Tag: cheerleading in singapore

Posted on

Handstand: How long will it take to learn?

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:16-12-2020

How long it would actually take to learn how to do a handstand? Let’s hear it from the expert! Our local circus artists Beverly is here to share her experience and knowledge on learning handstand with all of us.

Back in 2017, Beverly started exploring handstand after being inspired by an Australian acrobat when she was at Australia where she was sponsored to attend circus training courses taught by professionals and got the opportunity to train with acrobats all over the world.

How will a typical training session be like?

Beverly clocks in freestanding handstands, straddle presses and contortion handstands in the first hour before she start venturing into higher level skills that she’s working towards. Her level of dedication to handstand training is intense as she shared that in the beginning of her handstand journey, she was doing handstands every day, every minute in between classes, during lunch, dinner breaks and even after school!

How many hours do you practice every week/day and what are some of the challenges face while learning hand balancing?

Beverly handstand training is usually about 2 hours and 3 – 4 days a week. “But everyday I still do a couple of handstands just for fun!” remarked Beverly. Beverly shared that she had injured her wrist once in a freak accident, and since then her wrists became more susceptible to overuse injury. “I have to be very careful and gentle with my training, but this has also taught me to train more responsibly…like warm up first.” says Beverly.

What is the one most important factor when it comes to hand balancing?

“Patience, resilience and discipline are very very very important. Rushed and frantic handstands seldom ever work unless you’re incredibly strong. You can expect to have some days where you have zero success and want to give up, and you’ll need to do handstands every single day even if that means you’ll be staring at the floor for 2 hours.” says Beverly.

What advice would Beverly give to beginners who are starting on their hand balancing journey?

If you are just starting on your handstand journey, here are some advice that Beverly would like to share to help you with your initial phase of your journey.

OVERCOMING FEAR – You can kick up to a handstand against the wall but can’t do it freestanding is because of fear. After learning how to twist out of your handstand, you’ll realise it’s no longer dangerous to go upside down, training will feel much less terrifying, and you’ll dare to kick up to your handstand.

STAYING FOCUS – Handstands won’t feel like you kick up to centre and then float there. Once you find your centre, that centre will keep shifting around so it’s a constant focus on balance, constant pushing and pulling and constant gripping and releasing. 

GETTING UNLOCKED – you’ll have no idea what it feels like to be in balance upside down. In other words, you don’t know which point/feeling it is that you’re looking for so it’ll feel like a pointless search. But once you unlocked it and you know what it’s supposed to feel like, the journey towards finding that spot will be a lot easier.

Are you interested to learn more about handstand and other movements like the front walkover from Beverly? Check out our classes page to see what are the upcoming classes that she will be conducting at CheerForce Singapore’s cheerleading studio!

Posted on

Cheerleading In The New Normal

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:05-08-2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many industries and individuals, and cheerleading and cheerleaders are not exception. Although sports in Singapore has already resumed in Phase 2, the sport of cheerleading remains dormant as prolonged contact is still not allowed under the latest advisory by Sport Singapore and Cheerleading Federation (Singapore).

However, we are lucky that segments of cheerleading is allowed to resume in phase 2 such as tumbling, jumps and CheerDance. We can now practice in groups of 5 with a coach which allows us to build back the team spirit little by little. Masks are still recommended to be worn during our workouts and cleaning and sanitization procedures are carried out after each group has left the premises.

Although stunting is still not allowed by Sport Singapore and Cheerleading Federation (Singapore), we have started preparing our bodies and refreshing our stunting skills with conditioning and stunt drills through our online cheerleading fitness program CheerFit SG, in hopes that the restrictions imposed on contact sport by Sport Singapore will eased out in the near future.

SafeEntry check-ins, temperature check and hand sanitizers has become the norm at our cheerleading studio as we strive to resume cheerleading in the safest way possible for all of our athletes as their health is our top most priority. Athletes are also to leave the premises once their training session is over so as to prevent them from hanging around in the facility for a long period of time.

Team bonding has also been a challenge for us. Other than the weekly online workout session and tumblng sessions in our cheerleading studio that allowed us to meet each other, the EXCO initiated a mini bonding session over dinner last weekend for the team to bond over a simple dinner at Poulet Vivocity.

As we enter into the month of August, the first thing that is on every Singaporean’s mind would be National Day. It has been our annual practice to have an outdoor stunt photoshoot in red and white to celebrate the spirit of National Day together as a team. However, due to the no stuntiing restriction, we have decided to do a simple individual photoshoot in red and white to spread the National Day cheers this year.

