What Movements Are Often Used in Pro Cheer Dancing?
Pro cheerleading isn’t like its competitive and juvenile counterparts where stunting is an essential part of the performance. Instead of choosing flyers based on their weight, flexibility, body control, and spatial awareness, judges and coaches of pro cheer teams tend to look for auditioning dancers that are adept at performing moves commonly used in pro cheerleading.
The reason for this is that auditionees who are very familiar with pro cheer dance moves are easier to train during squad practices. And mastering the execution of these moves isn’t easy. They require you to learn a variety of techniques, invest time for rehearsals, and do regular physical exercises.
As early as now, you must know what these movements are so you can practice them at home and train yourself prior to the auditions. Learning the dance moves in this blog post will also help you create a choreography that would increase your chances of getting past the audition rounds. Without further ado, let’s get on to them.
1. High Kicks
The first common dance move in pro cheerleading is the high kick. To do it perfectly, you need to improve your sense of balance and the mobility, flexibility, and power of your legs. So why is mobility included? It’s because high kicks aren’t limited to just forward kicking. Pro cheer teams have dance routines that involve high kicks to the side.
There are multiple ways on how to train yourself to do high kicks. You can do martial arts, yoga, pilates, ballet, gymnastics, leg workouts, or regular stretching. When you’ve mastered the execution of multi-directional high kicks, try to do them while smiling and keeping your body straight.
Learn how to do high kicks by watching this video.
2. Hair Tosses/Flips/Whips
Hair Tosses/Flips/Whips are the trickiest pro cheer dance moves to master. They sound so simple based on their names. But don’t be fooled. You can break your vertebrae, make yourself dizzy, obstruct your own vision, lose your balance, or end up looking like Chewbacca if you do these moves wrong.
Mastering “hairography” (hair + choreography) starts with your hairstyle and hair health. Short, dry, damaged, frizzy, or dull hair is hard to flip. If you do manage to flip unhealthy hair, you’ll still deal with the tangled mess. You must take care of your hair and strive to keep it volumized at all times. Also, avoid hairstyles with bangs as they can easily get in the way of your view while you dance.
Learn how to do hair tosses/flips/whips by watching this video.
3. Jump Splits
Like high kicks, you need to have a keen sense of balance and high levels of leg strength, mobility, and flexibility to perfectly execute a jump split. Leg strength is for jumping and giving yourself a lot of air time to stretch your legs into a split position. Leg mobility is about the strength of your thigh muscles to do a split without any assistance.
Leg flexibility will allow you to do and land a full split on the ground without any pain or discomfort. And lastly, your keen sense of balance will prevent you from falling to your sides once your split legs touch the ground. Before, only the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders made it compulsory for their dancers to know jump splits. Now, other pro cheer teams are following suit.
To do a perfect jump split, start by improving your jump height first. This video will teach you some exercises that will increase your leg’s explosive strength for jumping. Once you’re confident with your jumps, improve your leg mobility and flexibility for splits by watching this tutorial.
Remember that mastering these dance moves won’t be enough for you as an aspiring pro cheerleader. You also need to execute them with vigor and joy. By the time you can perform these movements well, practice doing them with enthusiasm and a smile. Then, create a choreography that has these dance moves for your dream team’s audition.
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