Blogger Jackson -Senior Year 2020

            Hi everyone! My name is Jackson Amirshahi. I am a senior from Grafton High School in Yorktown, Virginia. I started cheering in 8th grade, and cheered competitively the last 4 years on my high school team. In those years, I was able to win 4 consecutive Region titles, and 3 consecutive state titles! I ended my high school competitive cheer career with a Runner-Up finish at this last years 2019 state competition. During those years, I cheered at Fame Allstars on their Senior Half-Year team Victorious! I started all-star my sophomore year, and have continued since then! My first year on Victorious, we hit 0 at every competition and won U.S. Finals in 2018! Since then I’ve been able to fill in on their 2019 team, and more recently their 2020 team, as sort of the designated alternate teammate. Both teams have been super valuable to my growth as a cheerleader, and have prepared me to tryout for the VCU Cheer team hopefully in September when I attend college!

   

         Senior year for me, has been one for the books. I had loved everything about my team this past season, and had no regrets. Or as we say “I had left no doubt,” and kept with it the whole season. I was thankful that I had a great senior cheer season alongside someone of my best friends! I especially loved the bond with my best friend who cheered the previous year, because she went from being my teammate, to one of my biggest supporters. For the most part, our school year at Grafton had been great! Our season was phenomenal and we gave it our all! Unfortunately in February, we experienced an electrical fire, that left our school displaced and without a home. Because of this, we had to attend another high school in our county, and look towards going to get ANOTHER high school in our county to allot for the missed seat hours that were taken from all 3 schools due to fire at ours. Unfortunately, this left the rising competitive squad without a home. Thankfully, a rival team in our county opened their doors to our schools team, and allowed them to have an open gym together! But that wasn’t the end. You would think it is nice to adjust to new changes that all of sudden occur, but we were all then faced with the Corona Virus. Unfortunately, that leaves everyone out of school, all sports on hold, and senior seasons ended. For my Allstar team I had JUST GOT A SPOT ON, we had to postpone our practices, and of course follow Varsity’s guidelines in postponing the comps we had been preparing for. The weekend before we were out of school, I had just competed with my Allstar team, and we had secured a bid to U.S. Finals in May. We were all extolled and came to practice Monday ready to work hard and make upgrades. Unfortunately that hard work was put on pause.
   

     

        Sometimes you feel like an issue is only effecting you, when in some cases it is effecting the entire world around you. For me, not being able to go to school, and cheer is the hardest challenge I’ve faced. I have always loved school since my first day in kindergarten, and hearing from our Virginia Governor that school is not happening in person for the remainder of the year, hit me with a wave of sadness. With that meant that the team I was just getting to bond with, was not able to practice or compete until further notice. It is hard changing your schedule once again after you have just adjusted to a new one only a little over a month. It’s been a challenge for me, and so many of my senior friends. And I cannot even imagine what is like for seniors in high school, and college that don’t have the opportunity to play their sport in their final season. I was blessed that my High school cheer season was over, but it still hurt knowing my Allstar season was over, but not on our own terms. I know across our state Cave Spring High School’s boys varsity basketball team was crowned co-state champions with another school, but I understand the hurt they felt, knowing their season ended without them having a final game. It’s hard to fathom that my last time at school was a Thursday, and I thought I would be seeing my friends the following Tuesday, because of our modified schedule due to the fire. But it was really my last time in person as a Grafton student. I pray that this is over soon, and that we can all get back to the sports we love. I miss practicing with my team, and this break now has made me miss my high school competitive team more than ever, as they should be out working hard to comeback for a state title like we all know they can; but we are all limited now. It hurts, but I know everyone in this sport we love, and all other
sports cane bounce back, and we can soon show off that obstacles can’t defeat us, and we can all overcome whatever is in our way.

-Jackson

Cheer Mom Jessica- How is this outbreak affecting you?

Hello Guys!

       So I'm sitting here at home instead of traveling to see my friend's daughter compete this weekend and it really got me to thinking about what is going on in this world. The health of myself, my family, and everyone is and has to be my number one priority.  I think that a few weeks away from large crowds and gatherings will move this pandemic in the right direction. My hope  is that this illness will fade away and we can soon get back to our normal lives as busy cheer moms and cheer dads.
    Speaking of cheer, lets move into some more positive topics like cheer. How has this affected you and your family and the sports they play? feel free to reply below. I know that Varsity Brand has taken an unprecedented step in canceling or postponing all events  for the next 2 weeks. I know that it is inconvenient, but I do think it was a good step to help this country get rid of this illness. I also know there are alot of teams that are still pushing to get their bids for worlds and the Summit D1 & D2 and there were many bid events scheduled for the next 2 weekends. I am confident from what I'm reading and hearing that Varsity will do everything in their power to give those teams an opportunity to earn bids in the following weeks to make up for these postponed comps.  Although this is uncharted waters for us all, I dont think this is the end of the cheer and other competitive sports for the year, its just going to be a small hiccup in the road.

-Cheer Mom Jessica

NCA DALLAS-Blogger Travis 3/6/2020

3/6/2020

     I love my gym! One  example of why I love my gym is from what I saw this past weekend. This past weekend I went to NCA Dallas to support "Black Smack" our medium senior coed level 3 team and it really amazed me on how many people came from our gym to support Black Smack. This competition wasn't even very close to the location of our gym, but people were there to support them. Our gym is so close. We all know each other, we all hangout with each other, and we all get along. It's just amazing! 

