Every February, the BHS cheer squad hosts its annual cheer and dance competition. Many may not know how much work and effort goes in to preparing for this competition.

“This is the 17th year for the cheer competition. It began with 7 teams attending and has progressively grown. This year we had 26 cheer and dance teams enter,” BHS assistant cheerleading coach Patty Lenning said.

Preparing for those schools to come to the competition takes hours upon hours of behind the scenes work. Every detail requires approval from KSHAA.

“The stunts in your performance must have some difficulty and still hit solidly without any wobbling. Bases and flyers must also use the right techniques when doing stunts,” BHS cheer captain Allison Taylor said.

The judges do not judge solely on if your stunt stays in the air. They look at form, sharpness, and the loudness and clearness of your voices. In order for a competition routine to be successful, every single part of it has to be perfect.

“When people say ‘as long as your stunts don’t fall you will do good’ or ‘just throw some stunts and a cheer together you will be fine’ they are false. There is so much more that goes into a cheer competition performance than that.”

Stunting is not as easy as it looks. It often requires several hours to be able to hit an advanced stunt. If there is just one ounce of doubt when stunting, the whole stunt will drop.

“Generally, the team has a choreography camp where they learn the routine. The team then works on higher level skills or skills needed for the routine, tumbling skills are developed, the routine is run by parts and then as a whole, and lastly, stunt sequences and pyramids have to hit a set number of times in order to develop confidence,” Lenning said.

Overall, cheerleading is all about trusting the other squad members enough to support you in the air. Competition season can be stressful but is worth it in the end. There are a lot of hours put in by the coaches, parents, and cheerleaders in preparation for a few minutes worth of routines.