From Aug. 18 to 20, Conestoga cheerleaders began their mornings with intense training from Universal Cheerleaders Association’s (UCA) staff to prepare for their upcoming season. According to its website, UCA is the largest cheerleading camp company in the world.
During the three days, the team worked hard to master new cheers to succeed during their season. The team worked with two UCA-selected trainers from Providence College. Each day, the cheerleaders would practice with the trainers for four hours from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Valley Forge Middle School’s gym.
During their time with the UCA’s trainers, the cheer team familiarized itself with new skills and practiced old ones. The cheerleaders learned and practiced the sideline cheers for football games. They learned stunts, ways to dismount out of stunts and how to incorporate stunts into sideline cheers.
“We learned stunting cheers where we have people up in the air during the cheer, and then we also have normal cheers,” senior and co-captain Eve Bolton said. “We do different motions. Some of the cheers are with poms, and it’s fun.”
This year, the team trained under college instructors. In previous years, the cheerleaders worked with trainers who taught professional cheerleading, which has more dancing than college cheerleading. The team learned new cheers with different words and motions for this year’s season.
“I enjoyed trying new stunts the most as it was a little bit intimidating, but also very fun at the same time,” sophomore Krishi Desai said.
According to senior and co-captain Kelly Campbell, the UCA camp was valuable to the Conestoga cheer team in particular because its cheer routines are composed of more technical cheer skills instead of dances and artistic elements like other high schools. The camp helped the cheerleaders refine their technique for the season.
“I feel like you look at other schools and they do a lot more dances, whereas we do a lot of stunting, tumbling and regular cheers,” Campbell said.
In addition to helping the cheerleaders with their technique, the UCA trainers also provided the cheer team with new ideas for their cheers.
“I feel like (the training is) really helpful, because they’re always giving new ideas that we wouldn’t usually have,” Bolton said.
Sophia Wu can be reached at [email protected].
