Today was a very quiet, relaxing day of rest at home. I woke up at 1pm and after my breakfast, I sat down on my comfortable sofa and watch tv from 2pm all the way till now, 1am. I seldom had the chance to get so much time to just relax at home, and it must have been years since I watched 11 hours of tv straight.
I was watching American Idol the marathon, and I started watching from the last 8 contestant. Their singing was all very good, and I could not tell them apart, other than the judges. It was always very emotional when it gets to the result show, where 1 will be voted out of the competition. I could not say I understood how they felt, because I had never been in such competition before, but I sure can feel for the person that gets voted out each week. As I watched, the number of contestant gets lesser, and each time the one voted out sang their final song, with the video of their journey behind, it gets more emotional.
I could imagine all the hard work that they put in for the contest and living out their dreams in the past year, after seeing all their interviews and videos, and the way they cried on stage. After watching all these, the point I want to bring across is: It is not easy to be the best, but first of all you must have dreams. Next week is the finale, and only 2 are left in the contest. They are really the best of their batch in America, defeating 100,000 over people who auditioned.
Being the winner in a country as big as the United States, will probably put one in at least the top 50 in the world. In a small country like Singapore, the probability is even less. I thought to myself, if we are to talk in terms of cheerleading, where will being the best in Singapore put us in the world standings? Maybe to be able to do all full ups, full around, liberty tick tocks, and pop overs will make the person the best in Singapore, but if you compare to the US, you probably are just 1 in hundreds.
In Singapore, where the competition in cheerleading is much less, for me being 2nd best is not enough, I have to be the BEST, to even have a chance to stand out internationally. This is the motivation and the drive to push me forward, to train harder, whatever others can do, I have to do it better, so as to truely become a *STAR* and an Idol.
It is not easy to be the best, but first of all you must have dreams, because they will come true.
When I first joined cheerleading 4 years ago, the first few cheerleading videos that I watched was the skills tapes of Wolf Pack from University of Louisville. I was so amazed by the stuff that they did and never in my mind I felt we can ever be like them or close to them.
Even though now we are still a long way to go to match them, at least we are a step or 2 closer. Now when I look at those videos again, the feeling is no longer unbelievable, or impossible, the feeling now is of respect and admiration. Some of the stuff that they did are already acomplished by us, and many not yet, but the belief that we can do it one day is there.
Over the past few days, we have seen Singapore's own 1st cupie pop over and 1st liberty tick tock. It is something that was only seen in overseas videos, it is a great milestone for the cheerleading scene of Singapore. I can finally say that we are about to move on to the next phase of our cheerleading life. We are undergoing the phase change now, where each day will see a new improvment or new break though. The foundations were laid and its now time to build on it. Lets Go!
P.S: Practice with spotters all the time before mastery. A new episode will be released on the 5th of each month.
X-Skills Intermediate lists the Intermediate Partner Stunting skills for cheerleaders who passed the Basic Course. The skills in this booklet introduces some new stunts and simple transitions. Transition skills help to link up between stunts and add flow to a partner stunt routine. At this stage, cheerleaders are more aware of themselves. Therefore it is not that crucial to have a passing score, before one can proceed to Advance skills.
However it is still advisible to still use this as a reference before moving on to Advance skills. This Intermediate course aims to instill creativity in partner stunting. Do not limit yourself to the scope of this course, try coming up with new stunts yourself.
For questions and live demonstration, kindly approach X-Wonder during training times.
X-Skills Basic lists the Basic Partner Stunting skills for beginner cheerleaders. The time required to master these skills varies with individual, but on the average it should take about a year to master them. These skills are very important as they formed the foundation for Intermediate and Advance skills.
The passing score is to master 90% of the featured skills in this booklet and it is important to follow the progression. Do not move on to doing Intermediate or Advance skills before passing the Basic course, as it is not safe and might result in injuries to you and your partner.
P.S: These are all of our own experiences and personal guidelines. They should not be performed without proper help and practice, and should not be used as an alternative or substitute to actual and live coaching.
X-Wonder is a team formed to promote partner stunting in Singapore, and we are just beginners ourselves trying to learn new skills from everyone.
X-Skills is something which X-Wonder came up with in hoping to be of some guide or information sharing to all fellow partner stunts enthusiast out there. With X-Skills, we also aim to gather feedback and exchange of ideas and knowlegde from all cheerleaders not only in Singapore, but all around the world.
Do stay tuned for our X-Skills Intermediate series coming out soon. We thank you for your support and hope that you will leave some feedbacks and comments for us.