How to Handle Judges at Cheerleading Tryouts

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Lucy Spain on behalf of Expert Village here to talk about an introduction to cheerleading. Now you want to be prepared to go in and just know a little bit about the judging panel and how you're being judged. First of all, the judging panel is going to be usually made up of about three or four people. These people are going to consist of your coach, your assistant coach, usually a captain of the team, and a lot of times a guest judge will be brought in just to make sure that everything is fair. These people don't know you so it's definitely giving everyone a chance to be judged fairly. This person will usually be someone who's chaired before, a lot of times brought in by a college that's around. So now that you know who's going to be judging you, you need make sure that you treat all of them the same. Now say the captain of the squad is Susie, your best friend from third period math, or Susie, your best friend from swim team, we're not going to acknowledge that. Susie is here to judge, and you're here to perform, so we need to make sure to maintain that relationship. Now the judges are going to judge you from about fifteen categories, going all the way from your appearance to your interview questions to the way you perform your materials. You're usually going to be given a score of one through ten on all those categories. Your final score will be combined, and that combination number is what's going to get you on the squad. Usually a squad consists of about twenty girls so the top twenty scorers are going to usually make it onto the squad. So just make sure you're ready. You are going to be judged on things like your appearance. So just make sure you know that your performance is going to be first and foremost what they're looking for. So definitely, be ready, perform the best you can and make sure you act professional and respectful towards your judges."