Sunday, May 9, 2010

Cheerleading Worlds! Go Ecuador!

So, at the end of April, I got to go with the cheerleaders from Colegio Americano to the Cheerleading Worlds competition in Orlando (at Disney World!!). It was actually two different competitions--one on Friday that was more "international" and then the one on Saturday/Sunday that was mostly American teams with a few international teams thrown in.

On Friday, they had a parade of nations to start the competition. I felt like I was in the Olympics! Ha! I marched in proudly with my Ecuador jacket and blended right in. (Yeh right, I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I thought it was lots of fun!!!) :o) There were teams from all over--Chile, Guatamala, Scotland, Germany, Jamaica, Thailand, Japan, etc. It was really cool to see how cheerleading has spread all over. My parents were able to come down, and they seemed to enjoy it, too. They sat with a few parents from Sweden and enjoyed talking with them.

On Saturday, the competition was more a showcase of the US's top teams, and there were definitely some great squads there!!! In our division, we placed 10th as a team and 5th as a country. The top 3 teams were American, the next couple were Canadian, and a country like Ecuador just can't compete with those teams at this point. But, we were very proud of the girls because they did a GREAT job on Sunday!!!

And then, on Monday, we just enjoyed Disney. I went with most of the girls to several of the parks and road the rides/roller coasters. Definitely not my thing, but they had fun laughing at how scared I'd get. Ha!

It was really neat to go and see cheerleading from a different persective. As part of an international team, coming from a South American country, it was interesting to see how much fun cheerleading still is down here versus the insane competitive nature it's taken on in the States. Don't get me wrong, I do miss the level of competition I had from Georgia, but it's kind of refreshing to see how sweet and excited these girls are about the whole experience! Less pressure and more fun!

But boy was it hard to return! After missing 5 days of school, I had all kinds of work to do when I got back. I'm still getting caught up! Not to mention just the jolt back into reality after spending a week at Disney World! :o) But I'm so glad I went!
(This last picture is of me and the head coach, Pamela. I'm definitely squatting! Ha!)

No comments:

Post a Comment