It has been a really challenging period for Singapore as a nation and for us as a cheerleading community, and it will continue to be as challenging as before moving forward into the new normal. We urge our fellows cheerleaders to follow the regulations imposed by Sport Singapore so that we can all stay safe and do our part as a cheerleading community in Singapore. We believe that we will definitely be able to overcome this pandemic and emerge more united in the new normal future. Together a stronger Singapore!

Posted on

Losing The Motivation To Cheer Again

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:03-06-2020

Are you losing the motivation to go back to cheerleading again after this pandemic is over? Afraid that you will have to start back from square one when you return to the mats? Don’t worry, we believe that you are not the only one feeling skeptical of returning to the blue mats and cheering again.

Motivation is defined as the reason for acting in a particular way. With the suspension of cheerleading trainings in Singapore since end of March, many of us are starting to lose our purpose and motivation to do cheerleading and for some, we do not even see ourselves getting back to the sport again.

It is really difficult to keep the passion for the sport burning in times like this but do not worry because we have ways that you can keep your motivation and passion for cheerleading alive and prepare yourself to get right back into the sport once trainings are allowed to resume. Excited? Here are the 4 ways you can stay motivated for cheerleading practice during this COVID-19 period.

Schedule Workout Sessions Weekly – The hardest part for most of us when cheerleading practices resume will be to adjust our time to fit practices into it and that’s because in our daily routine during this COVID-19 period, there is no need for that and those time that was used for cheerleading is now being replaced by other activities at home. Our advice is for you to continue to schedule workout sessions weekly, best if it can on the same say and time as your usual cheerleading practices.

Main reason for this is that not only do you continue to keep your body fit for cheerleading, you are taking time out of your daily 24 hours to do something physical and when cheerleading training resumes, it will be much easier for you to just change the activity for that period of time to cheerleading instead of having to squeeze time out to go attend cheerleading practices. You will find that it is a smoother transition and you will not be giving yourself the reason to not go for cheerleading practices because you already have something scheduled during training hours.

Chat With Teammates – With the advancement in technology, it is now so much easier to have a video call with your teammates to catch up on how they are doing. The bonding between team members are really important to keeping the team together. When everyone feels bonded to each other, you will be much more motivated to return to training with everyone.

Apart from just chatting with your teammates, you can arrange for a virtual meal together and even organise virtual celebration and games together with a small group of your besties in cheer or even your whole team. Main idea is to get engaged with everyone so that you will have the sense of belonging to return once the suspension on training is lifted.

Be Involved Virtually – Apart from engagement with your teammates, you can stay involved with the global cheerleading community through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and even YouTube. Traveling is an impossible task right now but you still can continue to be involved in the cheerleading scene both regionally and internationally.

You can watch cheerleading videos from all around the world to get inspired by others, comment and share posts that you are motivated by, and even get to know new cheerleading friends online. This will give you a reason to return to cheerleading again to improve your skills, attempt skills that you have never done before and look forward to meeting even more friends when traveling is made possible again.

Improve Your Skills At Home – Ever thought to yourself that it was impossible to squeeze out time to do drills and work on your flexibility stretches at home because you just do not have any free time with the hectic work schedule? With most industries slowing down, you now have more free time at home to get your tick tock techniques corrected, or even work toward pulling a nice scorpion on the floor.

By working on drills to improve your cheerleading skills at home, you are actively engaging yourself in cheerleading activities and with the progress that you see, you will be motivated to push yourself to do more. Staying current with your skills in cheerleading allows your body to remember the feeling of doing cheerleading and you will see cheerleading as a part of your daily life, which will push you to return to practices once it resumes to see how much of an improvement you have made with your home trainings.

Staying active at home daily for a long period of time can be really challenging for many people as we run out of ideas of fitness exercises or cheerleading drills to do. If you are looking for workouts specifically for cheerleaders, head over to our YouTube channel and check out our skills tutorial and workout videos that are created specifically for flyers, bases and tumblers with exercises and drills that you can do at home. Drop us a comment if you would like us to do a tutorial or workout on certain skills that you would like to learn.

In need of some cheerleading motivation? Follow us on our Facebook page or Instagram to get some cheerleading motivation from us to you! So remember, stay active, stay involved and stay cheerful like how we cheerleaders always do! Cheers!

