CUI

Cui. Damn Cui.

Today Carmon and I went stunting again. (Sorry for bo jioing karen; a bit last minute).

Today we tried to go for the continuous hands press up again, and for some reason today it was terrible. The first 10 were shaky, and the remainder of it was downright awful. Some times we could not even hit hands.

I could attribute this to some reasons:

• We were mentally tired. Carmon had just finished and exam and I was mugging the whole day
• We approached the exercise with the wrong frame of mind. Having hit it pretty easily the last training, we thought it was easy, and therefore did not apply the proper technique.
• We got frustrated. This will make you movements lose fluidity, as you will tunnel vision on certain parts of the stunts and lose sight of the whole picture.

The list can go on. However, I must stress on something here, and this is something I hope all of us cheerleaders keep in mind. Learning a new stunt is never easy. The reason is this: when we don't have the complete picture, when we don't understand the physics of the stunt, we will employ the wrong technique out of instinct. It's all part of the learning curve.. There will, always will, be good days and bad days. Some days you have, some days you don't. The inconsistency stems from the fact that you haven't nailed every aspect of the stunt.

Everytime you do a stunt you must always be revising the concept. Make sure that you have all your bases covered.

An example would be my learning progress to do the backtuck. When I just started off, I was actually pretty ok, and one time the gymnastics coach at RI gym got me to do 50 in a day. Howver, I suddenly lost it, like it didn't make sense anymore, and I only figured it out almost a year later, and even now its not perfect yet. Its a long and arduous journey, but when you get it the feeling is sweet.

Its easy to give up, seriously. It's easy to just say "Maybe I'm not able to do it naturally." I told myself that a hundred times while learning backtuck. However, the constant encouragement of my team mates spurred me on. NEVER LISTEN TO THE VOICES THAT SAY YOU CAN"T DO IT! Only the voices of encouragement and belief are worth listening to.

If any teammates are reading this, I want you to know that the training during the holidays will be tough. Some days will just make you feel like quitting. But you must remember that you have your team mates around you who are also coping with challenges of their own. Keep encouraging each other, keep that team spirit up, and Alphaverve will be the team everyone wants to be in.

Study hard, Cheer harder
Alpha Joe