Every year thousands of cheerleaders descend to Nottingham at the last weekend of March for what is the biggest event in the cheerleading calender for UK cheer, Nationals. It's a massive competition where hundreds of teams compete. It's not just for cheerleading however, jazz dance, pom dance and even hip hop dance compete.
This was my 3rd Nationals as a competitive cheerleader and my second on a hip hop team. I attended Nationals with my university squad, the Solent Ravens. We have 3 competitive squads, being the All Girl Level 3, Hip hop and the Level 3 Stunt group (who came 1st in their division!).
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| My competition squad stunt group aka team YOLO |
Nationals is a long weekend full of hairspray, glitter and screaming girls everywhere, but it's definitely a weekend to remember. I enjoy watching all the allstar squads who are amazing, such as my favourite Unity Black. When they hit the mat, every single person in the arena runs to watch and even get their phones out to film them, they're amazing.
The Solent Ravens are a new squad who have only been running for 4 years, which is nothing compared to the standard of squads we compete with. We've come a long way over the years and it's exciting being part of a new and upcoming squad. We faced a huge number of challenges along the road to Nationals, with so many girls injuring themselves (me included) but we all made it and gave it the best we could, are more importantly, had fun.
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| Hip Hop Squad |
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I enjoy being a cheerleader so much as it's physically demanding and challenging, but also so enjoyable and honestly, addicting. I cannot express the feeling and sensation of being on the competition mat, it's amazing. I remember in my second year of competitive cheer at a competition in Loughborough, I had pulled my groin muscle so badly it really hurt to walk and even stand on, however the pain disappeared whilst I was on the mat as the adrenaline and excitement just took over.
We stayed at this amazing hotel, and had the luxury of free access to a pool, jacuzzi and sauna, that was open till late at night. I'm not a fan of swimming or pools at all, but as soon as I got into the heated pool and boiling hot jacuzzi, I was overfilled with happiness. Definitely want a jacuzzi in my house now. We even hit the jacuzzi and pool hours before we competed on the second day. Not sure any other cheer squad competing could have said they had just left a jacuzzi before they performed!
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| Jacuzzi and Pool time! |
On the Saturday evening, the squad all enjoyed a pizza and chill night together. I had never seen so much pizza in one place at one time. I was starving as well so my pizza didn't last longer than 3 minutes.. It was so nice to relax and have fun with my friends. Especially afterwards with a bottle of wine and music with the girls I was sharing a room with.
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| Being silly with my besties |
Overall the weekend was so fun and it makes me want to be a competitive cheerleader forever. I will definitely be one of those cheer mums when I'm older, making my little girl be the best cheerleader in the world.
