Meet Me At The Mat

Chapter 2

The video is of what Liz looks like at practice. The picture is of  her practice wear.

We pull up at the gym. I grab my cheer bag and hop out.  I walk into the gym. I put my bag down with the others and change into my cheer shoes. I plug my phone into the portable charger I keep in my bag.

"Green Lasers ten laps!"Coach James shouts.

I go to the open floor and run. After we run we sit and stretch for five minutes.

"We are going to work on the stunts first today." Coach Jessie says.

We brake into stunt groups. My group is Grace Whitley the flier, Kacey Burns the back-spot, Colton Spears one of the bases, and me the other base. Colton and Kyle are the only boys on the team.

"Work on the stunts we will come give pointers."

We start with just her standing. Colton bends down and Grace puts her foot in his hand. As the come up she puts her foot in my hand and I wrap my left hand around her toes and my right around her heal. We lift her up to the point where our hand are right below our chin. We then cradle her by shrugging our shoulder and throwing her. We also do half up to extended one lag stunt, full around at prep level , release move to superman, body positions at extended level, Tick Tock, full to prep, Vault twist and no twist.  We work dismounts also. We do full down from extension and cradle from single leg stunt. Next we do  pike arch and single twisting tosses.

"We have been at this for 15 minutes." Kacey says.

"Let's move to tumbling." Coach James says.

We work on our cross tumbling and the other tumbling elements.  We do back walkovers and handsprings. We do front walkover round-off back handsprings and other combinations. We also work on new skills. I love this because I have half the skills needed to move up a level.

"Water brake after that we will  fullout!" Coach Jessie shouts.

A fullout is when we run through the whole routine with the music. It is like a scrimmage. There is a joke that there aren't any smiles in :F :U :L :L :O :U :T.

"I hate fullouts." Colton says as we head back to the floor.

"I know but they make us better." I say.

"They make me want to die." Grace says.

We take our positions and wait for the music to start. As soon as the music starts I lose my self to the routine.

"You weren't on count." Coach James says.

"Your tumbling was sloppy. Do it again." Coach Jessie says.

Coach Jessie was on a worlds team and Coach James was on senior 5 but never went to worlds. They are really good. Coach James' wife is the coach of  one of the hip-hop teams at our gym. She is also our choreographer.

We fullout again but our stunts we sloppy so we do it one more time. We end up doing fullout 2 more times after one more time. Bye the time practice is over I want to die.

"Hey are you still riding with me and Ally to the comp this weekend." Colton asks.

"Yeah, What time are you picking me up?" I say.

"We have to be there at 10:15 for Ally so 9:10."

"Ok"

I get in my mom's car and we head home. She turn on the radio and I turn on my phone.

Ally is Colton's sister. She is on the Junior 2 team, Emerald Explosion. She is 9. She is a mini me. She has light brown hair and blue eyes. She is strong from all the conditioning she has done. She is smart and funny. She wants to go to world's one day. She is a flier. She is an amazing cheerleader. She started cheer at age 7 but did gymnastics for 3 years before switching to cheer. 

Colton is my friend. He is about 5'9. He has dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He started cheer with his sister because he didn't play a sport. He is 15 like me. He is strong, smart, silly, and sarcastic. He and Kyle are friends. Since I can also be back-spot, we sometimes make a stunt group.

Kyle is the brother of Ally's BFF, Eden. They live like 5 minutes away from each other. He is the other boy on our team. He is a base. He has brown hair and is like 5'10. He is 14. He is cute and constantly reminds us of that. That is why we don't take him to comps.

Eden is 9. She is Ally's friend. She is also on Emerald Explosion. She has dirty blonde hair. She is also a flier.They meet at Ally's first cheer practice and have been since then.

By the way a comp is a competition.

We arrive at home. I trow my cheer bag down and run upstairs to shower. After I shower I put on my pajamas and go to bed.

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