American Cheerleader

Now that football season is over for most of you, it’s time to focus on what you’ll need for basketball. Lots and lots of home games mean you’ll need a roster of good halftime routines that will keep your fans on their feet.

It might seem intimidating to have to organize (and sometimes choreograph) a bunch of routines in a short amount of time, but if you have a game plan, you can create a dozen different routines in the coming months. Give these ideas a try:

1. Use some of the choreography you learned at camp, and tweak it for your squad. Switch up the music and throw in a few formation changes and a strong ending pose to keep it from being recognizable.

2. With Christmas approaching, rework one of your old dances by simply performing it to a holiday song. (Check out the “NOW That’s What I Call Christmas” albums for some fast-paced tunes that will work for your routines.) Wear Santa hats and hand out candy canes after your performance.

3. Invite some of your teammates and the co-captains over for a choreography slumber party. Have everyone bring at least one song, and stay up until you’ve finished a dance to teach the rest of your squad at your next practice!

4. Use your competition routine. It’ll be like a dress rehearsal for competition. If your routine isn’t ready to perform, or you don’t have the right mats to perform it on the b-ball court, scale back some of the stunts and tumbling. You’ll still wow the crowd!

5. Go for a less difficult—but super entertaining!—themed routine. Think disco, the ’80s, America…the sky’s the limit! Don’t be afraid to incorporate some clever costuming.

6. Invite the drill team or flag corps to create a joint routine with you. Get together with the captains of these teams to work out the details. Your squad can do some of what you do best for several 8-counts, then let the dance/drill team can have their turn, then wrap up the routine with some joint choreography. You’ll double your fan base, and it’s a great way to boost school spirit.

7. Organize an alumni night, where cheer alum can come onto the floor at halftime and perform the school fight song with your squad. You can even do an “oldies” routine with them and create some real Kodak moments.

8. Speaking of cheer alumni, ask a recent grad who now cheers on a college team to come choreograph or teach your squad one of her routines. Ask the announcer at the game to recognize the former student over the PA either before or after your halftime performance.

9. Set your TiVo! With all the awesome dance shows and movies out right now, you’re sure to find some inspiration. Just consider all the great moves and music from shows like “So You Think You Can Dance”, “Glee” (my personal fave!) and “Dancing With the Stars” and movies like Fame, Step Up, Center Stage 2 and Bring it On: Fight to the Finish.

10. Create a joint routine with your rival school. If you know that the squad from the school you’re playing went to the same cheer camp (and learned the same choreography) as your team, organize a combined halftime performance. Pick one of the camp dances, and run through it with the visiting squad a couple hours before the game. Not only is it a lot of fun, it’s a fantastic show of sportsmanship!

11. Recycle! Don’t feel bad if you have to repeat halftime routines (you’re only human, after all!)—just try not to do the same routine two weeks or games in a row. Give yourself a few games between, and chances are a lot of your audience might not realize it’s a re-run.

Practice Tips:

• Be sure to run through all of your routines at least once during every practice. If you want to repeat something in February that you did in November, half the squad might have forgotten it if you haven’t been keeping up on it during practice.
• Stay organized! Write on your game schedule or calendar the who-what-where of the game and add in which halftime routine you’ll be performing. The same system works for time-out cheers.
• To keep all the routines straight, find a memory device that works for you. When I was captain, I would sketch stick people doing the moves of a dance and use graph paper (from geometry class!) to mark out the formations.
• Ask for help! If you need an extra hand keeping everything organized, enlist a co-captain. If you’re in charge of the halftime routines, ask her to keep and update the list of chants and sidelines. Ask another teammate to be in charge of bringing any signs, poms and props to practice and games, as well as collecting them afterward.