Becoming a Pro Cheerleader: Skills You Need to Develop
Pro cheer auditions aren’t like your typical job interviews. You won’t just walk into a room with a panel of interviewers waiting to ask questions. You’ll also need to display your level of athleticism, dancing skill, and makeup application skill.
There are more skills that you should learn that are required for auditionees in pro cheer teams. The more you have them, the higher the chances of you making the squad. Keep on reading.
1. Athleticism with dancing
Pro cheerleading performances involve stunting and long durations of dancing. Judges look for audition candidates that have high levels of cardiorespiratory endurance, can do tumbles, high jumps, splits, and can gracefully dance with little to no errors at longer durations.
2. Obedience
You should be able to listen to your squad coach and follow exactly what she says. If the coach wants the squad to be assembled at a specific time, you should arrive early. If the coach wants this particular dance routine to be performed at the arena, practice that dance routine.
Stubborn aspirants have no place in the squad for those who cannot understand and follow instructions will only negatively affect the entire pro cheer team.
3. Teamwork
Pro cheerleaders need to be team players to practice and perform every dance routine efficiently along with other squad members. That means you should have the ability to separate most of your personal issues from the team.
If you get into a lot of trouble with others, you must learn how to be friendly. Adopt a mindset of striving and working towards a common goal with others.
4. Courage and good communication
To motivate the crowd, NBA, and NFL team you’re cheering on, you must be confident in wearing a pro cheerleader’s uniform while singing, dancing, and chanting in front of people. Pro cheer audition judges will see if you’re courageous and confident by how well you manage the audition process.
If you’re shaking as you speak or if your voice sounds shy, you’ll lose audition points. So be fearless and learn how to speak clearly while looking at people straight in the eyes.
5. Organisation
As a follow up to the skill of obedience, you must also learn how to organize your time and possessions properly to live up to your coach’s expectations. This is a very important skill to have if you have school, motherhood responsibilities, or work.
Pro cheerleaders and coaches will not buy your excuses for being late or absent from practice. Other pro cheerleaders may help at times by lending you squad necessities such as makeup or rubber shoes. But remember being prepared for every squad event is your sole responsibility.
6. Perseverance, motivation, and the ability to work under pressure
Coaches expect their cheerleaders to have a little get-up-and-go ability because like any career, being a pro cheerleader also presents a lot of challenges. You’ll never know that after a long tiring day of performing at the Superbowl, you’re needed to appear for an emergency promotional event which could last for hours.
You should demonstrate the skill of finding a way of getting through tough times while remaining calm and staying cheerful.
7. Makeup
Sometimes pro cheer squads hire their own makeup artists to enhance the beauty of their members. But relying too much on artists will cost your squad a lot of money. As much as possible, you should learn how to apply your own makeup like smokey eyes or tattoo concealers.
Judges will ask you during an interview about who applied your beautiful makeup. Once you answer you did it yourself, you’ll immediately raise your audition points because judges, coaches, and squad managers think that accepting you will help them save money from hiring makeup artists.
Don’t have some of the skills listed above? Don’t worry, you still have enough time to learn and hone them before audition day. Just set a learning schedule for each skill every single day and you’ll be ready for the auditions!
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