Trinity Lutheran puts on fun week at cheer camp

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Seymour area girls and boys who wanted to learn about cheerleading had that opportunity when they attended a camp at Trinity Lutheran High School.

The campers were divided into two age groups, and 35 girls and boys in kindergarten through fourth grade attended one session, while six girls in grades 5-8 attended another session.

Brooke Plummer, a former Seymour High School cheerleader, said they taught younger kids the basics of tumbling.

“We use our cheerleaders to get them in some stunts back there so they can do a little more advanced skills and be in the air. They always love doing that,” she said. “We also taught three of our sideline cheers that we actually do. They learned three sideline cheers at the camp and a small dance.”

The camp was held for four days last week.

“We aren’t doing any competition, but what we did on the fourth day when parents came to pick them up, they arrived 30 minutes early and we had them do a little showcase of everything they learned,” Plummer said. “The parents got to see the cheers they learned, the tumbling they learned and some of the stunts.”

One of the Trinity varsity cheerleaders helping at the camp was Ally Russell, who will be a senior at the school this fall. She has been cheering since she was in fifth grade at Immanuel Lutheran School.

Russell said she likes working with the younger girls at the camp.

“I like to get to know them a lot better,” she said. “Some of them are here from previous years. I like to connect with them and show them the basics of cheerleading and hope that when they get older that they want to come to Trinity and cheer with us because we can always use cheerleaders, and a lot of them have very different abilities of being flexible, of flying and being loud.”

The camp provided an opportunity for the entire Trinity cheerleading scene to get together at once, which pays dividends come season.

“We all get to bond together, as well, and see who can do what, like tumbling, basing, back-spotting, because these are littler people, so when we have to cheer at basketball games and stuff, we know what they can do so we can put them into positions that they really need to be in,” Russell said.

For the older kids, Plummer said they taught more advanced skills.

“When it comes to the cheers, we actually teach them sideline sets. Our Trinity cheerleaders work with those same motions,” she said. “We teach them the same actual cheers that we put on. We teach them a dance, as well, that is a little more advanced.”

They also work on the basics of stunting.

“So any position they want to try, we’ll fill in with our cheerleaders to be safe, but we will actually teach them counts and procedures and how we do everything, and the same with tumbling,” Plummer said. “We’ll teach them exactly how to tumble, and we’ll work on skills. A lot of those girls already have some skills mastered, so then we’ll just work on improving and advancing their skills and give them good tips and tricks to bring back to their home schools.”

Emma Mellencamp was among the camp attendees. She was a cheerleader at Immanuel last year and is going into sixth grade.

“I’ve learned a couple new tricks with tumbling, and we’ve learned a couple new dances and sideline cheers, and it was really fun,” she said. “I enjoy being able to yell as much as I want, and I still get to do all the tricks and show off and do dances. I get to do a ton of different stuff.”

She plays basketball and volleyball at Immanuel in addition to being a cheerleader. Mellencamp also attended two volleyball camps and a basketball camp, went to Camp Lakeview for a week and also plays tennis.

Plummer said camp was a fun week for everyone.

“It’s a fun week for our cheerleaders, as well,” she said. “It’s nice and early in the summer. so for our new freshmen girls, it’s a good refresher, and it’s a good learning experience for them, too, whenever we’re teaching those cheers and motions and everything like that. It’s a good fundraiser for us, too.”

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