High School No Floor For Practice?

Alexa · Sep 11, 2012

This year my high school decided to make a competition team. This is the first year that my school has had a competition cheerleading team. Everyone on the team, including the coaches, is new to school competition cheerleading. I have cheered for allstars for many years and continue to, so I am familiar with the competitive aspect of cheerleading. But, school competition cheerleading is still different and new for me.

Basically, our school does not have a cheerleading floor to practice on. We learned our routine at a local allstar gym, but we do not have the 9 panel floor to practice with. Our practices seem to be only getting worse because no one knows where their spot is. Girls have started to stand in places that seem right. I am afraid that when we actually compete, our formations will be terribly off. Is my school the only one that practices this way? I do not know if I should think that this is normal or bad. Does anyone have any tips for practice without the correct floor? This concern was only recently brought up on my team, and we compete in less than 2 months. I am afraid that my team is blindly relying on formations that are set up on a random, different size floor... What can/should we do?

CheerDadof2 · Sep 11, 2012

I know of a lot of HS Comp teams that practice at all-star gyms. You guys might want to look into that.

When my cp first started in cheer the team she was on practiced on a gymnastics spring floor that didn't have the panels. So in order to help with spacing and finding the right spots the coaches created lines. They made two inch strips from duct tape that was stuck to itself. This way they could roll them out before practice at the proper spacing and tape them down to the floor. You could do something similar and it wouldn't cost a whole lot.

My suggestion thou would be to do a fundraiser and get yourselfs some actual panel mats. You can find them used on-line and roll them out when you need the where ever. I know I a team that does this and practice in the school cafeteria. From a safety aspect this is something you need to do if you're doing anything beyond BHS and especially for stunts and pyramids. IMO

ilikebigbows · Sep 11, 2012

We had the exact same issue. We found a big room in our high school that nobody ever uses and literally measured and duct-taped out panels to practice our spacing because we don't have enough mats to make a whole floor. So we'd do run throughs in that room, and practice stunts and tumbling routines in the gym with "approximate" spacing. Then we went to a local allstar gym and practiced full out routines the week before competition. It was a troublesome, toiling and inconvenient system, but it managed to work. Hopefully you (and my team next year) can figure out something that will work better!

BuegeSmalls · Sep 12, 2012

Does your school have wrestling mats? When I was in 8th grade we practiced in our auxiliary gym, which was full of wrestling mats. We had no problem with spacing at competitions and we never had lines or anything laid out. We did have some foam mats (basically just the foam part under the blue stuff I guess?) that we would roll out occasionally in the big gym, if basketball or volleyball wasn't practicing, to do the routine full out w/ running tumbling.

katelyndanyale · Sep 13, 2012

We have 7 mats but the my eighth grade year we only had 2. We practiced at an allstar gym a couple of times but not much. We ended up winning state and regionals and going to nationals that year.

Sophie · Sep 14, 2012

Its my first year on a high school team, and we have only smaller matts, we have like 8 but only use 3. We use the normal gym floor, you just need electrical tape and tape out the center, and the boundries with little lines. It shouldn't be an issue with a school. Many gym teachers put it on the floors around here for their stuff. Just get it approve! its cheap and easy

Heather Mc · Sep 15, 2012

We're in the same boat. One comp we did last year had a judge talk to the team between runs, and I mentioned that we don't have the panels for practice. He said he had seen teams have some success by marking the lines simply with traffic cones, poms, shoes or whatever along the front edge. Haven't tried it yet, but he pointed out the athletes can see those markers while looking forward so you don't get them all looking down for tape on the floor. Hope that helps, I'll be trying in a month or so when we put the routine together!

AScheer · Sep 16, 2012

The school I coach at only has 5 panels. When I first started we practiced on wrestling mats. The best thing to do is to try to go to a gym the week before competition and run through formations. I've also heard of a school that bought 1 panel mat, cut it into 9 parts, turned them sideways and taped them together. They put them in front of where the cheerleaders practice. Even though they didn't have the floor, they knew where each line was because the mats were the correct widths. I thought it was an interesting idea, but I would hate to cut up a mat that we worked so hard to fundraise & buy!

Carly H. · Sep 17, 2012

what my high school team does, is practice during the week in our "close enough" spots, then on friday we would go to a local gym to correct the spacing,try to make the spots as close as possible when in then high school, make sure your coach writes down the formation this way she or he can set up the formation in any space

Kel Kell · Sep 17, 2012

We practiced in the gymnastics room at the high school for awhile, I think they have a full floor these days though.
For our Rec team we had the person that "stripes" the field spray a cheer floor in the grass for us to practice spacing on. It has helped a bunch lately.
If you are using tape on gym floor I would ask your school what is appropriate for it. I know many schools will only allow you to tape with Painters Tape.

