BCA

Yesterday was the last competition of the season for one of my daughters 2 cheer teams, so off we went to Newcastle for one last time on the mat in 2017/18.

The journey there showed me just how much my cheerleader has grown up this season, watching her apply her own makeup as I drove! We had a really fun day, and as always I barely saw her from the second we walked in, as she is too busy off with her cheer family! She is 12, and the youngest member of this team, but that makes no difference at all to the adult members, she is one of them.

The best experience of the day was watching the IOC5 team from our program perform. There are a couple of members of that team who are really close to my heart, and as a team they have had a tough season. Not yesterday......

They set, the music started, opening tumbles hit and I swear the air literally turned electric! Stunt after stunt went up and bang hit, hit, hit! There was sass, stunting and tumbling all at 10 on the richter scale! This team deserved this, so much and I felt privileged to be witnessing it. They hit zero and placed 2nd, best placing of the season, watching them realise they had achieved what they set out to do was amazing.

The journey there showed me just how much my cheerleader has grown up this season, watching her apply her own makeup as I drove! We had a really fun day, and as always I barely saw her from the second we walked in, as she is too busy off with her cheer family! She is 12, and the youngest member of this team, but that makes no difference at all to the adult members, she is one of them.

From The Bow to the Toe

I’ve always wanted to do something that was my own, my little life adventure that I could be proud of. The first time I walked in to a cheerleading competition, I was enamored by the noise, the cheering, the clouds of hairspray, the lipsticks being passed round, the flashing lights and most of all the sparkle!

I LOVE things that sparkle, glitter, shimmer or shine. So much so that driving past a shoe shop is a perilous activity for me. So, when I saw the magic of cheer bows, I knew I had to figure out a how to make these things of beauty myself. After many many hours of experiments, failed and successful I have my Bow to Toe empire.

Small to some, admired by others, and hoping to bring a little bit more sparkle to the world, one bow at a time.

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Cheerleaders, bows and lots of insanity

I have been wanting to write a blog for quite a while now, but could never decide where to start! I am blessed with many great things in my cheer life, and choosing just one part of it to write about was hard. So, here it is, be warned I am sure I will digress into the many facets of my cheer insanity throughout it, and I’m positive that you will all find me crazy, obsessed with bows, and the perfect pony, but I’m also hoping that there will be some cheer parents out there that can laugh at my exploits, worries of team placements, stresses of if to use 400 or 450 diamantes on a new bow design and 3am drives back from the other side of the country all to watch 2:30 of my daughter being the happiest person on the planet.

Where it all began

So, how did it all start? At 4 my daughter decided she was desperate to start cheer. She’d already tried out a few disciplines of dance, and although she loved the classes, seemed to be looking for something more. As soon as she saw the glamour, glitter, and fast pace of cheer on a tv programme, that was it she was hooked. So I called the local cheerleading school and booked her into a class.

Life as I knew it rapidly changed over the next few months, she couldn’t get enough of her new adventure. Each night I would have to play the song that she had been learning her pom dance to, and she would dance around the living room, with her pound shop pom poms banging out high v’s and broken t’s like there was no tomorrow. I cheered her on, helped her where I could, told her she was fab, all the usual things that any parent would do.

She was lucky, being naturally flexible and able to pick up routines quickly helped her in her in her quest to become a competitive cheerleader. The rest was achieved with hard work, some disappointments along the way, and sheer determination. As anyone reading this with a child who competes in cheerleading will know, this sport is demanding on both the body and the soul. There’s immense challenges in cheerleading and it’s a constant uphill battle of skill learning, level climbing and finding the mental strength to push on when you think that there is nothing left to give.

My admiration for the 12 year old I have the privilege of calling my eldest daughter is immeasurable. I have seen her fall, figuratively and physically more times than I can remember, but I have seen her rise up each time and amaze me with her sheer commitment to her sport.

Fast forward 8 years and here I am in the middle of a hectic schedule of training, tumble classes, extra rehearsals, competitions, hotel rooms, hairspray, what feels like 500 costume changes and BOWS! Oh and I also decided to open a cheer bow company too!