An expanded version of this story was published by Jennymag.com and can be found here!
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“Hate us cuz we’re beautiful, well we don’t like you either. We’re cheerleaders.”
Perhaps some of you remember cheer captain, Big Red, or Wh-Wh-Whitney belting out this little ditty in the opening cheer-slash-musical number of the movie, Bring It On, circa 2000. Anyone? For the uninitiated, the movie features rival teen cheerleading squads – the posh suburban Toros and the East Compton Clovers, competing for total glory. Obviously. Perhaps just as predictably, the cheer captains serve up plenty of sass and remind us that cheerleading goes hand in hand with toxic mean girl culture, skinny girl diets, and claws-out cattiness.
While cheerleading hadn’t yet made it mainstream in Canada during my own impressionable years, through the magic of giant silver-dish satellite tv of the 90s, the unmistakeable sorority-girl-esque, vapid, Hollywood cheerleader archetypes, were delivered to our living room.
And so, thirty or so years on, when my 11-yr old niece, a full-fledged American born to my transplant sister in the USA declared her interest in being a cheerleader, my sister had some apprehension.
I remember my own sister’s high school experience as distinctly more ‘cheers’ than even remotely cheerleader-adjacent, and these days she was decidedly more hippie than hip-hip-hooray. But not wanting to deter the spirit of her small-for-her-size child who had yet to find her place in the world of sport, she drove her to cheer auditions.
The phone call I received that evening was all squeals, “Auntie – I get to be a flyer!” And my heart burst for her. I hoped she had found her people. And that her people were not in fact what all those satellite tv shows had suggested.
A flyer, I learned, is the one that is lifted, thrown, hoisted, and tossed, and, fingers-crossed, also caught. How fun, I thought! So excited was I to imagine the adrenaline, the performance, the stunts and the smiles. Wait, was it envy I was feeling? Did I want to fly too? Maybe I missed my calling! I was aaalmost sure that I could still do a cartwheel. I found myself grieving the loss of my untapped potential, a midlife spiral down the rabbit hole of shoulda, woulda, coulda, and I did the only logical thing.
Sits down at computer. Googles, Edmonton-Adult-Cheer.
And I shit you not, it’s a thing! Now, I do realize for the cheer-initiated among you, there is nothing remotely eyebrow-raising here. But to me, this was a world I knew not of. It wasn’t until Netflix’s Cheer series that I really became aware that cheerleading was more than a sideline to sports (more than a nod to cute skirts), but that it was actually a skilled sport itself. And while I, myself, had judgementally rolled my eyes at that other Netflix show – the one where 25-year-old Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader hopefuls cry crocodile tears after being cut from their ‘one true calling,’ here I was (at 45) about to embark on a mission to – become a cheerleader!
Or at least I was attending my first meetup. Or was it a practice? I did not yet know the lingo. And on the way home from the first ‘practice’, I called my niece and squealed into the phone – “I get to be a flyer!”
Just a few weeks in, I woke up to a poll in the cheer team messaging app about bows. Please indicate your preference: stiff bow, floppy bow, or flat bow. Having learned only in that moment that there would be a hair adornment for our end-of-season competition, this was a decision I felt ill-equipped to make. I’d need more information. I’d also need to screenshot and share this with my sister. Because, obviously. This was absurd, right? I was above this, wasn’t I? I included LOL emojies, lest she think I was taking this seriously. But what if I was? And what would that say about me. Would that make me shallow and ridiculous like Big Red and Whitney? I was once again spiralling. Conflicted.
Mocking this ‘institution’ and feeling embarrassed now seemed insulting to my teammates who I knew to be accomplished and kind and strong and pretty badass. And so, I owned it. I mean, voicing that I couldn’t work late because, “I have cheer tonight” are words I never thought I’d utter in a conference room. But, there I was.
And so, my niece schooled me from across the country. Teaching me the vernacular – Libs, toe touches, extensions. Basket tosses, half-ups, and tictoks. The right shoes. How to high-v correctly. That’s right. You see, your fists make little cinnamon buns and big cinnamon buns, and one must Always, and I do mean always, show their big cinnamon buns to the world.
As the sole rookie, for the next six months, the team ranging in age from 21 to 56 would have my back, my feet, my thighs, and handfuls of my butt, as I learned to keep my shit tight when hoisted into the air and to fall gracefully when I didn’t. Stepping on some boobs, kicking some faces, and even peeing my pants, just a little, once or twice in the process.
While Bring it On was followed by six direct-to-video sequels and plenty of sarcastic and quotable one-liners, I am gearing up for my own sequel season.
And just as Bring it On was as much about cheerleading as it was, believe it or not, about urban race relations and systemic inequality – for real, go ahead and re-watch it as a grownup – perhaps so too was my own toe-dipping into the world of cheer about something bigger. I mean, not that big – but maybe it was about dropping preconceived notions and following a pull. As we get older and feel the coulda shoulda wouldas of our inner child slipping away, maybe it’s time to say yes to things that make us feel ridiculous or laugh or pee our pants just a little. And while some things may land in the column of entirely too late — base-jumping and bull-riding, for example, for others maybe it’s not so afterall.
So, Bring it on, I say! Call it a crisis, call it crazy, or just call me Wh-wh-Whitney.
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