Posted on

CheerForce Recruitment Drive 2020

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:26-02-2020

We are truly thankful to those who came down to our CheerForce Recruitment Drive 2020 last Saturday to stunt and mingle with the rest of the Singapore cheerleading community. We are pleased to host around 25 new members on that day, with many of them coming from NTU hall teams.

The ice was broken between everyone during the games at the start of the session where everyone had a good time trying to fit body parts within a piece mats and also not forgetting the fun we had passing the hoops musical chair style.

We went through the theory of coaching tumbling skills such as how to progress from handstand to cartwheel and from chartwheel to round off, we demostrations from CheerForce cheerleaders. We hope that through these progressive techniques, hall seniors and seniors-to-be will be able to help teach their future juniors and new members tumbling techniques in safe and progressive manner.

After tumbling, we went through 180 full up and how it can be transitted into a 360 full up as well as pop full cradle techniques and what is required to achieve an easy double full from any given body positions. The participants were also given the time to try out the skills that was taught and they are really talented as many are able to achieve the twist to extended height within the short session.

We ended the session with synchronised stunt videos and free-an-easy session where members are allowed to go around to mingle and try out skills with other cheerleaders. We would like to thank everyone who came down for our recruitment drive to support us, and our support team and CheerForce cheerleaders who made this recruitment possible for everyone!

The photos from the session will be released on our Facebook page soon so do follow our Facebook page to be notified when it is published! If you’ve missed out on our recruitment, feel free to drop us an email or DM us on our social media as we are constantly recruiting and growing our CheerForce family!

For coaches and cheerleaders, do let us know if you would like to learn more about the progressive training from skills to skills and we would gladly share it with you. Till next time, stunt safe everyone! Cheers!

Posted on

Roar In Harmony At Chingay 2020

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:05-02-2020

We had a blast last weekend at the Chingay Singapore 2020, performing 2 days in a row and showcasing the sport of cheerleading at Asia’s biggest street parade. It was really sensational to hear the crowd cheering with every stunt that went up and the energy at the F1 Pit Building was electrifying.

Chingay 2020 brings to you “Colours In Harmony”, a dynamic showcase of Singapore’s multiculturalism and diversity in celebration of People’s Association 60 years of community building with the people. This year CheerForce Singapore is in the Chinese New Year segment dressed in black and gold modern tribal costume, representing the lion tribe.

This year we faced multiple challenges such as shorter preparation time and multiple revamping of our routine, to which we worked together as a team and helped each other out to ensure that we always present the best we can to our audiences. It was a tough ride for us to put up the show at Chingay Singapore this year as more than half of our members have less than 1 year of cheerleading experience but everyone understood what was requireed of us and put our best foot forward with every practice, rehearsal and show.

Through our relentless efforts, we put up what we planned and received great comments from members of the public. Thank you for all your positive feedback and encouragement and we look forward to bringing more amazing cheerleading performance to you in the future.

We would like to thank People’s Association and our production manager, Lily Chen, for their continuous support for us from the preparation stage through the end of parade 2. We would also like to thank Chingay’s Artistic Director, Mr Fan, for this guidance and feedback which pushes us to change our performance routine to put up the best performance we can and differentiate us from the rest of the performances.

Special thanks to the members from King Edward VII Titans Cheerleading Team who decided to join us for this Chingay performance to make our performance even more amazing together. We are also thankful to have our korean friend, Kiu, who flew all the way from Korea to perform with us at the parade. Last but not least, we would like to thank all our supporters, company’s management, alumnis, friends and families for their support for us throughout this journey which made Chingay 2020 possible for us all.

Chingay 2020 not only is a platform for us promote the sport of cheerleading, but it is also a channel for us to come together as a cheerleading community to build friendship and memories that last. If you are interested in being part of our cheerleading community, we look forward to having you with us at Chingay 2021!

Visit our official website to find out more about us and the cheerleading performances that we did. Contact us now and be part of our amazing cheerleading community or have us bring the hype of cheerleading to your event!

Cheers!

Posted on

Happy Lunar New Year!

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:24-01-2020

24 days has passed since the calendar new year and here we are celebrating yet another new year! Filled with vibrancy and the auspicious color red, the Lunar New Year is one of the major festival here in Singapore. At CheerForce, we jumped into the festive mood on Wednesday and had our Lunar New Year themed training.

Hosted by our marketing manager Jilane, all of us had a lot of fun and laughter as we tried to form the chinese character for the word rat and the word CNY with our bodies. Apart from that, we also took a CNY team photo and well-wishes video which will be released on our social media soon so stay tuned!

