Essay I wrote a while ago for college...

Bright lights. Cool air. Anticipation is building like the crowds around me.
The band tosses up a few notes in the atmosphere before coming down with a song to get even the grass
itself hyped for the game ahead.  The stands rumble with sneakers and boots rushing to get a good spot.
Standing below on our own deck, the cheerleaders glisten like the breath crystals in the sky. Our messy
pony tails are high, bows are sparkling, uniforms pressed to perfection. I'm glowing. I can feel it. Our hands
come together as we pick up the rhythm and our dance starts. Every move is sharp.  Everything is precise
and perfect. Cheer has empowered me by motivating me to get fit, giving me platforms to give back to my
community, and helping me break out of my shell. 

Cheer has motivated me to get in shape, and stay that way. Jumping up and down and yelling for your team takes a lot of energy. Hours of our days are devoted to running, crunches, pull ups. Cheer is a full body sport. We have to lift each other, throw each other, and go non stop for four hours.  We don't have the option to show up and not perform to the best of our ability. Every lift has to be flawless, or we could drop a girl. The flyer has to keep her body tight. Every muscle ignited. As women, our strength is primarily in our lower body. We learn to push up with our legs. I've been a base as well as a flyer. The flyers have to have a lot of strength in their legs. Being able to stand with one foot on a girls hands take a lot of balance, and having strong legs and core helps out with that immensely. Bases have to have not only the leg strength to get the girl in the air, but the arm strength to keep her up. I never realized until I was a cheerleader how important it is to be able to have a flexible and strong body. Having my body in such good shape has built my confidence, and I've maintained a healthy weight and physical ability since I joined the team. Before I was a cheerleader, I never took the time to wake up early, lace up my shoes, and truly just do some real cardio. Now, I fill my lungs with fresh morning air and my head with the sound of my cheer mix and run or bike till i'm tired. I feel better than I ever have. 

Community service is also a passion of mine. Cheer has definitely opened doors for me to be able to access more community service. I love waking up and putting on my cheer tee and heading out to do something in my community. I've helped people move, I've done car washes, I've set up tents for triathlons and countless other things to get involved in my community. I live in an amazing part of the world, and all of the small businesses love to support us. I've gotten people to sponsor our car wash, help with travel expense, and even brought in more people to the games. It's really amazing for me to be able to perform my best, and represent my county well when I travel. The car wash I mentioned above is my favorite thing to do. I started the annual car wash when I was heading into my freshman year of highschool. It started out as a project that only my brother and I were involved in. Les Schawb always sponsored, but it was just Jake and I washing the cars. Over the years, I have expanded it greatly. I now have a few sponsors from the community, and the whole squad shows up to wash the cars. It's really fun to be able to interact with all the people. Businesses send down their company rigs, all the guys at les Schawb get their cars washed, and the community really shows up. Sometimes even the football team shows up! The best feeling is looking around after a day of work and seeing smiling faces. 

The last point I will make today is one that I have struggled with for a very long time. Cheer has helped me break out of my shell. I have social anxiety. I've always been very good at being small and easy to walk on. However, cheering takes confidence, motivation, dedication, standing in front of people who may or may not despise you, and screaming “GO TEAM” anyways. I created almost a second me, because she (the cheerleader me) is so different from who I thought I was. I didn't have time to think “there are probably 200 or more people in this gym right now, staring at me” as I was being thrown into the air. I mean, yes. It took a lot of my effort. I had to mentally prepare myself pretty much all day before games, and even practice. “Georgia, you've got this. You're strong, you've got this” all day. The thing about cheer is that I was more excited to go stand on that basketball court or the deck below the football stands than I was scared of the judgement. I might be small and timid, but in the battle against insecurity, cheer always won. 

In 2015, my family went through a lot of stress. I was hit the hardest, being closest to the metaphorical bomb that exploded. The only thing that kept my head above water was that little red, black, and white uniform hanging on the back of my bedroom door so I could stare at it every night before I went to bed. I got to be sassy when I was on the court. I got to yell and get my aggression out, I got to use some of my insane amounts of energy. I was no longer stuck under layers and layers of concrete and plaster. I had exploded from a prison I build for myself in a plume of glitter and bows. 

Cheerleading is not just a hobby to me. It's not just an olympic sport I enjoy watching, or even just getting into football games for free. It's every bit of hard work, the early mornings, the bloody blisters, aching muscles, tired smiles, heavy hair. It's every aspect of cheer that has helped me to grow into myself, stay in shape, and give back to my community that supports me.