Cheerleading is an art NOT A Sport!

My niece Lindsay is the capatin of her cheer team. ( She is the redhead peeking out from the curtain on the far left hand side of the picture of the three girls and the girl dancing in the back) Our family is very sports oriented so imagine the ribbing she gets ( from me especially) that she has chosen cheerleading as a winter sport.

Now before people yell at me, I must say this. Cheerleading is not what it used to be. You don't just jump around and scream. Lindsay takes gymnastic classes and practices dance everyday. However I question the sport part of it when I hear this. The following is the exchange I heard the other day at one of her "competitions"...( I am really worried that so and so other team might beat us becasue they had sparkles on their eyes and we didn't. Plus their hair ribbons are bigger. )

What?

Okay when I played field hockey or was skiing racing I was more likely to hear this exchange ( so and so might have an edge over us today becasue I am playing with a broken limb and she is not). That said, I think Cheerleading should be considered a "performance art." It's dance plain and simple. I have said this to others and they in turn ask me that since I coach Synchronized swimming ( Eighteen and up team pictured above, at Nationals two years ago) that that should be considered a proformance art also. I agree. Synchronized swimming combines the endurance and athletisism of speedswimming but artistry of an actress. I have a background in both which is why I like to coach it. An while we do spend alot of time focusing on costume, song, and the storytelling of the piece or performance. We also spend hours in the weightroom and swim miles of laps a week.

Okay, so maybe both are performance arts. So Lindsay, I'm proud of you as I am am proud of my swimmers. Here are their pictures (AND NO, THEY ARE NOT TOUCHING THE BOTTOM OF THE POOL!)