In this video lesson, Cheerleading Instructor Lucy Spain teaches that a cheerleading routine often consists of six elements that need to be choreographed together, including cheering, dancings, jumps, tumbling, individual stunts and pyramids.



Video Transcript: LUCY SPAIN: "Hi, I'm Lucy Spain here to tell you how to get started choreographing your cheerleading routine. A cheerleading routine commonly consists of six elements a cheer (cheering), a dance (dancing), jumps, tumbling sequence, individual stunts, and pyramids. Now that we've got our six elements, we're going to want to decide what we're choreographing our routine for. Routines can be used anywhere from games to events, such as, parades in your town, all the way up to the competition level. It's important to know what you're choreographing for because you'll know what space you have to work with and what time restraints you have. Usually your routine is going to be around three minutes. Next, we get to start choreographing and putting together our music for the routine. The music can be mixed be a hired professional or you can choose to mix it yourself on your home computer. You're going to want to use multiple song clips, you can also use some special sound effects, such as, your school mascots noise or claps or bell ringing anytime a jump, or a stunt, or a tumble is hit. After you've got the music down, it's time you start choreographing the different elements of your routine. Everything is going to go to music except for the cheer portion, this is why most squads decide to start out with a cheer and then go ahead and have the music throughout the rest of the routine. Once we have some of the elements in place, it's important to decide what you're going to do for your transitions from one thing to the next. Say from our cheer, to our dance, to our tumbling sequence. When you're doing transitioning you want to be as creative as possible just make sure everybody on the team is using the same movements. You can decide you want to walk in transition with your head down and fists, you can decide to do a cute jog, you could also do spins, tumbles, or even have girls on each others shoulders, or in flat back positions as you go from one part of the routine to the next. The most important thing in your routines in creativity so go ahead and get together with the people on your squad and get started and this is how you'll choreograph an awesome cheerleading routine."

1. How to Do a Cheerleading Toe Touch
2. How to Do a Cheerleading Herkie
3. How to Do Splits for Cheerleading
4. How to Make Cheerleading Hair Bows
5. How to Make Cheerleading Pom Poms
6. How to Make Cheerleading Tryouts
7. How to Perform a Cheerleading Pyramid
8. How to Perform Popular Cheerleading Chants
9. How to Practice Cheerleading Jumps
10. How to Practice Cheerleading Stunts
11. How to Choreograph a Cheerleading Routine

In this course, Cheerleading Instrucutor Lucy Spain gives 11 video lessons on Cheerleading Stunts and Accessories.



Cheerleading was invented by a man in 1898, who first directed a crowd in cheering on the University of Minnesota. Since then, cheerleading has become a popular culture phenomenon and a sport. Cheerleaders began as male; but slowly females, who had few offerings for collegiate-level athletics, dominated the hobby. In the early 1970s, the Dallas Cowgirls changed professional cheerleading into simply dance, removing most of the stunts and tumbling in favor of revealing outfits and choreography. In the early 1980s, cheerleading as a competitive sport became popular, and stunts and gymnastics gained in popularity for high school teams. Now there are both amateur and pro official styles of cheering. In this free video series on cheerleading, an experienced cheerleader demonstrates a variety of cheerleading stunts and explains cheerleading accessories like hair bows and pom poms. Learn to do cheerleading toe touches and cheerleading jumps. Perform the splits and a cheerleading pyramid with the help of an expert, all in this free video series on cheerleading.