Cheercambree98 · Oct 5, 2012

CheerDadof2 said:
I know of a lot of HS Comp teams that practice at all-star gyms. You guys might want to look into that.

When my cp first started in cheer the team she was on practiced on a gymnastics spring floor that didn't have the panels. So in order to help with spacing and finding the right spots the coaches created lines. They made two inch strips from duct tape that was stuck to itself. This way they could roll them out before practice at the proper spacing and tape them down to the floor. You could do something similar and it wouldn't cost a whole lot.

My suggestion thou would be to do a fundraiser and get yourselfs some actual panel mats. You can find them used on-line and roll them out when you need the where ever. I know I a team that does this and practice in the school cafeteria. From a safety aspect this is something you need to do if you're doing anything beyond BHS and especially for stunts and pyramids. IMO

Completly agree with this, it will help your team out so much!

Alexa · Oct 21, 2012

BuegeSmalls said:
Does your school have wrestling mats? When I was in 8th grade we practiced in our auxiliary gym, which was full of wrestling mats. We had no problem with spacing at competitions and we never had lines or anything laid out. We did have some foam mats (basically just the foam part under the blue stuff I guess?) that we would roll out occasionally in the big gym, if basketball or volleyball wasn't practicing, to do the routine full out w/ running tumbling.

We do have 2 wrestling mats, but they are tiny. One is about 1/5 the size of a regular paneled floor, and the other is a long mat that is about the length of one panel. We practice stunts on the wrestling mats, but it is cramped because we are a medium team. Unfortunately, those are the only mats that we have.

Alexa · Oct 21, 2012

To everyone with the ideas about going to a local allstar gym:
We learned our routine there and have practiced once, but if we were to practice at their gym again, we would have to pay (and I don't know if my team would be up for that). Thanks for the great ideas though! I'm convincing my coach to fundraise for panels, because even if we can't get enough money for all of the panels, there is always next year!

BuegeSmalls · Oct 21, 2012

Alexa said:
We do have 2 wrestling mats, but they are tiny. One is about 1/5 the size of a regular paneled floor, and the other is a long mat that is about the length of one panel. We practice stunts on the wrestling mats, but it is cramped because we are a medium team. Unfortunately, those are the only mats that we have.

Maybe you could do some fundraising for mats? They are expensive but it could work. We purchased a few that way at my school and I think our booster club bought one for us. You could get sponsors in the neighborhood to give you money and then sell shirts or something and on the back have all the sponsors names on the back, just an idea. We fund raised ours with car washes, we got $600 at one car was, which was enough to buy one mat. But it's a little cold for that now

Other popular fund raisers we've done were father-daughter dance, hosting a competition and kids clinic. Between those we raised enough money for each girl (small varsity) to pay for their trip to nationals.

Alexa · Oct 21, 2012

BuegeSmalls said:
Maybe you could do some fundraising for mats? They are expensive but it could work. We purchased a few that way at my school and I think our booster club bought one for us. You could get sponsors in the neighborhood to give you money and then sell shirts or something and on the back have all the sponsors names on the back, just an idea. We fund raised ours with car washes, we got $600 at one car was, which was enough to buy one mat. But it's a little cold for that now Other popular fund raisers we've done were father-daughter dance, hosting a competition and kids clinic. Between those we raised enough money for each girl (small varsity) to pay for their trip to nationals.

We will be hosting one competition and most likely doing a clinic for kids, but my coach wanted to use those fundraisers to pay for competitions and new uniforms. I'm just afraid because since this is the first year that my school is having a competition team, I don't think that some people realize how much goes into preparing a competition team and being able to compete. Maybe later in the spring, we can have a car wash!

High School No Floor For Practice?

Welcome to our Cheerleading Community

Members see FEWER ads... join today!

Alexa

CheerDadof2

ilikebigbows

BuegeSmalls

Uni designer and state IDer-Most positive shimmies

katelyndanyale

Sophie

Heather Mc

AScheer

Carly H.

Kel Kell

Cheercambree98

Alexa

Alexa

BuegeSmalls

Uni designer and state IDer-Most positive shimmies

Alexa

Who is excited for UCA College Nationals?

Daughter just got taken out of flyer spot

The death of the Large Divisions

Strong starts

Similar threads

Latest posts