Confidence To Try

Hey Bloggers, Lovers, Haters, Aliens and Strangers!

So this summer has been a bit of a different one, I haven't been to France and I haven't been at home, instead I've been in good-old Canterbury mainly working but there has been an exciting new venture in my life! As I've previously blogged about, I'm a University Cheerleader for the University of Kent Performance Squad (The Falconettes) and it is from this that I began talking to my now housemate Charlotte about cheerleading. It turned out that she had been part of a professional cheerleading squad the summer before who cheer for the Kent Spitfires (The County Cricket Team) at their Twenty20 Matches and YB40 matches. 

It was a bit random but she asked if I wanted to try out with her back in Spring time and obviously thinking it would be very similar to cheering at American Football games I said yes! I was asked to prepare a short cheerleading routine. I had no idea what to expect so decided I would just go along, have some fun and perform part of my University Cheer routine! (Since I'd never done any real dancing before, let alone choreography!) So I got all dressed up in my high pony tail and glitter and caught the bus to the St Lawrence cricket grounds - considering I had never been before I was in total awe, the amount of seating and the size of the pitch was spectacular to little old me in her glitter and trainers. Luckily I had Charlotte there with me, I think I'd turned white as I turned to her and gulped "Does it really get that full?" 

After a couple of weeks of waiting I got the message that I was being asked back by Tanya (Head Cheerio and Choreographer extraordinaire - gosh I hope she never sees that!) for another audition, this time with more of the girls! So again I turned up the next week, shaking, nervous and no idea what to expect! It was when I walked into the gym following behind "Miss Herne Bay" that I suddenly realised how out of my depth I was - or I thought I was! 

Featured in the Newspaper

Still I smiled, even when the local newspaper came to take photos and I danced as best I could! Quickly picking up the routine but failing to perform it very well - have I mentioned yet that I've never done proper dancing before? No? Oh well guess what? I'd never danced properly before! 

To be honest with you blog readers, I left that audition knowing that I'd done horribly, I've done a few auditions for plays and such in my short time on this planet and I know when something has gone awfully wrong - Tanya was lovely during the auditions and the other girls were joking around, smiling, laughing and made me feel totally a part of the group! (Most of them were coming back for their third year so all knew each other) and I cannot tell you how disappointed in myself I was, I genuinely went home and curled up in bed and cried the glitter off my face - I felt like it was a disaster. 

A few days later I received a text - "Hello just to let you know that you are in the squad for the spitfire sweethearts. Can you make a meeting on Monday afternoon? Well done! I will discuss payment etc on Monday" I screamed. I was in work at the time and I so vividly remember turning to one of the girls I work with Ellie and just grinning "I'm a professional Cheerleader" 

From there it was a whirlwind couple of weeks full of 3 hour long rehearsals every Sunday to get ready for the first match! Being one of three new girls in the squad I had to learn 3 routines and fast! Whatever I had thought this squad would be like I was so so wrong. I remember the first rehearsal, full of pirouettes, high kicks, complicated counts and would looked like an impossible routine - we weren't cheerleaders, we were dancers. But something really strange happened, I picked it up and I learnt the routines and even though I was so stupidly nervous, when the first match came I knew the dances and I performed in front of hundreds of people at the county cricket grounds with Sky TV filming... 

I have never been so scared in my life. 

But that was just the beginning of what turned into an amazing summer! I've spend my Sundays rehearsing with the squad, and long days cheering and dancing in front of up to 4000 people at a time! On big screens and everything! I've even been shown on Sky Sports behind an interview shaking my pom poms and looking like a grinning idiot. 

What's surprised me the most about the summer is the fact that, despite being so nervous and never having danced before these girls gave me the confidence to go out there and "Shake your pom poms" whenever I felt like giving up, or I wasn't good enough (and that happened a lot) there was always someone there to knock some sense into me and make me smile, so I owe all of it to them, my beautiful cheerios!

Of course it wasn't always a barrel of laughs, Twitter has been a dangerous media during my time as a Spitfire Sweetheart and I'd become obsessed with checking what people had said about us;

" #spitfiresweethearts are shit"

"Lack-luster performance"

"Thunder Thighs"

"Too much sweets and notenough hearts" 

This is only a small sample, but they got a lot worse! It used to really get to me, like I said I became obsessed, paranoid about my figure and I would spend a lot more time before match days fixing my hair and makeup worrying what horrible things people were going to say next. What I swiftly and thankfully realised was that no matter how many negative comments we got, there was always someone at the ground on the day who came up and thanked us, an audience who clapped for us, men who complimented us and countless people telling us how well we had done and what a joy it was to watch us. It was this kind of responce that I began to pay attention to and that's when I realised how much I loved being a part of something that made people smile! Then it didn't matter whether they were laughing with us, or at us because we were having fun and putting in all our efforts to make our routines amazing. I can honestly say that I wouldn't change a thing, even the critique and I cannot wait for next year to be bigger and better than this!

So as I hang up my uniform for this season and put away the glitter I can't help but reminisce over what a fantastic summer it has been, and how I've gone out and done something I never in a million years thought I would do - So in case any of you ever see this I just want to thank Tanya from the bottom of my heart for giving me the opportunity and the rest of the girls for being so supportive and so much fun!

Heck I'm allready missing it so very very much- thank goodness University Cheer starts again soon

Muchos Love @5:30am

HarrietCorey

Lucy, Anna, Jessie, Me, Ashden, Eloise, Hayley, Morgan, Melissa