BOX 18

As I walked into Worthern Arena for a Ball State All-Girl Cheerleading practice, all the girls were scattered around conversing on the east side of the large arena. It was 6:55 p.m. and all of the cheerleaders were stretching before their coach, Rhea, arrived at 7 p.m. to begin practice. The second that Rhea walked into the gym, all of the cheerleading got up and began running laps before going to the free throw line to preform standing tucks. Many of the girls had their tucks without a spot, but a few required someone to stand there and lend a hand for them in order to make a solid landing. After all the standing tucks were thrown and the girls were winded, it was time to do running tumbling across the basketball floor. Most of the cheerleading did multiple back handsprings, 8 being at the most, before stopping.

After the Ball State cheerleaders were done practicing their tumbling, it was time for them to go over the material that they were going to preform for the crowd during the next girl's basketball game. The things that they practiced mostly involved drilling their pyramids and partner stunts. During this part of the practice, I could sense that a lot of the cheerleaders were growing frustrated. This was because some of the partner stunts that Rhea was asking them to throw were dangerous to throw on the wooden basketball floor without a mat. A few times, a whole stunt group fell to the ground. However, the flyer was always on top of all the other group members, so at least the flyer's bases were doing their job in the sense that they were keeping the flyer from hitting the ground.

At the end of practice, all of the cheerleaders gathered in a group where Rhea told them announcements about the upcoming game and other things that needed to be addressed. 

After observing this practice, I realized that since I am a part of the team, things that I see and notice may differ from other people. I did not find that the practice was very productive. I noticed that there were a lot of times when the cheerleaders stood around and conversed. However, I know that there was also a lot of hard went into the practice. Being that the season is almost over, I have to consider that the practices are much less demanding and there is not a lot more for the cheerleaders to do since there are only two basketball games left in this season. Overall, preforming fieldwork on this practice made me realize things about the Ball State Cheerleaders that i had not before realized when I just participated in the practice.