A lot of people do not know that cheerleaders actually compete. We don't just stand there on the side lines and look pretty, we spend almost all of our practices perfecting our competition routine. In the New Hampshire high school level there are three classes that compete, I, M/S, and L. Class L is for the larger schools which my team has always been in, I is for the intermediate and M/S is for the smaller schools that are less populated.
A competition complete routine must include...
All of this is quite a bit and not to mention, must be fit into 2 minutes and 30 seconds or less! At a competition all girls must keep smiling, be sharp, and have a lot of attitude. Each team is scored out of 200 points. Routines must be original and complex and contain no safetys. A safety is an amount of points taken off a teams score, due to the fact that a stunt/jump/tumbling sequence is not allowed nor safe. This can really hurt a teams position because a lot of the time teams are neck in neck with their scores.