In just a couple weeks we’ll officially start our new season. I’ve talked to a lot of gym owners over the past few weeks about what they do to ensure the first week of practices is incredibly effective. I believe the first practice is much like a first impression (even for an athlete who has been at your gym for years.) It sets the tone for the season, and we want to make sure that tone is a good one. So, here’s what my first practice will look like.
5-5:15 p.m. Icebreaker
While there only may be one or two new kids on the team whose names we need to learn, there are 13 kids on the team they need to learn. So, we’ll do some fun icebreaker games, which usually includes cheer bingo! You can get my free template for cheer bingo HERE.
5:15-5:30 p.m. Expectations
You’ll want to go over your team expectations clearly for your athletes and get it out of the way in the first practice. In my gym, coaches are different. Side conversations are something I don’t do well with while Ally, my former director – had a lot more patience for them and realized the kids needed this social time to get their words out…then they could focus better. It was a different coaching style. I don’t think either of us were wrong, but we both needed to clarify our expectations so someone who cheered on her team last year and my team this year was clear.
5:30-5:45 p.m. Goal Sheets
These goal sheets can be in a journal or a sheet of paper, but I want my athletes to really spend some time thinking through their goals for the season. They will write down what they’re wanting to accomplish as individuals and what they’d like to see their team accomplish this year. They’ll turn them in and coaches can review them prior to the next practice. We make sure the athletes are realistic and yet – challenging themselves in the season.
5:45-6:05 p.m. Warm Up
Now we’ll actually get down to business. We warm up to our gym’s custom 8-count track so the kids can start getting used to rhythm and pace. Our jumps practice is included in warm ups.
6:05-6:10 p.m. Counting Music with our final stretches
Next, we’ll spend just a couple minutes listening to another team’s music and counting it out. The first time, we’ll just count. The second time, we’ll listen for sound effects. I want them to think about when a jump might actually happen based on the sound effects they’re hearing. We assume that counting music is easy for kids, so sometimes we miss this step. I don’t want to assume anything, so we’ll spend 5 minutes practicing this while doing our final stretches.
6:10-6:35 p.m. Stunt Training
Each level will have a foundational stunt sequence that they’ll learn as stunt warm up and conditioning. While I own no rights to say this, check out FAST training. That’s what we’ve used in the past and I love how clean we can get over the summer working foundational skills and how confident the kids are in these skills leading up to choreography.
6:35-7:00 p.m. Tumbling Training
Based on our tryouts, I already pretty much know what passes we’ll be doing for standing and running tumbling. During this time, we’ll warm up our line tumbling skills (foundational skills) and then we’ll begin putting counts to the first skill in that pass. So, for example: If my Senior 3 is going to work on BWO-BHS series, we’ll put counts to the BWO and this week we’ll focus on technique and counts for a BWO swing through. If that goes more easily than anticipated, then we’ll do a BWO swing-through hop backwards to mark the handspring and we’ll make sure we’re on with our counts there. For running tumbling, we’ll focus on our power hurdle roundoff timing this week.)
7:00-7:20 p.m. Dance Training
I think dance will be more important than ever this year as one of the few truly objective categories. We’ll focus on things like booty rolls and basic hip hop choreography to teach clean, sharp movements, counting and popping (we’re in the midwest, so popping itself is objective.)
7:20-7:30 p.m. Cool down and more team bonding
I’ll let the kids know how I think practice went and get their feedback. This is our first practice. I want to know what they loved and didn’t love so I can think of new ways to present training that appeals most to them. I want them to love cheer after all. We’ll talk about some homework for the week and then we’ll break!
A few notes on this:
- If you’re wondering where my conditioning is, we do it throughout every segment of our training. Handstand hops, stunt conditioning, jumps conditioning and our warm up routine that includes a lot of leg workout. I like to incorporate it into cheer skills so we’re both drilling and training at the same time.
- My practices are short. You might have several practices per week. I believe the first practice should be 75 percent mental coaching. If you practice twice per week, minus holidays, you’ve got about 100 practices per year. You have plenty of time for skills. Get your team in the right headspace right off the bat.
- This is not the ONE or ONLY way to do practices. In fact, if you have other thoughts or better ideas, send them my way! I’d love to hear them and share them in the group. I want the kids to feel like they’ve learned something new at the first practice, so my stunt training will focus on at least one new element. Also, teach them small things are new things! Maybe they’re a new level 2 team and they’ve never tried a quarter-up to lib. It doesn’t have to be a strong level 2 skill right off the bat. It just needs to be new! Maybe you even have a really hard level 1 skill that will prep them for future level 2 skills. Work your way up and celebrate small victories. They’ll leave feeling like a million bucks!
Good luck on your first practice of the season!
