Short skirts, loud voices, and tons of energy; that’s what most high school students define as a typical cheerleader. Most of the teenagers in the world will have this opinion. Although cheerleading is formally deemed not a sport, it is actually one of the most demanding sports out there.The average cheerleader practices about 6-8 hours a week. Some teams practice about 10-12 hours a week, and that’s not even counting competitions. Now that’s what I call dedication. If you look up the definition of a sport in the dictionary, it will tell you that a sport is a “physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively”. But what it doesn’t include is the teamwork, necessary for any sport. Cheerleading isn’t considered a sport because High school cheer, by definition thier main objective is to cheer on other teams in their own sports. But there is so much more to what they do than just providing school spirit. There is trust, teamwork, and family that really isn’t there as much in any other sport you will find. A cheerleader is someone you really have to depend on. There is a trust there that is not easily broken, as with a dedication to your team. And with that dedication comes practice and hard work. Lots and lots of it. Along with competitions come rules, and with cheerleading there is a lot of them. According to the National Cheerleading Association(NCA), there are six categories in which each team is judged; technique, stability of stunts/strength, choreography/flow of routine, degree of difficulty, perfection of routine, and overall impression. If a stunt moves, or the flyer wobbles a little bit, it’s considered a “bobble”, and results in a .5 deduction from each of the (on average) six judges. If anything is left on the competition floor after the allotted time for the cheer is done, that’s another .5 deduction. If the music ends before you do? Deduction. If you’re