Virtual cheer jumps into fall season
With a spirited team ready for action and a group of new faces eager to join the fun, Newbury Park High School’s cheer team will not be letting the online school border ruin their season. From online workouts to weekly Zoom meetings, cheerleaders have been busy learning new jumps, tricks and dances to prepare for their next performance once they get back.
Sini Utermohlen, junior, has been a part of the NPHS cheer team for three years. Compared to past years, this fall semester has looked very different training-wise. “We’ve just been having once a week practices over Zoom and then we also have three workouts that we do Monday through Wednesday…we just have to upload a time lapse workout,” Utermohlen said.
Learning different workout routines and jumps online have definitely been a new learning factor for the team, but there are many social impacts that members have been missing since quarantine began. “The main reason why I love cheer is just to be able to see friends and make new friends every year and have these funny experiences but like since we can’t really do that, it is what it is,” Utermohlen said.
With many new faces joining the team this year, it is harder for former members to get to know and bond with the new cheerleaders.
This is Carisa Kerby’s, sophomore, second year on the team after serving as freshmen captain the year before.
“The hardest part [of not going back] is not being able to bond and practice with each other because although we can do like cheers and jumps and kicks and our technique and stuff, we can’t work on other things that are also super important for teamwork” Kerby said. “Being in cheer to me means being…someone to look up to and being like a representation of our schools, and it also just means like a family to me.”
For the new cheerleaders this season, virtual practices and online bonding is an interesting way to start off their high school journey. “it’s been a little strange you know, everything is virtual…I haven’t technically met all of them in person. I know some of them already…we actually started to reach out through group chats. So I guess I know them through the group chat,” Jasmine Howard, freshman, says about her first experience with her team.
As a freshman starting her first year at Newbury Park High School, Howard is learning skills without seeing and being around her teammates has been a different experience. “I don’t really have a lot of experience with it…unlike most of the cheerleaders. I haven’t done cheer for a lot of my life or dance or anything like that…but it seems really fun right now. And everyone’s like a family even though it’s over quarantine.
