All-Star Drills For Showmanship

[thatgymowner]

What do y'all do to help train facials and energy!? I can't come up with anything better than do it at practice but they don't do it well that way. I was looking for a trick of the trade hopefully. Anything is helpful


Ashley

 

[CheerMomNTx]

Facials need to come from within. If you force it, then it looks tragic. Give them options, singing to the song, nice pretty smiles, etc. They need to feel the routine and feel the music.

 

[DaniV]

What do y'all do to help train facials and energy!? I can't come up with anything better than do it at practice but they don't do it well that way. I was looking for a trick of the trade hopefully. Anything is helpful .

I give them different "moods/characters" to get in to (especially for the younger teams and when practicing the dance, makes it more fun too) and that helps them loosen up a bit. I'll tell them one routine no smiling and have to be totally serious, the next one you have to be SUPER happy and cheesey the whole time, then drama queen, then sad (frown the time), then t-rex (tiny arms), be a barbie/robot, ect. Then after doing two-three of those, I'll ask them to do it full out NORMAL but with attitude and facials.

I also have them listen to the music over and over again so they can sing along and require them to do something after every running tumbling pass they land (in the routine, during practice, at tumbling, ect). If they team tumble, it has to be the same as the group and choreographed to counts so they are sync'd.

 

[cheermuse]

Have them practice at home in the mirror mouthing the Alphabet! They can also mouth the spelling of their own name. My cp Mini coach told her this years ago,

 

[King]

Have them practice every mark through. Do not rely on it to come out at competition. When you do that you increase their energy, anxiety, and their lack of control. They could perform the heck out of it and drop the heck out of it too.

Everything you do in practice comes out on stage.

As for who can and cannot perform everyone can sing the parts in their music and smile. That is all they have to do if that is all they can do.

 

[MyGirlCheers]

Have them practice at home in the mirror mouthing the Alphabet! They can also mouth the spelling of their own name. My cp Mini coach told her this years ago,

My CP had a coach tell them to say the vowels - makes good facials. Our gym now just wants big eyes, big smiles and sometimes mouth the words.

 

[Kelli Nicole]

Back when I first started cheering, I had a coach who would smear Vaseline on girls teeth just before going out on the mat to make sure they smiled! HAHA!

A few other girls I knew would such on lemon piece before going on - it was supposed to help from drying out their mouth... Dunno if it works as I never tried it.

 

[Emily]

We had to run a full-out with just our stunt-group and everyone else would watch. Some kids think that you don't see them because they are in the back, but when only 4 or 5 are on the floor they can't hide anymore.
This also helps the kids who watch because they see what works and what doesn't. After each run-through we would critique each other.

 

[CheerMomNTx]

My CP had a coach tell them to say the vowels - makes good facials. Our gym now just wants big eyes, big smiles and sometimes mouth the words.

That's old school!

 

[seein_starz]

At my gym there's always at least 2 teams in the gym at a time so we go back and forth and watch each other. It helps us get used to the feeling of performing for a crowd and amps up the facials!


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[coachbecks]

We had to run a full-out with just our stunt-group and everyone else would watch. Some kids think that you don't see them because they are in the back, but when only 4 or 5 are on the floor they can't hide anymore.
This also helps the kids who watch because they see what works and what doesn't. After each run-through we would critique each other.

Love this! About half of my team has a bit of shyness about showing personality when they are being watched by a crowd. I'm going to try it with each group at our next practice.

 

[youbetterwork]

At a cheer camp two years go we had Victoria Swain as our "buddy coach". She told us to "act silly" in the routine. We were like - you're the only one who looks fierce while doing that... Haha.

With my kids I often say that I have to see everybody's teeth before we start the music, because a lot of kids smile without their teeth. After a while they do it without me telling them every time.

 

[juscheerthatisall]

I don't condone "facials" I tell my kids to perform with confidence. We teach smiles first day. Every time you're standing set you should be chin up teeth out, every time you do a motion you should be chin up teeth out. A high v without chin and teeth is not a high v. If you walk up to one of my kids and ask them to do a high v they will automatically smile when they lift their arms. We teach tumbling (handspring-1, face-3), jumps (hit-4, face-5) They do it all the time so it becomes natural. that all translates to the routine. T

 

[12mowerd]

Have them practice every mark through. Do not rely on it to come out at competition. When you do that you increase their energy, anxiety, and their lack of control. They could perform the heck out of it and drop the heck out of it.....

I had a teammate who did this. He would throw in all these random moments at competition where he'd stop mid transition to do some silly looking facial and he'd be late for his stunt or smash right into someone.

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[INeverStopCheering]

We play a game where we start out with everyone in the routine and if the coach catches someone not being tight/doing facials they have to come sit at the front. The challenge is to make it through the whole routine and still have your whole team on the mat