https://www.emaze.com/@ATITWFOW/untitled

Life is about experiences

The chilly morning of the cheer competition I woke up feeling the most nervous I have ever been. It was one of the most important competitions of the year and of course I was exhausted and not on my A game because of the terrible sleep I got. I knew I had to shake it off so I can have a successful day. The anticipation was killing me, I just couldn’t wait to get to the convention center.

I arrive to the very busy convention center and walked through these large glass doors, the amount of people their was overwhelming. Long tall escalators that lead up to the meeting room. A few hours after I’ve arrived it was our time to go into the warmup room. 5 minutes on 3 different mats too warm up our routine, didn’t feel like enough time. After our last mat it was only a few minutes until we go onto the stage. The excitement from person to person was contagious, we couldn’t wait until we could kill it on the big floor.

We’re next to go on bright stage with many spotlights and the pep talks from our coaches begin, knowing I’ll be going on stage in just a few minutes made my body shake and have knot in my stomach. Going through the two minute thirty second routine in my head just made me even more anxious. The announcer calls our name “Hurricane” and we all skipped onto the large blue floor together, the lights are so bright in my eyes I was blind for a second, all I could see was a dark crowd in front and white fog from the lights. Standing in my opening pose waiting for the music to begin, the crowd is roaring and my stomach feels like it’s full of butterflies. The music starts, it’s so loud I can barely here myself think. 1-3-5-7 over and over in my head. I put all of my energy into this, will it be worth it. Half way through the routine I was already out of breath but my teammates kept me motivated. The routines over, I look at my coaches at the front of the floor with their wide smiles knowing that we did good.

The announcer calls for the level 3/4 and 5 teams to come to go to the main stage for awards. I was feeling super confident about us placing until a bunch of people told me how good the other teams were in our division. The floor was full of talented athletes waiting to hear if they lost or won. Our competitors also did very well so we were not sure what would be the end results.Finally they were announcing our division so we all sat on a circle and we held each other’s hands that were now getting sweaty and clammy. We looked down and waited for the announcer to announce who was in third place as we had two other teams in our division. Finally he spoke the team and it was not us, next was the moment if we knew we were gonna place first or second. The announcer in a calm steady slow voice announces the other team as second and immediately my whole teams faces lit up like a Christmas tree and we knew that all our work from the past few months has paid off.