I can’t wait for Winter to end and Spring to begin. The new season brings with it the air of celebration. First, there is Easter, which which is a holiday at the beginning of spring. But there are also graduations, confirmations, weddings, birthdays, and Mother’s Day. Spring also makes one feel like celebrating even if there is no specific occasion. There are cookouts and casual get togethers in our neighborhood when the weather warms.

Of course all this great stuff comes with one drawback Most of these events require us to give a gift. And it can’t be just any old gift, it needs to be an interesting gift that we can be proud of. Because it’s Spring I lreally like to focus on bright and uplifting unique gifts. Generally I prefer something that speaks to my love of nature, my zest for life.

If you are looking for a gift for a spring wedding, and the new couple is starting a new home together, they could probably use some items to make the outside of their home as cheery as their outlook on their new life together. Some hand held garden tools such as a trowel and gardening glovereally would make housewarming gifts anyone would really like. Maybe the couple isn’t the gardening type, but all couples will likely find themselves entertaining guests. as cheery as their outlook on their new life together, inexpensive picnic-ware, such as plates, tumblers, pitchers, and serving dishes can be added to a picnic basket or table cloth to inspire that outdoor barbecue.

I have a son who has recently graduated from college. He totally enjoys to golf so for him, graduation gifts with an outdoor theme would address his passion for the sport. While he’d love the newest driver, even a nice towel for his bag would be a special treat. As a young man, when he’s outdoors he always brings his ipod so getting him a nice ipod holder to securely hold the ipod would be much appreciated.

I have a young daughter who can’t wait for school to be over each spring. Then she spends many days idling by the pool. During the late spring and early summer we seem to have endless birthday parties to go to and finding a great gift can be a challenge. But some of the old standbys still work like an old fashioned hula hoop or frisbee. Of course there are the video games and I admit I break down sometimes even if that has no outdoor use.

As I’ve gotten more mature I find I lreally like spring more and more each year. The newness of the flowers and the vibrant color of the pale greens is such a joy after the cold and brown tones of winter. Enjoy your spring this year – it will be the best gift of all.

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With so many styles of uniforms and all the personalizing the companies allow you to do on them, how do you know which uniform is best to buy?

Honestly, there is no right or wrong uniform. As long as your team is comfortable in them and your school board approves it, then any uniform can be the perfect uniform.

When looking for the style keep in mind comfort and athleticism. We want our cheerleaders to be able to flip and stunt without having to worry about the tops coming off so having a uniform with some sort of sleeve or strap is very important. As for skirts, the straight skirt has become very popular lately but these have a habit of riding up during tumbling tricks and having the cheerleader to adjust them after every time. If interested in a skirt that has a tendency to flip up, make sure the team all has the proper bloomer on underneath.

As for colors and design, look for a simple design that is offered in your school colors. We want the school name or mascot to be easily read and if the design has too much going on then we can easily loose the focal point of the uniform.

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An effective cheerleading tryout

It’s kind of scary to think that coaches have to pick their team off of a one time tryout. To ensure that you pick the absolute best team here are a few tips.

1. Keep the tryout short. You want the girls to be able to do their best. There is no need to give them a ton of material to learn and try to memorize for their big moment. I suggest keep it to one side-line or cheer, a short dance- 5 eight-counts at most, and 2 jumps or a jump and tumbling pass. With this material you are able to see motion placement and sharpness, voice projection, rhythm, athleticism and personality- all the areas needing to be covered in the tryout process.

2. Cut you team where there is a large break in the scores. If this means that you only take 12 girls, only take those 12 great girls. It is better to have a smaller, more advanced team than it is to have a super-large team made up of girls who will struggle with the material all season long. Maybe have a JV team made up of the girls with the next highest set of scores.

3. Hire in someone to judge. It is risky for the coach to conduct her own tryouts. I feel the best way to go about your tryout is to have your graduating girls teach all the returning and new girls at tryout the material and then on the actual day of tryouts hire in some one to judge every girl and then leave before the scores are posted. This will save you, the coach, from hearing all the complaining from the girls and their parents about why he/she did not make the team. You can simply tell how you hired in a professional and these are the scores they gave you.

Remember, as a coach you ultimately get the last say on who gets a position on your team. Don’t be afraid to cut a girl based on attitude and school behavior problems. A cheerleaders talent is wasted if she doesn’t know how to be a team player and listen to her peers and coaches. The best teams are the ones that get along and work hard to improve the overall team talent, not just their own.

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Does your cheer squad work out? Many teams make an effort to do some type of exercising at practice but in many cases it is inconsistent and used as a form of punishment instead of an expected part of practice. I am all for team work outs and I think when done they really help improve your squad athleticism which helps increase your difficulty level in your skills.

I hate running just as much as you do, but it really is important to build up a healthy endurance. Football games are long; this means you are jumping, stunting and tumbling for over three hours. Having a great endurance build-up is the best way to make sure your team can still hit those difficult skills that they were hitting in the first quarter. 

Also teams that compete, it is important for you to work on your short burst running. In competitive routines you are doing your best skills one after another and it is important to be able to have the strength and stamina to bust them out one after another at full strength.

Squad workouts at the beach

 It is important for cheerleaders to be strong. Many of you have heard the quote “other athletes lift weights, cheerleaders lift athletes,” and to be able to hit and hold those difficult stunts each cheerleader in the stunt group must be strong enough to make this happen.

Top girls need to be strong enough to jump in holding all their weight in the arms and have the muscles to be tight enough to squeeze the entire length of the stunt. Bases and back-spots need to be strong enough to hold a girl up over their head for great distances. Not to mention to be able to tumble muscle is needed too.

 My suggestion for you, establish one day a week outside of practices where your team meets to just work out. Maybe it’s only for an hour long one day before or after school but it needs to be consistent so the girls get use to it and accept it as part of their cheerleading schedule.

I would suggest doing some sort of cardio for 15-20 minutes, then either doing body-weight exercises or lifting weights, and follow it up by a 10 minute full body stretch. Make sure the areas being worked are the core, quads, shoulders and backs, these are the areas used most in stunting.

Don’t expect result within the first week or so but soon after you will notice your team has better endurance and their strength will improve significantly. Also, the girls may hate it at first but when they see the great results on their bodies they’ll love it.

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I don’t know if your high school is anything like mine was but chances are the student population isn’t overly enthusiastic about school spirit. I find this so sad, I think being really being prideful of your alma mater is important and I think cheerleaders can really help boost up the campus spirit.

 Athletics is a great way to pump up the community and get them really involved with the school. As cheerleaders, we can make posters telling of the upcoming sports games and post them around campus and the community. I know this works great because when my cheer team did this we always heard positive feedback saying they didn’t even know there was a soccer game until the saw the poster up at the local Publix.

Another idea is to have each cheerleader wear their uniform to school on game days. This helps to let everyone know there’s a game that night helps to pump up the school spirit early on in the day. The more people you can get to come to your sporting events the better!

 Does your school have spirit week? If not try it out! Get together with your girls and pick a theme for each day of the week for the students to dress up for. Some examples are tye-dye day, twin day, super hero day, favorite color day, mis-match day etc.

Always end Friday with a school spirit day where the students dress up in the school colors and really get into everything about the school. Spirit week really pulls the student body together where students of all different clicks can come together and unite over showing spirit for their school.

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