That’s not the end of our CNY celebration! We will be having a CNY steamboat and BBQ dinner after our Chingay Parade 2020 together with our post parade celebration, which will be shared through our social media story on the 2 February so do keep a lookout for it!

The CNY celebration is just the start of a chain of events lined up in our CheerForce calendar. Apart from our usual NDP photoshoot and Dinner & Cheer events, this year CheerForce will be rolling out a series of internal and external events for our team members and the cheerleading community.

Apart from events, we will also be embarking on projects throughout the year such as our team expansion initiative and CheerFit. Both are focused on building cheerleading up from the ground level and both initiatives are still in the preparation stage. Once we have more information ready, we will definitely let you know first hand on our social media.

It is going to be an eventful year for us and we want you to be part of it! Follow us on our Facebook and Instagram as we journey through 2020 together. Want to be part of our amazing cheerleading team but worry that you do not have the relevant cheerleading experience? Do not worry! We do have programs catered for you who has zero experience in cheerleading because we know that everyone starts from ground zero. So if you have always been wanting to be a cheerleader, just drop us a dm on our social media now!

In the meantime, enjoy your Lunar New Year and we wishes all of readers a prosperous and successful year of the rat! Cheers!

Posted on

IFC Class 1 Cheerleading Safety Coaching Qualification Course

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:17-12-2019

Over the weekend, we had the pleasure of having Zhao Ming, from Federation of Cheerleading (Singapore), Yuki Iwai and Brandan Chen to conduct the International Federation of Cheerleading (IFC) Class 1 Cheerleading Safety Coaching Qualification Course at our cheerleading studio for 9 aspiring cheerleading coaches from our team.

Apart from teaching the basic elements of cheerleading, safety of cheerleading activities are heavily emphasized in this course and how cheerleading coaches can minimize the risk of injuries and breach of safety through checks and supervision. It also teaches the proper progression chart for partner stunts, tumbling and jumps and some of the drills that can be taught to build up to the final stunt that we want to achieve.

Other than theory and sharing sessions, the course also includes practical segments where participants will be taught how to properly catch a falling top person. We were surprised to know that even for spotting and catching a falling top person, there is a proper progression to it to ensure safety while learning.

For example, when learning the bear hug catching, we started with learning the proper posture by hugging the top person on the ground level and lifting them up. Once we are cleared of having the correct catching posture, we then moved on to having the top person do a mini hop from the ground level and catching the top person while he or she is in the air. Once deemed proficient, we proceed onto having the top person stand on an elevated platform and stepping off to allow his or her partner to catch him or her using the bear hug catching method. Eventually, participants learnt to catch the top person falling from shoulder stand level using the proper technique to ensure safety.

On day 2 of the course, our 9 members were tested on their knowledge from the Class 1 Coaches Handbook as well as on their practical safety skills such as executing bear hug catching and cradle catching. After 2 days on intense effort, we are excited to announce that all 9 members are now qualified IFC Class 1 coaches!

Overall, we felt that this was a very informative and useful coaching course, especially for coaches of teams that just started out or have new members constantly, like NTU and NUS hall team coaches, as it provides the proper progression charts and innovative stunts that we do not see in Singapore but are useful building blocks for member’s skills advancement as well as skills confidence. Safety is the main priority for coaches and members so always start building from ground zero to minimize the risk of injury.

Thank you for reading and stay safe for all cheerleading activities everyone! Cheers!

Posted on

CheerForce SG At Viet Nam Cheer Fest 2018

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:04-01-2019

It is the fourth year of the Viet Nam Cheer Fest happening in Ho Chi Minh City for cheerleaders in Vietnam to come together to compete and decide who is the best. CheerForce SG was proud and honored to be invited as a major partner in this biggest cheerleading event in Ho Chi Minh City.

CheerForce SG sponsored the event with CheerForce SG rigid sport tapes and chilled isotonic drinks for the competitors to enjoy while they prepare for the competition. We were glad to hear feedback from the competitors that they really enjoyed the tapes and drinks that were sponsored and it made the competition more enjoyable for them.

Working with Hung from Sai Gon Beast Squad, our head coach TJ and tumbling coach TY were invited to be the judges for the competition. It was really an eye-opener for us as we got to witness routines not only from teams in Ho Chi Minh City but also from teams in Hanoi, who flew down just to compete.

