Aubrey Lineal

A picture of Morgan Carlson, on the left, who is a senior and cheers on the Rocky Mountain Varsity cheer team with Chelsea Oxsen on the right. In this picture they are at the Rocky homecoming game.

Do you ever go to a football game and wonder what goes on behind the scenes of a cheerleader and all the difficulties? Well, I’ll tell you about the cheerleader Chelsea Oxsen and all the positives and negatives of being a cheerleader. Chelsea is a freshman on the junior varsity cheerleading team for Rocky Mountain Highschool. She has been cheering since 8^th grade and was introduced and convinced to cheerlead by her now teammate Aubrey Lineal. Chelsea practices and does tumbling 6 hours a week at Rocky Mountain Highschool and Elevation Athletics.

Chelsea states, “Balancing home, school and cheer life is easy for me. The rocky coach Ali Marsden understands that the girls have school as well as practice”. Chelsea feels that the coach makes sure they don’t feel stressed when it comes to balancing school and cheer. They were supposed to have practice on the day of homecoming, but the coaches knew that homecoming was something all the girls wanted to do and had time to get ready for, so they decided to cancel practice to make sure they all felt satisfied and happy.

Chelseas says the hardest thing for her to overcome in her cheerleading career was how hard it was to start cheer later compared to a lot of other girls. She started cheerleading in 8^th grade while most girls started in 6^th. This made it hard because she felt behind and had to figure out how to learn everything quicker than the others. She had to practice often and try her best to keep up. Even though it’s hard she doesn’t feel behind and feels super happy with the spot she is at now and how far she has come.

Cheer has helped Chelsea grow so many so many relationships with others. It has helped her connect and meet many new amazing people. It has also allowed her to create friendships with people from other grades and get a lot closer with upperclassmen. Chelsea explains, “Cheer has helped me form relationships as close as a sisterly bond to so many people”. This explains how close she really has gotten to these people. Especially when they do things like team bonding or team retreats, it can help her feel even closer with her team. Cheer has helped her expand her friend group and made her feel like she always has someone to talk to or be with wherever she goes.

Although cheerleading is great it has caused some negative aspects in her life. She feels as though it has left a negative effect on her body, and she often feels sore. Cheer is a hard sport and creates a lot of hard work for your body. It can cause you to overwork yourself and push your body past its limits. You must be careful and make sure you know what you’re doing so you don’t get hurt or injured. She feels that at times cheer can be super tiring and can leave her feeling exhausted. Chelsea says, “At times it can cause bad mental blocks and can be hard on your mental health”. Which can help us understand how it can really affect you sometimes. Or on tough days when she’s not feeling the best or not stunting as well, she finds It super frustrating and upsetting when she doesn’t feel like she’s doing the best she can.

Even though cheer can be hard at times it still leaves many positive effects on your life. Chelsea feels that she has created so many new relationships. Starting cheer has given her something she feels passionate about and loves to do. She thinks it’s the cutest and most heartwarming thing when she is at football games and little girls run up to her team saying how they want to be like her when they are older which is definitely something that can make her all her hard cheerleading work all feel worth it.