 -Travis

Hey Guys and Dolls- Blogger Allie

Hey Guys and Dolls !!

It’s been an extra long month with three and a half hour long practices 5x times a week! 

But, it totally paid off because my Senior 3 team has finally got an At Large Bid for the Quest !!! That means all 4 of our teams are going to Disney !!!

This Bid means alot to us because it has been a very hard season for Sr3. Even though it's been tough, we completely shine on !!! What can I say but the performance rec senior 3 division, everyone is soooo talented ❤️ it’s incredible to watch the other teams this season, but the count down is on now. We have 18 more days until all these talented teams go down to Disney and show off what we have worked for all season long. The Quest !!!!

Welcome to our newest blogger Travis from Memphis Cheer!

Welcome to our newest blogger Travis  from Memphis Cheer!

Hello my name is Travis. I am on Memphis Cheer Blue Diamonds. It is a level 5 senior coed team out of Tennessee. I have been cheering for 6 years. During my 6 years I have been to The Summit and The D2 Summit.  I will be blogging this season about my experiences in cheer.

-Travis

   

Blogger Alexis- 2-5-2020

Hello my fellow cheerleading fanatics!

Again my name is Alexis Barkley and I cheer for Cheer Trixx Athletics near Blairsville Pennsylvania. I am writing today to give you an update on how much our gym has been slaying.

 In my last blog post I wrote how we were going to be traveling to Cleveland Ohio to compete at the CCC Double Down competition. Since then we have went on to compete at Americheer in Pittsburgh and Shout! in Slippery Rock. Below is a list all of our achievements from these three competitions. Our next couple adventures are CCC Red Hot at Slippery Rock, followed by American Masters in Buffalo New York, directly followed by Battle at the Capitol in Washington DC, and then a little break before we head off to THE ONE!

In my last blog I explained mainly who I am and who I cheer for. Today I want to take time to focus on what has happened since then. Our athletes have endured your typical cheer obstacles such as sickness, injuries, people quitting, and attitudes. The one thing that makes our gym so special is we do not let those obstacles get in our way. We have grown closer as a program and are learning more and more everyday the importance of coming to the gym and blocking out the outside world out.

Since my last post my team (in particular) has received an IN BID and a full paid bid to The Big Apple. We are aiming to  earn as many bids as we can and make this year one to remember. We have also planned many team bonding and gym bonding activities such as a mini New Years Party. Soon, we plan to have a Daddy/Daughter Dance and much more  before this season quickly approaches the end. 

Our Season:

Double Down 

Junior 2- Second Place

Junior 4 / Senior Open 4- First Place

Junior 2- Highest Routine Composition Score

Americheer

Junior 2, Junior 4, Senior Open 4-First Place

Senior 4 Open- Grand Champion and International Bid Winner

Entire Cheer Trixx Gym- Show Your Spirit Award

Shout!

Tiny- Excellence Rating

Mini- First Place

Junior 2- First Place

Junior 4- Hit Zero Performance

Senior 4 Open- First Place

Jackpot- Hit Zero Performance

- Specialty Awards -

Junior 2- Level 2 Champions (highest score of all level 2 teams)

Junior 2- Highest Score of the Entire Competition (Grand Champion)

Junior 2- Paid Bid to The Big Apple

Junior 4- Best Tumbling

Junior 4- Partial Paid Bid to The Big Apple

Senior 4 Open- Best Stunts

Senior 4 Open- Level 4 Champions (highest score of all level 4 teams)

Senior 4 Open- Paid Bid to The Big Apple

Jackpot- Star of the Show

A Cheer Dad's Perspective- 1-7-2020

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!

As the new year has come I cannot help but think of all the things we accomplished in the year of 2019. It was a big year for us at Cheer Trixx. We moved into a nice space where we can grow and expand. It has been an amazing ride and it has me wanting more. Honestly I have been watching cheer videos all off season. I have been learning more terms and digging into the rules more and more. I even toyed with the idea of joining an open team (I did not for reasons. Maybe next year). I have really become more and more engaged in this life of cheer. I can’t think of anything I’d rather spend time on at this point. Like I’ve caught myself watching cheer videos during my free time at work. When I look back at when I first started watching cheer and going to competitions to now I have truly fallen in love with this sport. I wear my cheer jacket to work and if I could fit my daughter’s national championship jackets I would wear them too. No I’m joking but I am really proud of my gym and my athletes. The coaches at Cheer Trixx are some of the best coaches around and it makes me happy to see the impact they have on my children but all the athletes at the gym.

So it’s 2020 and Cheer Trixx is looking stronger than ever am truly excited about what we have going on and I love we are doing things we haven’t done before and pushing our limits. All the new skills and all the new levels are amazing and I know we as a gym are destine for greatness. I made a hype video a few months back and it started as this little project then it became this huge video that brought out so much emotion. I am proud to be involved with an organization that give major family vibes. I’ve opened up and found my place. I couldn’t see myself or my children anywhere else because the coaches, owners, and other athletes have given us so much and have done so much for us and we are thankful. I know I haven’t done much writing over the last year, I was doing some soul searching. But I will be updating regularly because why not blog and talk about something I love this much! This isn’t just a sport it’s a lifestyle and I love this lifestyle!

Charles Michael