Cheerleading. *549*

Have you ever watched a cheer competition? Have you ever seen a cheer practice? Many people do not consider cheerleading a sport, but then do not realize the strength, dedication, and pain that goes in to making it look like the girls are just cute items in midriffs and skirts.
There are quite a few ways to get hurt performing in this sport. The minor injuries are things like spraining, rolling, fracturing, and even breaking your extremities. Also concussions are occur quite often. Moving up the scale, there are some more serious injuries such as, breaking your hips, skull fractures, cervical spine injuries, brain damage, and even death. It is pretty obvious that a lot of people who do not do cheerleading, that don't understand, hell, sometimes the girls doing breaking themselves question if putting their body through the pain is worth it.
But is cheerleading hurting girls more than just physically? It can go both ways. I will argue both sides even. When looking at the issue, people have to keep and open mind over it.
YES- I think cheer does hurt girls more than just physically, and not even just the girls in cheer. An example being that, if you look at movies and tv shows, they have set the bar of the stereo typical cheerleader. Stereo typical cheerleader being, dumb, rich, mean, unreachable beauty and popularity and many more ideas just like that, that is not true though. Yes, there are some girls like that, but that is just it that's SOME GIRLS, that is not ALL and that is not CHEERLEADER. Another example from personal experience would be myself. When I was in middle school, social media, and other girls made me believe those things. They also made me believe I wasn't good enough to be a cheerleader. Once again not true. While that did hurt, it made me better, which leads me into my next argument.
NO- Cheerleading is the type of sport that pushes you in every direction, whether it be physical, mental, your endurance level, your teamwork, even your leadership. Being a cheerleader is not about the show, it's about bettering yourself and keeping that spirit alive. Cheer does hurt you, but from that pain it makes you a better cheerleader AND a better person. Once again I will go back to a personal experience, cheer for me made me stay in school and do better in school, and that is true for a lot of girls, just like any sport. If your grades aren't good, you can't do your sport. Cheer is the one thing I am good at that keeps me going. Cheerleading is my life. The same is to say for most other cheerleaders out there.
It isn't just a sport. It is a lifestyle. It is a aspiration. It is a goal. As a cheerleader, you see other cheerleaders that push you more than yourself, or your coach. Other girls make you do it for the "Wow" and the "I can't believe you can pull that, teach me." Seeing others make you more dedicated to improve and aim high for that perfect toe-touch or hitting your extension. Cheerleading hurts for a little bit but the pay off, for girls like me, is more than most people would understand.