Marvelous Murphy Moments: HMS Cheer Tryouts

A few weeks ago, Peyton informed me that the "cheer meeting" was next Wednesday...WHAT? What cheer meeting? Apparently, my daughter wanted to try out for the 7th grade cheer squad.

She'd mentioned it when we saw the cheerleaders at her brother's football games and she'd been to a couple of cheer clinics - little one-day things where she learned a cheer and got a t-shirt. I'd even planned on putting her into some kind of acro or cheer camp this summer. But because cheer is a class period instead of the regular before- or after-school athletics, try outs happen in March.

Off we went to United Cheer for lessons - 2 months in a class and 4 private lessons to work on jumps. She did really well. Got her back handspring on the bubble and the trampoline the very first night. Getting it on the floor was another thing. She has it, but it's not second nature yet.

Peyton is a dancer. She has a dancer's posture and a dancer's body. She is MUCH more flexible that the girls at United. Her back bends in a way that makes it tough to do a back handspring correctly. She jumps all the way around in a circle instead of just back to the floor and over. It was a battle.

But she worked hard. She was determined and she was brave at tryouts. I don't have any pictures from tryouts because they were closed.

Here she is heading off for the first day of tryouts...

And here she is after the second day of tryouts with her friend heading into a tumbling class at United

Tryouts were Tuesday and Wednesday and the list would be posted on Friday at 4pm. It was the longest couple of days I can remember. I felt pretty sure she made it. There were 23 girls who tried out and they didn't have a set number they were selecting.

There were 11 acro girls - could do back handsprings, back tucks, back layouts, arials - all of it. There were 11 girls who couldn't do much more than a cartwheel. And then there was Peyton. She can do a great running round off and she can land her standing back handspring about half the time. She landed it on the second day of tryouts. She was right in the middle with a strong dance background. She had also worked really hard at her jumps which really helped her scores.

So we waited...well, she waited. I checked the website every 15 minutes until I saw the list. And she made it. I picked her up from school and we were going to head home, pick up her brother and then go check the list. But she couldn't wait. She asked to see my phone so she could check the web site and saw that she made it! One of 17 selected for the squad!