Over the summer, my cheer team and I got the opportunity to go to a UCA Cheer Camp, one of the biggest cheer camps we have with nothing but UCA staff. We all drove up to Loveland, Colorado at a very nice hotel on a Wednesday morning around eight o’ clock. When we arrived the team changed into our day one practice gear, and right away we all got ready for our first long day of camp. All the cheerleaders there had to put all their luggage in a small ballroom for the day and collect them later. To start off the nine hour day we had ahead of us, we all got together with our UCA staff camp leader. Her name was Rex, she helped us through the whole entire camp process, each cheer team got a team leader which was one of the staff. Rex got us all together and walked us through how camp was going to work and our schedule for that day. Which was camp material, stunt sequences, camp dance, cheers, and journaling. Each team got a journal that each team captain from each squad had to be in charge of, Jordyn was our team captain. Rex went through the journal with us and how it was all going to work and it explained everything we needed to know about sideline cheer and competitive cheer. And, at the end of the first day we got into a group and went to dinner being the first team to go the first night. After we all grabbed our luggage, and headed to our assigned rooms with our corresponding roommates who would be with us for the rest of camp.
The morning of day two, I felt good and ready to go, we were all excited and hyped up for the eleven hour day that was ahead of us. During this camp it was all about who was the most energetic and positive, most uplifting, working hard team there, and who the UCA staff really saw being all that. with that came a prize at the end of everyday, whichever team won would get the big yellow banana. I know it sounds stupid, but that is what we were working hard for and put our mind to the whole camp.
Day three began, we all woke up very tired and sore. It was pretty rough going into the third day. But I got up, took a shower before the other girls were awake and got ready for the day with our practice wear. Our practice attire consisted of black Horizon shirts with black shorts and maroon bows that we had made. I slammed a Red Bull and had a banana for breakfast to wake me up, and from there my roommates and I headed downstairs for our meeting time which was eight o’ clock. First thing, we got together with our team leader and talked about the game plan for the day. What the structure of our stunts we were going to have to do and learn. For the rest of the day we just did stations that included stunts, learning a new camp dance choreography, and working on routines, plus our game day routine. Once it hit 9:00 pm we were getting ready to head to dinner and go back to our assigned rooms for the night.
Suddenly, it was Saturday at 6:00 in the morning. I woke up once again before the other girls to take a shower, and start my day and get ready for our last day of camp. That day was our short day since this was the day we were able to perform our hard work to our parents and judges. This was the biggest day out of the whole camp, this got us to put together everything we had worked so hard on the past four days, and each nine hour day. The girls and I started packing up our room and getting all our stuff together because we had to be out of our rooms by eleven am. There was no time to do it later so we got everything out in the morning before we had to go stretch with the team. We put all our belongings in this ballroom part of the hotel and left it there till the day was over and we could go home. By ten thirty am parents started to show up and fill in the ballroom as we stretched and warmed up all our stunts and tumbling. Once we performed and finished the day we got to leave and go home.
Overall, the experience was very fun. Personally it helped me so much as a highschool cheerleader to learn a variety of new techniques and little things to work on for me as a cheerleader. All the girls had a very good time and it felt so good to just be with the team, and do nothing but bond together and have fun with no distractions. This camp definitely helped us grow together as a team, get to know each other, and to hangout with each other. Not only us as a team bonded, but we also got the chance to bond with the other teams that were participating, and also bond with our coaches throughout the whole process of UCA cheer camp.
