The Cheer Coach

Recently we held our first skills clinic and we were pretty pleased with how it went! I have several articles about the clinic so be sure to read through everything for more detailed information.  Not sure what a skills clinic is? Start with our article describing what it is and how your team may benefit from it. Then you can come back to this article to start diving into the details.  "The Cheer Coach is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Thank you for your support!” SETTING UP YOUR SKILLS CLINIC Select a date: Dates are so important! Pay attention to your school's calendar to see when is the best time to hold your clinic and consider when your special guests might have availability. We chose the end of February for a couple of reasons. 1. It is about a month before our tryouts 2. We were able to squeeze it in at the end of the winter season before spring sports officially kick-off. How long will your skills clin...

Sometimes I have okay ideas, but every once in a while I have a really great idea. That's exactly what happened when I thought of holding a cheer skills clinic at our high school. It may not be a new concept to you and you may have been doing it for years (if you have I would love to hear from you), but it was a new initiative for us and it was successful enough that I wanted to share. Who knows maybe you will want to add a similar clinic to your annual lineup.  Here's the general idea... Hold a skills clinic for any interested athletes (no experience necessary) Charge a small cover charge to add funds to your program Invite some special guests to really spice things up End the clinic with a mock tryout Why a skills clinic? Find new athletes. Take time to dive deep into each skill and tips to help overall cheer performance. Give athletes direct feedback and time to improve before tryouts. See who is dedicated and always wants to improve. Raise extra funds. Who should be invite...

Why do some of the most basic skills get placed on a shelf sometimes? A question every coach asks and often is a source of frustration when you have to circle back around to things that should be second nature to most cheerleaders by the time they're in high school, Regardless, going over the basic skills is still a necessity at any level. Plus, have you ever found yourself in the midst of the season realizing that you wished you had more time to go over the small details that your cheerleaders can work on at home to improve on their own?   If you've been reading about our cheerleading skills clinic or how to get started, you might be realizing that a pre-season clinic can do lots of things from attracting new talent to diving deeper into the skills that make a good all-around cheerleader.  Here are the subjects that we covered in our cheerleading skills clinic. You can use this as a starting point to set up your clinic agenda. Remember to check our site regularly becau...