Jump Landing Drill
Ages 6 and up · Flat grass or a mat, clear space; bare feet or supportive shoes
Cheer is a jumping sport, and jumping careers are protected by one unglamorous skill: the LANDING, trained on purpose. The stuck cheer landing (feet together, knees bending to absorb, chest up, arms finishing clean, motionless) is both the sport's aesthetic standard (routines are judged on it) and its knee insurance (absorbed landings spare joints that crashed ones spend), which makes landing-only practice the highest-value five minutes in a young cheerleader's week.
The drill isolates landings from jump difficulty: small jumps, graded entirely on the arrival, the absorb rehearsed until it is reflex, then carried as the non-negotiable standard into every toe touch and tuck the athlete ever throws. Quiet is the audible proof: stuck landings barely make a sound.
How to run it
- The absorb rehearsed without a jump: from tiptoes, dropping the heels and bending the knees into a soft quarter-squat, feet together, chest up, arms sweeping to clean (fists at hips). Five slow reps: this shape IS the landing.
- Small stick jumps: modest two-foot hops, landing in the rehearsed shape, FROZEN two counts, silent as possible. Eight reps, each graded aloud (feet together? knees bent? chest up? still?).
- Directional sticks: small hops forward, backward, and to each side, the same standard arriving from every direction. Eight reps.
- Turn sticks: quarter-turn hops landing stuck (the routine's reality: landings arrive mid-choreography, facing new walls). Six reps.
- The carryover set: three T-jumps (real approach, real height) where the landing is the ONLY graded element. Sessions end while landings are still crisp, always; decay ends the day by rule.
What to say
Common faults and fixes
Stiff-legged landings (the crash that shins and knees pay for).
The whisper standard makes it audible: loud landings are straight-knee landings. Back to the absorb rehearsal, then small jumps chasing silence; the bend is the whole shock system.
Feet apart or staggered at arrival.
The feet-kiss standard graded per rep at small heights: togetherness is trained where it is easy and inherited where it is hard. Chalk feet-marks give a target for the youngest.
The stumble-out (landings walked out of instead of stuck).
The two-count freeze as the rep's definition: a landing that moves is a landing that failed, cheerfully redone. Stillness under small wobbles is exactly the control being purchased.
Make it easier, make it harder
The absorb shape alone, tiny hops, no freezes for the youngest, celebration per quiet landing.
Sticks from bigger jumps (the carryover standard on toe touches and tucks); landing sequences on counts inside motion patterns; single-leg absorb work for older athletes; tumbling and stunt landings: gym-and-coach territory, on mats, with progressions, always.
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