Half Time Routine

In routines and such, I LOVE cool transitions. I don't even care so much about the skills, just the transitions that keep the crowd interested while nothing specific is going on. As for that girl, put her where it looks best, and if that happens to be the back, tell her to suck it up (not that harsh of course, tell her it's what's better for the team).

Include a lot of ripples in your choreography. They are visually fun to watch and will help get the crowds intention and hopefully keep it! If you have week jumps, stunt or tumbling tight and entertaining choreo is key to a successful routine. The goal is to grab the crowds attention !


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Teammates (regardless of age/year/squad) need to put in the hard work to earn a spot in the front, not just be given that spot because they complain (especially the young ones. No good comes from 15 year olds that get everything they demand). If they want to be seen, they should work harder on their skills to earn a spot. Simple as that.

As for the routine itself, the crowd will get bored if they just are watching you do straight up skills, as they have no concept of what is difficult/good/bad aside from when people fall. It is not a competition.... You are putting on a show so you need to entertain.

Key things for routines:
-Cleanliness: people will think your team looks great no matter the skill level if you are extremely clean & sharp because you look put together. Cleanliness>skill difficulty any day for performances. That being said, only put in skills that hit 100% of the time. You never want to be remembered as "the cheerleaders that dropped that girl or that girl who fell on her head trying to flip". You gain very little from performing difficult skills but lose a lot of credibility/respect from dropping those skills in front of the school/community.

-Transitions & Basic visuals: can be anything from ripples, multiple height levels (in stunts or motion/dance portions particularly), formation changes that open up to reveal something in the middle or that move in from the sides into a pyramid, etc. , stunts that walk, a pyramid that turns all together, a sign or visual that magically appears, or pretty much anything that catches your eye and makes you go "whoa". You can even throw in the mascot if you have them available to make a fun routine. Watch lots of YouTube routines for inspiration (level 2 teams, HS competitive and pep rally routines, etc.) and get creative.

-High energy: If the team looks scared or gets more concerned with getting to their formations/performing their skills than playing to the crowd, it is a snore fest for pep rallies/half time. Have your chins up, confident smiles on, and never turn your backs to the crowd when moving. Part of looking fierce is having that fierce attitude on the performance floor.

For our halftimes, my team loves putting in easy stunts that look showy. We've done a few easy flips in pyramids because the crowd goes crazy, and we do a lot of baskets too! On a slightly easier note, we did show-n-goes to teddy bears (which then popped up to fulls) in a halftime last year and the crowd loved it!

But more important, all the girls just need to look like they're having fun. We use mixes with songs that everyone can get into, because that always makes performing really fun, and the other captains and I work really hard to come up with cute dances that the rest of the team has fun performing-ripples are easy to choreograph and look great!

And in regards to the girl who doesn't want to be in the back, I'd try to (respectfully) explain that it's in the team's best interests to have the highest jumps in the front. Then maybe work with the coach to make sure that the same girls don't get put in the back of every formation. And to make her (and the whole team's) jumps better, maybe dedicate ten minutes at the end of each practice to conditioning (straddle and v-ups, crunches, squats, etc.). This will help everyone on the team, and it'll give you all more endurance and control for your jumps and stunts.

Hope this helped!