This term the Bullets worked extremely hard to perfect our routine for two national university competitions! Our first competition was the BCA university nationals, on the 12th March at Derby Arena. With only a few weeks to learn a routine, perfect it and even having to swap out a team member in the week of the competition due to an injury, we managed to pull it off! None of our team have ever been to a University Nationals competition and so it was a real eye opener to watch other teams perform as well as being a part of the Bullets who have encouraged one another from the moment we began learning the routine, to the moment we stepped out on the competition floor. We placed 13th with a score of 66.00 however, we had no deductions and had the most amazing experience together! We had one more training session in the gym after this competition before our next competition with Legacy at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham on the 18th March. We worked together to go over the judges’ comments and scores for each section of the routine, so we knew which sections to focus on and improve our scores. With a 4am wake up and 8:26am performance some of us weren’t very awake when we arrived! But, after some encouraging team talks and support from each team member, we took to the floor again and secured 5th place with an amazing score 85.42!
This was our first time competing at level 2 and so learning new stunts, changing stunt groups and introducing cheer for the first time to some of our members has been such an enjoyable experience even if at first we didn’t think we would reach this level. We could not have done this without Roxy and Paige from First Class Athletics, so thank you so much for choreographing our routine, coaching us and motivating us all throughout! Also, a massive thank you to our Sports Coordinator Sarah Ruff for helping to organise and making it possible for us to compete again this year as well as coming to the competitions to supports us all.
Despite the intensity of training this term, I am so proud of the Bullets’ efforts and attitudes this term even through the 4-hour training sessions. Socials this term have been more difficult with the extra training sessions being in place each week however we hosted a social where we glued our rhinestones to our uniforms with some snacks and got to have a couple of hours to chill with each other and we also went out for a group lunch after our second competition to celebrate our success over the last two weekends. Some of the team were also able to go to a trampoline park at the end of term which was so nice to just be able to have fun and unwind. Next term we will be focussing on organising more socials with the team so we can have some fun outside of the gym and hopefully we will be able to work towards another competition to further improve our routine and learn even more new skills!
Well done again Bullets for all your hard work this term! I’m super proud!
Chloe Swanton, Cheerleading Club President