With 2016 coming to a close, the cheerdance community is gearing up for the much-anticipated UAAP Season 79 Cheerdance Competition (CDC). This year’s team to beat is the NU Pep Squad, who has successfully defended their title for three consecutive years. In this year’s competition, the DLSU Animo Squad is looking to come out strong with a podium finish after finishing last season in sixth place. Armed with a veteran team and a new game plan, the Animo Squad is ready to go, guns blazing.
Early preparations and strong starts
With the start of the K-12 curriculum, the Animo Squad expected the lack of rookies for this year. This has given the team the opportunity to prepare earlier than usual for this season’s cheerdance competition. As early as April, the team has been building and conditioning their older members, emerging with a more mature Animo Squad. In the previous years, rookies dominated the team, and this caused some difficulties, considering they were unable to perform the harder stunts and lacked experience.
“We started earlier, worked little by little so we didn’t have to cram everything by October or November. So longer preparation time, given that they are older, they are more mature,” Andro Garde, the Animo Squad’s head coach, explains.
Coming out of Season 78, the team has made a number of changes to their routine and in their system. With no rookies, this year’s competing team is made up of veteran cheerleaders, allowing them to execute harder stunts compared to the stunts in their previous performances.
At the same time, they have not deviated from focusing on their dance routine. Although they have ranked high with regard to stunts in years prior to Season 79, they consistently fail to finish at the podium. According to co-captain Rommel Gallardo, this can be attributed to their wrong “attack” on the routine, with them lacking in the dance portion, which constitutes 50 percent of the score.
“Consistently, we’re doing stunts na fit for a podium finish pero sa dance naman, sobrang baba hinahatak kami,” Gallardo explains, “Yun siguro yung pinakamalaking difference this year is that we added more dance.”
Struggles and obstacles
The lack of rookies alse seemed to be a hurdle in the team’s preparations. Since they were undermanned, responsibilities that were usually handed to the rookies fell back into the veterans’ hands. Garde states, “Every single duty, every single responsibility that the team had, they had to be the ones to do that. Games, halftimes [performances] for those games, practices, practice for the competition, everything fell unto them.”
Consequently, injuries, brought about by fatigue, began to affect the team and their progress was held back bit by bit. Despite the nagging injuries, however, they managed to cope and fully prepare for this year’s competition.
Although the Animo Squad’s opponents are always the biggest obstacles en route to the championship, the two captains shared their sentiments regarding the absence of a formidable opponent, the UP Pep Squad. Both captains share the same understanding and compassion for the UP Pep Squad as they are all members of the cheerleading community.
Gallardo shares, “I think it’s a good move for them since if they want to really prove themselves again, kailangan nila mag-rebuild and one process of rebuilding is disconnecting in order to connect more to their cheerleading community, so I think it’s okay. I hope they come back next year na.”
“I actually felt sad that they aren’t competing kasi syempre they’re one of the teams that people really look forward to watching,” Marj Mendoza adds. “I enjoy watching them, I love their performances and I just hope na sana next year, they’d come back.”
Aiming for a great finish
For this year’s edition of the UAAP CDC, the team aims to demonstrate their perfectly polished routine, perform their best, and have fun in the long run. “Expectation ko lang for the team is that they hit the routine perfectly. Perfectly like how we practiced for how many months now. Yung gusto ko when they step off the mats, wala silang pagsisisihan. Since this will be my last year playing for La Salle din and some are about to graduate na next year, gusto ko lang na iparamdam sa team na dun sa mga foregoing players, na we’re ready to give it all since it’s our last na talaga, wala nang balikan,” Gallardo remarks.
Garde admits that this team is now bolder and better in comparison to the previous teams that competed in the past CDC competitions. The team is more mature, and he fully expects that the squad will top their performance in last year’s cheerleading face-off. The team was not able to achieve a podium finish last year, but the squad’s head coach deems their chances in this season’s competition promising.
“If I’m gonna compare [the routine] to the previous years, it’s a lot better. If I were to rate it 1 to 10, on a good day, a nine. When our injuries affect us, we’re a seven. Average, a strong eight. Compared to the last two, three years, this is our best chance of getting back to the podium,” he says.
The team has been preparing their top notch routine even before the start of Season 79, pushing themselves to the limit in order to give DLSU a podium finish. The culmination of months of training, routine revisions, and unforeseen injuries will all be realized this weekend. With the competition getting tougher every year and their opponents equally eyeing the title, the team aims to hit the routine perfectly, and ultimately, to have fun. The Lasallian community, together with the friends, families, and supporters of the Animo Squad, will rally behind them as they compete in the UAAP Season 79 CDC this Saturday, November 19, at 2 pm at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
