Cheerleaders: Know Your Body
Elite athletes learn to sense how their bodies respond to all sorts of variables. They learn this so they can then adjust their bodies’ arousal level to match the moment. If they are too revved up, they can calm themselves down; if their energy levels are low, they can rev up a bit.
I hope you can see how useful it would be to be able to fine-tune your body to match and respond to the demands of the moment.
To help you do this, try this: Find a quiet place to sit and close your eyes. Slow your breathing down by exhaling slowly through your mouth several times, inhaling through your nose. Once you are quiet, with your mind’s eye, do a body scan, beginning with the top of your head and moving down to your toes.
Just notice if you are holding any tension anywhere in your body. If you detect tension, try to release it with your out-breath.
A typical body scan goes like this:
- With your mind’s eye, “see” in slow sequence:
- The top of your head
- Your forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, lips, and jaw
- Your neck
- Moving around to the back of your head, the back of your neck
- Moving down to your shoulders, your upper back
- Middle back, spine, lower back and seat
- Now back up to the front of your shoulders
- Your clavicle, your sternum, upper chest and rib cage
- Your upper stomach and your lower abdomen
- Now your upper arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands and fingers
- Move down to your pelvis
- Your upper legs, knees, calves and shins
- Now down to your ankles, the soles of your feet
- The tops of your feet and finally your toes
The above exercise is an introduction to your body, if you will. I realize that this is impractical to do on a regular basis but if you do it a few times, you will learn how to quickly identify and release unwanted tension in your body. That way at practice or especially at high stakes events like tryouts or competitions, you’ll be able to better control your body’s response to stress.
Tags: cheerleader, cheerleaders, Cheerleading, Competitions, stress, stress-reduction, Tryouts, Visualization