In response to my recent post about special-needs cheerleading teams, I heard from Sarah Cronk who is President and co-founder of an organization called The Sparkle Effect.

The Sparkle Effect, http://www.thesparkleeffect.org is a nonprofit corporation that provides guidance, peer mentoring, online tools, free uniforms, and free on-site training to enable high school students across the United States to create cheerleading squads that include students with disabilities and to fully integrate those squads into the high school sports curriculum.

How cool is that??

The Sparkle Effect offers a step-by-step model that students can follow in setting up their own squads, including sample letters to administrators, practice tips, fundraising ideas and more!

The Sparkle Effect invites you to join the movement that is changing game night in America forever. After all, when everyone cheers, everyone wins!

If you’re interested, please contact Sarah Cronk at sarah.cronk@thesparkleeffect.org

If you’ve ever been to a cheerleading competition, you may have had the pleasure of seeing a special-needs cheerleading team perform. The pleasure comes from seeing the focus and determination on the cheerleaders’ faces as they perform and the sheer joy of triumph when they finish.  All their hard work has paid off and now they want to celebrate!  And we all celebrate with them.  We salute their courage, their resilience, and their vitality.  Bravo!

I have been thinking about writing a post about this topic for a while now and lo and behold, Bill Presson provided a link on Facebook to an article that appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.  The reporter is Karen Kadilac and it appeared in Thursday’s paper. I will be borrowing from this article for my post. (more…)

As a cheerleader, you know that to excel at your sport requires countless hours of practice, conditioning exercises, and focusing on the details.  Along the way you will enjoy the exhilaration of success and probably the pain of defeat.  You will make mistakes and some of these will be public.  Some missteps may cost your team a first place standing at a cheerleading competition.  Some mistakes may be embarrassing. 

And yet – it is the making of those mistakes that you have your best opportunity to shine.  You have the chance to show people that you are a good sport; that you are gracious and accepting of your blunders; that you view mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. You also can become more empathic and compassionate towards others who slip up. 

Remember, it’s up to you to determine how you will respond to set-backs and mistakes.  Show the world what you’re made of – good stuff.

We all have fun on Facebook.  It’s an easy way to connect with friends and keep up on the latest cheerleading news.  But – there is a downside to Facebook and that is that there are sleazy predators out there who might pose as friends but who do not have your best interest in mind.

Today, Bill Presson, Chairman of the Parent Action committee of the USASF, posted a warning on his Facebook Wall about a person called Christian Stocker who is watching Cheerleading Facebook accounts, linking to Facebook sites and then reposting pictures and videos of kids along with other sexually explicit pictures and videos.  (more…)

One of my readers recently asked me if I knew of any training programs for newly minted cheerleading coaches.  I confessed I did not although I told her I am working on a program for coaches that will certify them as mental game coaches. 

Do any of you know of any training programs for new cheer coaches?  If you do, please let me know and I will write about it here. 

There are some books and websites that provide excellent information and education and although these are not only for new coaches, they will be helpful to anyone who is new to cheer coaching. (more…)

There I was, sitting at my booth at Spirit Cheer’s Beast of the East Winter Nationals Cheerleading Competitions in Hartford, when a team from Valley Elite All Stars gathered in front of me, closed their eyes and visualized their performance, including their hand gestures, movements, and so forth. 

Well, I couldn’t resist adding my two cents so after they finished, I told them about power words. (more…)

This weekend I’ll be heading down to Hartford, Ct. for Spirit Cheer’s Beast of the East Winter Nationals cheerleading competitions.  Spirit Cheer gives away bids to the USASF World Championships.  This year, Spirit Cheer will be awarding 2 Paid and 6 At Large bids to the World Championships. 

What makes this event especially exciting for me is that I will be handing out some of the awards on Sunday!  What an honor! 

If you’re going to this event, please stop by my Confident Cheerleading booth and say hello! 

Don’t forget to check out my 2 Facebook Pages:  Confident Cheerleading Center and, with Debbie Love – Unlock Cheerleading Mental Blocks!

I just got an email from Jacob Hawkins who works with a company called Pretzelmaker, the second largest soft pretzel concept in the US with around 350 stores worldwide.  Pretzelmaker is hosting  a new nationwide contest just for cheerleaders – the 2011 “Cheer With a Twist” Video Contest.

The contest is being hosted completely online at their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pretzelmaker and offers cheer squads the chance to win up to $10,000 in cash prizes! 

This could be a great and fun way for a cheer team to rake in some cashola which is always much needed!  Plus – think of the publicity for your squad!

To enter the contest, all the cheer squad has to do is submit a video online, no longer than two minutes in length, of the squad executing an original cheer that incorporates the “Pretzelmaker” name and demonstrates a “twist” theme. The “twist” can be any unique stunt, flip, etc.

The contest runs through March 31, after which they will select one squad to receive the Grand Prize of up to $5,000! Two additional squads will be selected as Runners Up and will each receive up to $2,500.

Additional details can be found at www.facebook.com/pretzelmaker.

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Did you know that we all are constantly training our brain?  That’s right.  Each thought you have, each conversation you engage in and each behavior your perform changes your brain.  This is what we now know from the exciting research from the field of behavior neurology.  These scientists refer to our brain’s “plasticity” meaning that your brain is, like plastic in that it can be molded or changed. 

When you have a mental block you have programmed your brain in a particular way which is why it can take a bit of time and a lot of patience and effort to re-program your brain. 

One way to help you retrain your brain is to use a trigger word or phrase or, what I like to call a “power word” to direct your brain to respond in a particular way. 

Let’s look at Debbie Love’s 9^th step from her Breaking Free system: 

 The coach, parent and athlete need to agree on a focus word like “stop” so that when the athlete hears the word he/she knows to bring his/her mind back into focus. This can be used at school, home, practice, or competition. You can also have some focal thoughts to pull your mind back into focus like “Relax,” “I am able to do this,” “No big deal, let’s go.” When you are able to control your emotions, your mind is able to direct. 

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the ability to focus is essential to any performance success.  In this day of cell phones, smart phones, ipads, and so forth, your brain has a harder time getting focused.  (Unfortunately, extensive use of these devices actually trains the brain to be highly distractible – not good for anyone especially athletes!) 

Too many cheerleaders can’t even tell when they are distracted because this feels normal to them.  That’s why I am a big fan of focusing exercises.  Once you learn how to distinguish between a focused and a distracted state, devise a power word to attach to the focused state.  It can be simply “focus.” 

Similarly, come up with a word that helps you get re-focused if you are distracted.  Debbie wisely recommends that the coach or parent get attuned to the cheerleader in noticing when the athlete is not focused.  At this point, having the parent or coach say, “stop” (being distracted) or “re-focus” can help the athlete learn when and how to get focused.

Each time a power word is used to redirect the focus, you are training the brain to respond to that power word.  You will also be training your brain to be focused which is, of course, a good thing! 

This ends the series on Debbie Love’s 9-step system called Breaking Free.  Again, I encourage you to go to her website for extensive information and tips about tumbling.  Also, join our Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/unlockcheerleadingmentalblocks .

The power of positive thinking!  If you are a cheerleader with a mental block, it is likely that at least some of your thinking is not that positive!  I have already addressed the impact of negative thinking on cheerleading and tumbling performance but there is always something else to be said about it! 

The 8^th step from Debbie Love’s terrific Breaking Free (from mental blocks) System is:

Put a box somewhere that you pass frequently. Put paper and pen beside the box. Every time you pass the box you should write something positive about your tumbling and about yourself. This has even improved school work in several cases.  (more…)