How to End a Cheerleading Stunt

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Lucy Spain on behalf of Expert Village here to talk about cheerleading stunts. Now once you're flying high up in the air, how to do you get down? We definitely don't want to just drag them down to the ground, there's got to be a better way to do it. That's why we invented the cradle. Now the cradle is mainly up to the bases. You as a flier, your most important responsibility is to just ride it out, is what we usually say. Now the main base who has both hands on each side of the foot is going to take control of the cradle. As far as calling the cradle, that responsibility is up to the back spot, just as the responsibility is for getting in a stunt. The cradle starts the same way as getting into a stunt: ready, one two. After the one two comes what we like to call the pop. Now it's really important for your bases to keep eye contact the whole time. A lot of times you're doing cheers while you're doing your stunts, so you can't say, OK, you ready? You ready to do it now? Let's go, let's go. You've got to make sure you maintain this eye contact. After the one two is called, you want to bend at the knees, and when you hit the top, give a shoulder shrug. That's just going to give a little bit extra pop for your flier. Now we don't want to launch our flier into the air, that's not the point. We just gently want to bring her out of it. After we've launched the pop is the catching point. Now as bases, your arms need to be flat out like this. Your other base is going to interlink their arms with yours so our flier has a nice cushion. After we've cushioned her fall, we're simply going to pop her out forward, and then all face our crowd as a unit. Now the back spot, you've got your hands on the ankles, when you call the ready one two, it's important for your to ride the pop with the bases, give your little flick and the end, and you're going to catch the girl underneath her armpits. So both of her armpits are going to be right up here at the top of your arms. Your most important job to do is just to cushion, cushion, cushion, because if you just shove your arms up under there, she's going to have bruised armpits and she's not going to like it very much. After she's come down, let's give her a nice pop out. No need to fling her out, just let her cradle out herself. Fliers, your most important job to do like I said early is ride it. Now how we're going to do that, most stunts we've got our arms up in the high V position. When your cradler calls ready one two, you really need to clear your mind, because if a flier jumps out of your stunt, the whole thing's ruined and she's going to end up hitting the floor on her feet if she's lucky. So basically you need to go with your pop, pull your hands up like this, just ride it, enjoy it, and this is how we're going to land. We're going to land with both feet out in front of us, like we're sitting in a chair. And each arm is going to go around your bases necks, so you've got a nice little cushion down and pop forward."