The flow of events was different from competitions that we have been to in Singapore and Thailand. It all started with the competitors march in with their teams to introduce them to the audiences followed by the introduction of the judges. Flowers were also presented to the judges as a token of appreciation.

As the competitors return to the warm up mats to began their warm up, the competition started with a hip hop dance performance followed by a performance by a talented singer who performed 2 songs for the audience where the audiences sang along. After which, the competition starts officially with the first team taking the mat.

In Ho Chi Minh City, stunts and tumbling are awarded lesser points than other countries as 30% of the score is given to their dance segment. It was something innovative as they edited it to cater to the cheerleading market in Vietnam, where most of the cheerleaders are dancers as well, so as to draw their interests into joining the cheerleading team.

Many teams had really innovative routines which we really enjoy watching. Most of the teams had a theme to their performance, which is not common in competitive cheerleading, and we we believe it will be a trend for competitive cheerleading routines for years to come.

The day before the competition, we were tasked to conduct a cheerleading stunt and tumbling workshop for the competing cheerleaders to teach them proper stunting, tumbling and spotting techniques. Close to a hundrend cheerleaders turned up for the workshop and it proved to be a challenge taking such huge group with just 3 instructors but we took up the challenge confidently with a plan in mind.

The workshop was proven to be a great success as participants later feedback that they understood better on what was taught and learnt a lot more from our CheerForce SG instructors as compared to other instructors in previous years. It was really comforting to hear such affirming feedbacks from the participants despite the language barriers which posed as a challenge during the delivery of the workshop.

Despite the differences in language, we had met many wonderful friends and passionate cheerleaders who are hungry for cheerleading knowledge, to become a better athlete or a bette coach. We would like to thank Hung and his team Sai Gon Beast Squad, and many other friends in Vietnam, for the kind hospitality during our stay there as well as giving us the opportunity to appreciate the cheerleading culture in Vietnam.

Till we meet again, take care, train hard and train safe everyone!

Visit our official website to find out more about us and the cheerleading performances that we have. Contact us now and let us bring the hype to your event!

Posted on

Wrapping Things Up In 2018

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:31-12-2018

December 2019 has been an eventful month for us as events were in high gear and so was our cheerleading performance. On top of that, the team was also busy preparing for Chingay 2019 rehearsals happening in January.

One of the key performances was the half-time show for the Delta League Finals by National Crime Prevention Council held at the Jalan Besar Stadium on the 22 December. It was a great night performing for the families and friends who were there to support the players and it was awesome to hear positive feedback from a satisfied client that the guests and themselves really enjoyed our performance.

What would the end of year be without a countdown party? We were exhilarated to be invited back to Our Tampines Hub on New Year’s Eve to perform for their Countdown 2019 celebration. The energy from the crowd was really awesome and it was a blast performing for everyone who was there to countdown to 2019 together with us! What a great way to wrap things up in 2018!

We are extremely thankful to all the wonderful opportunities that were given to us in the year 2018 and we are truly blessed to be able to work with such wonderful clients to bring a memorable cheerleading experience to their guests at their event. May 2019 bring more opportunities as we continue to provide exhilarating performances for our clients and guests to enjoy!

Visit our official website to find out more about us and the cheerleading performances that we have. Contact us now and let us bring the hype to your event!

Cheers!

Posted on

CheerForce Charity Christmas 2018

Author : CheerForce Singapore

Date:07-12-2018

Christmas is the season of giving and CheerForce came together as a team this December to give back to the community but with a twist. Instead of giving gifts this festive season, we decided as a team to give our blood.

Yes, that’s right. This year for CheerForce Charity Christmas 2018, we headed to the BloodBank @ Dhoby Ghaut to donate our blood. We got ourselves registered and found that we were given an organisation code ‘P0882’ to allow us to see how much blood has the organisation donated collectively to achieve milestones together.

It was a really stringent process where after registration, all of us had to go through screening by a professional to determine if we were suitable to donate blood. Once approved, we were directed to the blood donation area for the extraction of our blood into a blood bag.

Do you know that with every bag of blood donated, you can save up to 3 lives? The blood will be split into 3 components, the red blood cells, the plasma and the platelets, which is the reason why one bag of blood can saves up to 3 lives. It was a really fulfiling experience for the team knowing that we potenially saved up to 21 lives just on the day itself.

Although the number may be small, we got to start somewhere to amount to something big for the community. So join us in our efforts to give back to the community and save lives!

Visit our official website to find out more about us and the cheerleading performances that we have. Contact us now and let us bring the hype to your event!

Cheers!