VJ Knights: My Cheerleading Experience

Posted on July 25, 2014 By Johnson Khoo

Honestly, I never thought I would ever be part of a cheerleading team. However, during junior college, I ended up being part of the pioneer batch of cheerleaders for Victoria Junior College. It was an amazing experience where I discovered the joy of coming together with a bunch of passionate people and creating something from nothing.

I am, till this day, extremely proud that our team – VJ Knights, went from non-existent the year before to becoming champions of the Singapore Kindness Festival Cheerleading Competition for the open stunting category in its debut year.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

VJC had always had inter-house cheerleading during sports day, but we never had a professional school team. It all started when a few of us who joined the inter-housing cheerleading competition had so much fun that we thought hey why don’t we start a school team, and we did!

THE JOURNEY

It was really hard at first, as the school wasn’t entirely supportive of it because of the injury risks it involved, plus they also din’t really like a sport where there was going to be close contact between guys and girls.

In the beginning, there weren’t any proper safety mats, so we had to lug the extremely heavy judo mats from one end of the school at the judo store room to our training area and back every training session. Furthermore, we also did not have a designated training area or a room because we were a new club, and they were also reluctant to consider us a sport.

For those of you who are doubtful about whether cheerleading is a sport, let me re-assure you that having to execute many stunts in quick succession with precision while cheering at the top of your voice in an intense 5 – 15 mins routine can require more stamina and energy than playing certain sports.

I still remember having to fork out money from our own pockets to hire professional coaches, the “secret” training sessions by the seaside and on Sundays at a venue with proper safety mats without the school’s knowledge, the bruises and injuries we all suffered, the long and almost daily training sessions.

Having to put in so much effort while juggling between symphonic band and other activities wasn’t easy, but it was all worth it in the end when we emerged champions on our debut year.

Here are some of the memories. Enjoy!