When you hear the word "cheerleading" what do you imagine? Probably girls on the sidelines of football games waving their pom poms, jumping up and down, and yelling. While that is definitely an aspect of cheer, AllStar and competition cheer encapsulate so much more. All Star cheer is a sport many people are not exposed to. It's not as popular as, let's say, football or basketball. I began AllStar cheer around the age of 7, and after AllStar continued my cheer career all throughout High School on our Varsity Competition Team. The physical and mental toughness required for this sport is unmatched. You push your bodies to the limit to give it your all on a mat, performing a full out 2 minute and 30 second routine of tumbling, dancing, jumping and stunting. Cheerleading can be a toxic and dangerous sport. We train nearly every day of the week, on and off the mat, to flip our bodies in ways that shouldn’t be possible. To literally throw and catch the weight of other girls on our hands. To build enough stamina and endurance to not absolutely collapse in the middle of a full out routine. We do all of this with a smile on our faces. Not only is cheer demanding on the mind and the body, but because this sport is so widely unaccepted by mainstream society, we must work just that much harder every day to prove we belong. Cheerleaders are already held to a high standard, but this standard is raised as we still have so much to prove to the world, and deserve to be taken seriously. The cheer world is full of a community that values hard work, dedication, teamwork, trust, and support. However, it is far from perfect. Cheer is an extremely time consuming sport between practices and weekend long competitions. It takes up a significant amount of one's time, and can be incredibly dangerous. The stunts and routines performed are of intense skill level, often leading to broken bones, surgeries, and concussions. The underlying pressure to fit into a cookie cutter mold of what a cheerleader should look like lends to an alarmingly high development of eating disorders. 



The purpose of this site and essay is to take the audience through parts of my journey as an AllStar and high school cheerleader. I aimed to provide a reflective narrative about the cheer world while educating the general public about what (competitive) cheer really encompasses. My cheer journey had many ups and downs, though I wouldn't change any of it. I loved my time as a cheerleader, and hope to bring credibility to the sport while acknowledging many flaws in the industry that need attention and change.