavy on it. Blush and mascara are great and a light colored lip-gloss is fine. Don't mistake pictures you have seen of competition hair and makeup as acceptable tryout guidelines. The competition look that you see in "American Cheerleader Magazine" is very extreme and only seen at competitions, not tryouts.

            Do not wear jewelry. Get used to this! Not only is this distracting to the judges, but you are never to wear jewelry when you practice or cheer. This is a big safety issue.

            Your hair is very important. Get your hair out of your face. Every judge hates to see messy hair. It doesn't matter what the current styles are, when it comes to cheering you must have neat hair that is out of your face. I have a lot of really cute hairstyles in the hairstyle section of this web site. Go there and you can get some great ideas. Whatever you do make sure your hair is clean and pulled back with no wispy hairs falling out.

            Put a big bright ribbon in your hair. Make sure it is in your school colors. If one of your moms is crafty have her make some matching ribbons for your tryout group. Go to my hair ribbon section on the website and you will see some examples of ribbons you can easily make.

            Always have correct posture. Make sure after you perform each jump, tumbling pass, cheer or sideline, you pause for a moment, with feet together arms at your side. Hold your motions after each cheer for three seconds before going back to your ready position. Sometimes this ready position is a little different. I know of one school where the girls stand with feet apart and hands behind their back. Just find out what your school does and do it the same way.

            Whatever you are performing (jumps, tumbling, cheer, etc.) make sure you are directly in front of the judges. Do not stand at the back of the gym or to one side. The judges want to see what you can do. Even if what you are doing is a tumbling pass, try and perform as much of this as possible in front of the judges.

            Be loud and easy to understand. Don't scream, but yell from your diaphragm. Do not be sing songy. Make sure the judges can hear and understand each word you say. When you run on yell "Let's go", "Go Wildcats", "We're number 1", "Go PHS", etc. Just don't yell "Woo", the judges hate this.

            If the judges ask you to do something over, this is good. This means they are really interested in your skills. You have cheer potential and they want to make sure they are seeing all you can do. Just smile and do it.

            Whatever you do, do it perfectly. Don't worry if you can't do a back flip or if your toe touch isn't perfect. Just make sure what you can do is perfect. Most try-out ballots have certain points for each category. Doing a perfect split or cartwheel can get you a near perfect score in that category. This can compensate for a low score somewhere else. At the end of the tryouts the judges are going to add up the scores, and the girls with the most points are selected. We have two examples of judge's tryout forms. View them by clicking here or here. They will give you a good idea of what is expected of you.

            Remember if you mess up it's o.k. It really is. If you make a mistake, just smile and ask if you can do it over. The judges and coaches know exactly how you feel because almost all of them tried out for cheerleading when they were in school. They know it's hard to relax and have fun in front of one or two cheer judges. They know how much this means to you. My mom used to coach cheerleading and she has said that judging cheerleading tryouts is probably the hardest things a coach has to do. They agonize over how to score the girls and then who to pick for their squad. My coach is usually up all night worrying about who she selects for her squads. Coaches don't want to hurt anyone. They know how important this is to you because they have been in your shoes.

These are pictures from The Company, where I take tumbling.

At our gym, we start out class by conditioning, and these are V-sits, which work the stomach muscles.

We also practice "hollowing", which helps your posture for certain flips, and works the muscles in the stomach & back.

The rod floor is great for practicing a new stunt before you take it to the gym floor, because it gives you a little spring.
See a round-off back (61 K)

At tumbling, we have great spotters to help you on your new stunts, or if you ever feel uncomforatble performing a trick.

The rod floor is very long, so you can either run far, or do multiple flips in a row.

This is a cheese wedge, which is a great mat for working on doing backflips on your own.
Back handspring (60 K) Back tuck (130 K)

This is the tumble trak. It is almost as bouncy as a trampoline, and long enough to do a few flips in a row. This is great for learning any stunt, because you can get a lot of height, and don't have to worry about falling.

At the end of the tumble trak is a pit of foam blocks. You can work on flips into the pit, and not have to worry about hurting yourself from a bad landing.

The pit is good for running flips too.

Tryout Pictures
Mrs. Perron and my mom were invited to watch the tryouts at a nearby high school. Their tryouts were very professional, so there are some great tryout examples that we got pictures of.