How to do a Herkie Jump in Cheerleading

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Lucy Spain on behalf of Expert Village here to talk about cheerleading jumps and tumbling. In cheerleading, one of the most common jumps is a herkie. There are a lot of variations on the herkie. It can be performed with both your right leg and your left leg. You should practice both evenly to make sure you get even placement with your jumps. Another variation on the herkie will be a hurdler jump. A hurdler jump is basically going to be the same thing as the herkie, but instead of our forward leg being out to the side, it's going to be out in front instead. Basically on the ground, your herkie position is ideally going to be like this. Your back leg will be in a star position. You want your knee facing directly out to your audience. We want our toe pointed and the front of our foot facing forward. Say you were doing a right herkie. Your right leg is going to be your front leg, and this is going to be in the toe touch position from the basic jump we learned earlier. You want to make sure the ball of your foot is forward, toe pointed. Up in the air, the most appropriate way to hold your hands is going to be in the high V position. You can also reach out in blades if that feels for comfortable to you. The herkie jump should be performed facing forward to your crowd. If you choose to the hurdler variation, that's going to look best facing sideways because we're going to be able to see the height of your leg. When performed, a right herkie will look like this."