[nabs-l] Cheerleading & dance

Sat Nov 26 17:05:31 UTC 2011

Hi Bridgit,

Your description of cheerleading sounds right. The high school team did more 
basic cheers and some dances where as college teams do more gymnist moves 
from what I've observed.

You were not blind when cheerleading, right? I'd be curious to know if a 
blind person did that? You would have to have a willing coach to be hands on 
and a guide for running. It could be done though. And as you said, it’s a 
great thing for a college application

Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Bridgit Pollpeter
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 4:33 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nabs-l] Cheerleading & dance

With ballet, if dancing en Pointe, I've also heard of feet bleeding,
soreness and pain. A friend of mine ended up with gnarled feet, and a
lot of us experienced minor aches at times, but I've never met anyone
whose feet bled. If you dance professionally it may happen since you
dance for literally hours each day, or if you don't take care of your
feet, or properly wrap them before dancing, bleeding could happen.

Dance is very physical and can be a stress on the body no matter the
type of dance, but ballet, though beautiful to watch, takes precision
and tons of practice. As I said before, your body has to adjust to
positions that aren't always natural. It takes so much control and
strength.

Dance doesn't necessarily help with cheerleading, though it doesn't hurt
either. It depends on what a particular squad does. Some cheerleaders do
incorporate dance into routines, others not really. Most focus more on
acrobatic-like routines. It also depends on what level of cheerleading
it is.

High school cheerleaders tend to just do simple routines and cheers,
though there are plenty of high school cheerleading squads that compete,
and they will incorporate dance and gymnastics into routines. College
cheerleaders usually are gymnast and do more acrobatics than anything
else, though some schools don't, but for the most part, college level
cheerleading requires a strong background in gymnastics. Professional
cheerleaders are heavy on the dance aspect. Most professional
cheerleaders have dance backgrounds.

Dancing, as you mentioned, does help with balance along with
strengthening and toning so it can definitely can be helpful for
athletes. In fact, many professional athletes such as football players,
tennis players and hockey players, just to list a few, take dance,
ballet in particular, to help with balance and endurance.

I enjoyed cheerleading at first, but half way through the school year,
all the politics made it not fun at all. Girls were upset with choice of
captains, me being one; some girls were upset with choice of pep rally
routines. My sister and I, being the only girls on the squad with dance
backgrounds, were asked by our coach to choreograph dance routines and
teach them to the squad. A lot of the girls wanted more club style
dancing incorporated in, keep in mind this was the late 90's, smile. And
we had so many clicks within our cheer squad alone it was ridiculous. I
should probably explain that we had 20 girls on the squad, the largest
squad in years for my high school which usually only had around 12 to 15
girls selected each year.

So cheering itself I enjoyed, and my experience shouldn't cloud the
judgment of others possibly considering cheering since my issues were
specific to my squad.

Cheering can look good on college applications since universities
consider extra-curricular activities and volunteer work. I think it's
important to participate in extra-curricular activities whether it be
sports, music, after-school groups. It just helps to make a more
well-rounded person.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 21
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:57:59 -0500
From: "Andi" <adrianne.dempsey at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Taking acting and dancing to learn natural
movement andexpression
Message-ID: <F2E0EF70E6C141C2908CFD74A732448E at OwnerPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original

You are write about ballet being so much more technical, at least I
assumed
and it is good your feet never bled, I have heard horer stories about it

where girls have to bandage their feet every nite.  I bet you were
adorible
at 4 dancing I am trying to get my niece in to it.  She wants to do it
so
bad but money is always an issue.  I never got in to cheerleeting, I was

more of a tom boy I guess I joind the wrestling team and that is about
as
far away from dance as you can get.  Oddly enough dance helped the
wrestling
though in terms of balance, coordination, and speed.  Also I think dance

gives you a better sence of how the body works and that was to my
advantage.
Did you find cheerleeting fun?  Was the dance background helpful in
rooteens
and such?

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