A Frustrated Cheerdancer

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul” --Martha Graham

Dancing is not in my vocabulary. My feet are both left. I don’t have flexible body just like the dancers out there. I’m just contented on watching my friends dance on the stage. I’m just a mere audience every time someone dances in front and my hands are always ready to clap for them. I never dream of becoming a dancer someday. I can’t imagine myself dancing on the beat of the music in front of many people.

Everything changed when I had no sport to join during our school intramurals. And we were all required to participate on any sport. I didn’t know what came on my mind when I listed my name for cheer dance. I didn’t know what spirit entered my body that time. How can someone like me be a cheer dancer when I don’t even know how to dance?

I just found myself joining the practice. It wasn’t hard at first. They just let us clap and stamp. They taught us how to do the back roll and the front roll. They taught us cheering shouts.

 “This is going to be easy!” I told myself.

Days passed by, the routines became complicated. I was wrong. It wasn’t easy at all. I started to feel exhausted. I couldn’t follow the right routines and I always made mistakes. It came to the point that I want to back out and choose another sport instead of joining the cheer dance. But I realized if I back out, my friends will go with me and only few of them will perform and represent our cluster. So I decided to stay and continue what I have started.

Each day of practice seemed to be days in hell for me. I sacrificed a lot just to join the practices. I didn’t have time to study for my lessons because I didn’t have enough energy to do so. I got a lot of bruises. I struggled on waking up each morning because of muscle pains. I needed to accept insults from the instructor for not doing the right routine. Honestly, it lowered my self-esteem every time he insulted me in front of my teammates. But what else I could do? I entered this so I must allege to do this.

There’s only one thing that kept me from doing it. It’s the fun on every practice. The smiles and laughter from my fellow participants erased all the pain I felt.  Yes, sometimes it’s tiring but at the end of the day we were all smiling and laughing. The hell sometimes became heaven when those angels started to smile.

At the big day, we were able to perform well. It’s feels great that all our sacrifices and hard works weren’t put into vain. Finally we could already sleep well and do all the things that we wanted to do. But it also feels sad because the memories we had during the practices will just remain in the past. The struggles ended there but the friendship between my fellow cheer dancers will never have an end.

I could not believe I was able to dance in front of many people. I was not the ordinary audience anymore. It feels great when people clap at you. I learned a lot from my one month experience of being a cheerdancer (a frustrated cheerdancer). Everyone can be a dancer if you just try to. No matter who you are, you can dance to the beat of the music.

"Once a cheerdancer, always a cheerdancer."

During the big day