Journal 1,2,3,4.

Angelica Faylogna

May 16, 2012

English: Project Icarus

From attending gymnastics classes for a few years, I have grown a passion into cheerleading. I started cheering only for the experience, never would I have thought it would be this important my life as it is today. To challenge myself, I am assigned to help choreograph the Sophomore class's end of the year leader. This is a big step for me because for cheer I am always learning dances, never do I ever have to make my own. To help me with this I am thinking of maybe talking to my coach, Travis Mukina and fellow teammates on advice to how I should put this together and maybe a few pointers on how to get me started. What I'm looking forward to this experience and hopefully getting answers to questions of, Am I good at what I do? or By what I do, am I able to show of it? Will I be able to make my own routine?, or Am I capable of doing what I do on my own? My intentions through this experience is to find a bigger picture as to why I do what I am passionate about. I guess for some people a sport comes natural to them, and for me I found myself interested, but basically will I be able to push myself to represent what I am able to come up with, what I am made of, and showing exactly what I can do to contribute.

Dance is an art. Some show their passion expressed in the way their body moves, others through being forced into learning how to. You can only call yourself a dancer if you absolutely love it. Anyone can move their body but not everyone can dance. Being able to move your body gracefully, on the right count and match the right move is a gift, not just memorizing the steps, but being able to feel it in your body. It's able to take over you, as if everything comes naturally, you don't need to try. It can come as an unexpected talent or one that you might have made, worked on, practiced until proven perfect. Dancing can be a statement. It can say a lot about a person, by the way they handle learning a dance, or how they dance, in variety of different styles. A young age I've had multiple minor experiences in jazz, hip-hop, or ballet. Although I've never stuck to a specific one and improved from there on, until I encountered it through cheer.
Not much people consider cheerleading a sport. Everyone thinks it consists of jumping, flipping and dancing. Little do they know how much effort it takes to make up a 2 minute routine. Perfecting it always the hardest. For everyone to be able to look as if the whole team is one form and it's movement to be a unison step. I myself did not think of it this way at first. MY passion started in the 8th grade after taking a few gymnastics classes. I attended once a week. From when high school started I went for it and attempted to try cheerleading because of its gymnastics background that tied into it. I wanted it for an experience, not knowing what to expect. Never would I have thought I would learn so much. How many new things I had to learn. What really challenged me was it's dancing portion. I was always so difficult for everyone to be on the same level, for everyone to match when doing a dance. People who were to watch us wouldn't think so, but it takes a lot of practice for everyone to get and and match each other. I always encounter problems where I would stick out from the formation cause I wouldn't be able to get a dance move right. That has always been a problem for me, I am so stiff when I dance. I can say I have improved a lot throughout the time I started. That is why I am looking forward to testing out the waters and actually taking a step further and branching out to trying to choreograph the class leader dance.
To come up with a dance is not the easiest thing. I haven't had that experience myself although I helped and seen how the production of it flows. In cheer each move has to be tight, by that meaning every move must be sharp in order for everyone to look the same, from that there are a lot of moves we have to reconsider to whether it is appropriate or not. From there every count must be occupied. Everyone has to move the same in order for the whole thing to flow, if one person forgets a step people might start colliding during transitions in the dance. In every 8 count we usually add in a ripple which seems to be the trickiest things because everyone is doing the same move but in different counts so it gets a little difficult to catch on and stay on your designated count without getting confused and following some in from of you. The dance are always at a fast pace. Cheer music is always that way. That is why is is really important to condition every so often to make sure we wont be too out of breathe in the whole routine because not only do we dance, we also have to do a cheer, maybe a chant or a motion sequence, a few jumps, transitions and tumbling. By still staying sharp, yelling from you diaphragm. Staying on count because if one person screws up so might another and there goes the whole team's score. For the littlest flaws is where judges dock off points. Everything has to flow and hit exactly, if it's not perfect it shows how much you actually practiced and the effort that was put in. Although i think the dance is one of the most important portions because that is where your team can be original, you won't see as much people with the same moves as you of the same cheer in it. That is something you can wow the judges with how you are able to use everyones skills and come up with something amazing, something that'll leave a statement or trademark to the crowd. For them to remember you as as a threat to any other team.
Although I previously mentioned asking Coach Travis to help me out, I honestly didn't think it would be appropriate around this time since cheer tryouts are happening during this week. I don't think he would be up to giving me an advantage because he did mention before the tryouts started that he would not be holding any private lessons. I know he's about as close to a professional to help me out with this project but I have found a bunch of people to help me with my project. All are from cheer, and some I've met through gymnastics, but I guess because I am focusing on my improvement on the dancing portion of my abilities, I asked mainly my two friends Marissa and Dajane who actually were in charge of coming up with all our dances to the routines we performed for competition season this year in cheer. They are really talented. I have known them for only a year but we are close. I trust them giving me constructive criticism.They will help me with the brainstorming portion of coming up with the choreography of our sophomore leader. We meet up almost everyday after school already for cheer practice so either during the beginning or end of practice is when I will ask them to give me some pointers about the whole dance I'm making, which would be probably a single 8 count routine and repeated steps, which should be simple. I also asked a few people to help me with a video I am planning to make into showing how I have improved and the steps we come up with in cheer, with that I have asked my friend Eryn for permission in borrowing some footage she actually filmed during our season this year. And Sierra to allow me a copy of a few clips she filmed of me whenever I improved during practice. I have also came across a few youtube tutorials and cheer techniques and dance moves involving the exact music we are using for the leader. I have specific links saved onto my computer.

