Ashley Yoder, a new cheerleader for the Hamilton Southeastern Royals basketball varsity cheer team has an interesting story in her sport. Ashley, a gymnast for most of her life, transitioned to cheering just this year.
Ashley says, “I always wanted to do a school sport and since gymnastics wasn’t offered at HSE I decided to try something new.”
As Ashley still continues to compete in gymnastics, she wasn’t able to do competitive cheer. Because of this, she decided to do basketball cheer. “The tumbling aspect is very similar in both gymnastics and cheer,” Ashley says. She touches on the fact that tumbling in shoes as a gymnast was weird at first, but she’s gotten used to it.
Gymnastics, being very similar to cheer uses some of the same techniques and skills, but Ashley also noticed some of the same muscles are translated from gymnastics to cheerleading.
She says, “The same muscles you use on bars translate to the muscles that you use while stunting.” Because Ashley still continues both sports, her skills are building even faster, which is very beneficial as she will continue to cheer in college.
Gymnastics, being very time consuming, helps translate to balancing cheer, school, and other activities. Ashley says, “most of the time I was going 18-20 hours a week, so I got very good time management.”
She has learned very well how not to procrastinate while also taking breaks when studying or if she’s trying to memorize a chant.
When asked about the comradery of the team and the team dynamic Ashley highlights the fact that “The team is amazing, everyone is super nice.” She thinks that since everyone is so nice and welcoming it helps the team to be successful as a whole. “It makes it easier to bond with teammates and talk to each other” is what Ashley says.
Ashley’s first year of cheering so far has gone “really great!” she explains. She points out how welcoming her coaches and teammates are. She also says how “I love stunting and cheering at games!” As the season continues Ashley continues to learn more about her teammates, and to enjoy her senior year, experiencing new things.
Ashley decided to take her talents to college after this year. She’s always known she wanted to do sports in college, and she realized that she was getting very burnt out of gymnastics after doing it for so many years. “I really like cheer, so I decided I want to keep doing it” Ashley says.
She visited Taylor University and after meeting the coach, she knew that’s exactly where she wanted to go following this year. She liked Taylor as “everyone was so welcoming and made me feel at home” She exclaims with passion!
As the 2024/25 basketball cheer season continues, Ashley looks forward to closing out her senior season strong. Although Ashley had only been a gymnast her whole life, she decided to take on cheerleading for the first time, and her choice has turned out for the better.
