Having a pre-season camp for your team is so important for college cheer teams. This is where you learn new skills, grow as a team, have fun and receive your bid to Nationals in Daytona. Without cheer camp you would not be updated on new skills and techniques, your team would not have this amazing bonding experience, and there would be no bid to nationals. Be grateful for cheer camp because in the long run it is worth every second of it.

1. Your team is learning a ton of new skills.

When you come into cheer camp you better be prepared to learn and try something new, whether it is cool or scary or both. Walking into cheer camp you have to have an open mind and positive attitude if you wish to succeed. Most likely you will be trying things that you can barely comprehend like a new crazy pyramid or stunt you did not even realize was possible. However, you just have to roll with it stop thinking and just do it. Trust me your body knows what to do, get out of your head, it wont help you!

2. Bonding with your team.

During cheer camp you become really close with your team, you do everything together. You go to breakfast, camp, lunch, camp, dinner and then to hangout and do something so basically you are with each other twenty-four seven. This helps immensely though with getting your team to become a family. Camp brings everyone together since you are all in the same boat with having fun, motivating and supporting one another through it even when were all getting tired, sweaty, sore, and beat up. It helps us push through those rough times by being there for one another and camp truly shows just how important it is to have each other’s support. Without each other we could not be a cheer team, we need each other to make it happen.

3. Motivating each other to be the best we can be while having fun.

Believe it or not, cheer camp can be a lot of fun. It is totally what you and your team make of it. If your team goes in everyday with a positive attitude and an open mind to try and learn new skills it will be a great time. There is nothing like learning a crazy new skill that you never thought was possible and that you could physically do. It is so amazing when the whole team is motivating each other and pumping each other up to push and get that skill. When it hits it is just one of the best feelings in the world, especially when everyone goes crazy with excitement since you all just put so much effort in and worked so hard.

4. Performing/competing for a bid to nationals.

At camp you learn all of these new stunts and pyramids; however, along with that your team learns a 45-second game day and rally routine. At the end of camp the team performs it and gets judged on it. This is really important since a bid to Nationals in Daytona is on the line. The biggest thing to remember with it though is to have fun because if you are having fun while performing the routine you are already a step in the right direction.

5. Your camp instructors know what the judges are looking for.

It is so important to absorb everything you possibly can from camp since your instructors are teaching you the proper techniques for college level skills. They also know what the judges are looking for. Your team wants to learn and take in as much as they can from the instructors so that way when they leave you can keep working on the things that needed fixing so the team can keep working hard and improving throughout the season.