In my many experiences of sports and clubs ranging from jazz, hip-hip, ballet, karate, and volleyball, there was never a real connection into it. I never had that itch to wanting to always be in practice or class trying to get better and improving on my skills. I never really felt dedicated to anything. Until I came along cheerleading is about the same time I started seeing my whole life differently. What started as just a good experience after attempting to expand my interest gymnastics, I found myself drawn to a new connection not only with the sports but also with each and every one of my team mates. We have that sort of bond with each other where we all think alike, our intentions of why were okay with giving up our weekends, after school, and summer. You become that into it, through the excitement of the crowd when you're on that cheer mat to the way we are constantly learning new things and improving. It not considered a routine but more of a skill to perfect and grow on from. I think that's what made it my passion that it is to me today. Why I absolutely hate the thought of the sacrifices I chose to make to participate, although I do it anyway because I could never imagine my life without it. It keeps me motivated to stay on top of grades, inspired to keep on improving, and the ambition to always staying positive no matter the circumstances. Project Icarus has inspired me to take it to the next level. What started as an experiment has become a growing interest in my life. The more and more I am eager to get better and master my skills. I think that's what made my project a lot more enjoyable to do, I was learning how to create my own self. There was no one for me to follow directions and orders from, It was all me calling the tricks and moves to play. I was the one not only in charge, but I was the one everyone had to look up to as the member who knew exactly what to do through having experience with this kind of work. It was fun to teach a few moves here and there little by little the dance would come together. I think the only regret I have to this experience was the poor convenience everyone had to participating. Not everyone could show up to be a part of it. Although I appreciated the effort of those who did manage to have some spare time to come out and help with the leader. It was a great experience, i felt like it gave me confidence to try and branch out a little bit further into choreographing other small jobs, or maybe another leader or music video sometime in the future.

In my impact activity, I am going to play a video I put together that features my skills and improvements Ive accomplished from almost the beginning of my cheer experience until today. I have footage on how our cheer team put together, practiced and perfected our routine for competitions and accomplished in getting a lot of winning including 4 first place and 1 second place awards. A few clips of my tumbling skills considering I started off not even knowing how to do a single round off to begin with, to the back handsprings, jumps and tricks I learned along the way. And most importantly I added in the leader seeing exactly what I came up with. I honestly can say its not that much, maybe a single 8 count dance moves, but it was something. As I said before, never had I made a routine on my own, which I think portrays a stepping stone I encountered in expanding my passion and talent. Im not too sure how long the video is at the moment, I estimate roughly about a minute 30 seconds because Im still looking around for more footage I might have taken throughout the season as well as talking to Marissa and Dajane again about any feedbacks they thought of about how I did choreographing the leader, and also if anyone else on the team happened to have taken a few videos of our improvements during the season. Although mainly, I intend on make the video directly on dancing. Depending what kind of footage I'm able to get, most likely I'll pick out only the dancing portions of our cheer competition routine. I'm thinking of creating the storyline into a timeline of our process on how exactly how we did it. Which is a bunch practicing to perfection. From the footage I already have, I trimmed a lot of it out because they were mostly of us having a good time and screwing up. But I do have enough to fill out the rest of the video with the leader, which I'm confident will be a really entertaining video. Can't wait to show it!