We All Cheer for Pearl

(December 7th & 11th, 2021)

This is one of those things that slid right through the cracks. Because I never blogged about it, it was like it never happened. But Pearl did Cheer most of the year and was pretty awesome at it. It was crazy expensive and I'm okay that she only did the one year and decided to explore other ventures this fall, but it was so fun to have that time and to watch her have the experience of cheer. 

August through December (2021) was hard core practicing, learning the routine and ingraining it. Then December was the first performance for the parents, followed shortly by their first competition.

Excel Tumbling and Cheer is an excellent studio. They do a really good job and Pearl had a quality experience. She was put as a base. That means she was a stabilizer, holding onto feet and keeping people in the air or catching them. Cheer teams have flyers, bases, and back spots. All of the girls can do stunts, depending on their level, and the coach uses the girls to the best of their abilities. There are lots of teams depending on level and age. Pearl was Youth 3 and they got to pick their own name. All the names were based on a fire theme. Pearl's team chose to be Phoenix.

So Pearl held girls up, but she also did some back handsprings and tucks. Prepare yourself since in the next few months, I'll be catching up on cheer posts, but it is basically the same routine every time. So if you don't want to watch the video every time, I understand. I'll break down the routine a little. Pearl starts in the back, ready to stabilize. Then she comes up and does a cool thing where she helps a flyer go from a cartwheel up into a stunt. See her in the squat?

The goal is to follow Pearl, but sometimes you may lose her. Pearl is standing on the right. I love her hair. It took forever to curl it each time. She has a lot of hair.

Flying girls and flying hair.

She does some back handsprings on the left, and then a tuck on the right. Look at her go. 

She's all over the place, keeping people up and then the girls do some dancing. It's so fun to watch.

And then she ends up over on the right.

So this is the routine, as performed for the parents. What a fun team!

Then, just a few days later, they got to do it for real at a competition. I took some fun pictures from the video so you can see some great expressions. First, here is the team getting ready to go. Pearl is on the left.

Pearl is front and center in the group on the left. Can you see her fun expression while she's jumping?

She's posing right below the blue U. She is right behind the girl with the purple knee brace.

It is fun to slow the video down and see how in-sync the girls are. On the left, you can see Pearl and purple knee brace girl in pretty good sync doing their back handsprings.

The only thing that bothered me were the moms in front. Sure, come and support your kid, but please remember that there are a ton of people right behind you recording their kids too, and maybe don't spend so much time shaking your pom poms. 

The girls did great. I apologize that I am not the mom that can tell you their points or placement. I know they got medals and did extremely well in all their competitions. And doesn't Pearl look cute. 

So now you know about how awesome Pearl is. There is more to come, but yes, it is more of the same. But who cares? It's all fun stuff.