From wild stunts to energetic cheers, the Lexington High School Cheer team has never been short of excitement. But much goes on behind the scenes before a spectacular performance.
This season, the LHS’s Cheer team qualified for Regionals, in which they secured a personal best score. To achieve such a feat, the cheerleaders worked diligently.
“We spent about 6 hours a week practicing for a competition… There is a lot of tireless lifting, stunting, and energy expended,” Jordan Keane, a junior and captain of the cheer team, said.
At competitions, the cheerleaders perform a variety of skills, including dancing, stunts, and cheering. Aside from focusing on a diverse assortment of movements, they also strive for perfection in their execution.
“Even the tiniest mistakes at a competition can cause a deduction on our score ultimately deciding a win or a loss,” Kymani Christopher Myers, a junior on the team, said.
With the tireless practices and conditioning regimen the cheerleaders endure, it is easy to get injured if they are not careful.
“Cheerleading comes with constant pain. Back pain, feet pain, shoulder pain, it’s always there. Luckily, I have never been seriously injured from this sport. Getting kicked in the face while stunting is inevitable, but it is something we all have to get used to if we want to be good,” Keane said.
In order to succeed at competitions, it is essential for the team to learn to work well together, an aspect of cheerleading that the LHS team prioritizes.
“The team is like a family. We are all very comfortable with each other and have a sisterly bond,” Myers said.
However, not everything goes smoothly, especially during the thick of the season when stress is high.
“Tensions get extremely high before a competition, [and] there is often some bickering between teammates. It gets difficult; however, we get over it after the competition stress is gone,” Keane said.
Additionally, the team also faces challenges involving their practice hours.
“Due to low funding and lack of practice facilities, we are only able to practice two times a week from 3:30-6 p.m. It ultimately sets us back from our competitors, but we manage,” Keane said.
Despite this, when the team steps out onto the mat to finally show off their hard work, everything they’ve gone through falls into place.
“The feeling of competing for the first time will forever be stuck in my mind, months of hard work and dedication with two minutes to show everything we’ve worked for. The anxiety and nerves beforehand turns into an adrenaline rush that helps me personally leave it all on the mat,” Myers said.
