watching cheerleading videos to study how cheerleaders actually work their bodies when doing stunts (squad routines, elevator preps, flyer-base stunts) and my goodness..........

so like ik that cheerleading stuff isn't what mpgis actually focuses (they keep making fun of the fact that it's not a "real sport" and that they mostly just spell things with their hands and i mean, stop-motion animating barbies doing fucking backflips and cupies would be unbelievably hard to animate!!!!) but like now im really leaning into what their actual dynamic would be when they;re actually doing cheer practice

like obv mackenzie is the top of the pyramid so she'd be the flyer (she's the person who'd be in the air the most in a stunt) as she doesnt want to be anything less than the main attraction of the routine. her being dextrous and laser-focused on whatever she does (bitching people out or cheerleading) is already a given, but also she probs have the best balance out of all the girls and with a strong enough base, can do a successful cupie at her age. Her core strength would be INSANE and honestly, yeah she deserves to have abs

Brittnay is obvs strong asf, so i imagine she'd be a really strong base??? but also she's like flexible (she literally does splits on the ep she's introduced) and the fact she's in control of the microphone and the brawns of the squad, has the biggest stamina of them all. Acrobaddie who could do backbends for days but just doesnt wanna do it. i like to imagine that she's down to be base for mackenzie and can do partner stunts with her, but when the situation calls for it, she's an amazing flyer.

i also often hc Trisha being ditzy but actually one of the more graceful people of their teammates. ofc it's because i hc her as being tall and slim (second tallest to shay), and though not as powerful as brittnay or as focused as mack, i would imagine her to be the most dextrous of them when she's in practice. So altho at first you'd think she wouldn't be a good spotter, she'd have probably caught mackenzie from the air more than brittnay does. even if she can't swim, Trisha would have good body coordination and can do cartwheels from cheer practice.

Shay would obvs be a really good flyer, and altho she's tall, she'd probably be light enough to lift in the air like mackenzie (47KG!!???!!?!) and has learnt a lot from cameron's stunts (tho i dont think cameron was much of a healthy influence when it comes to cheerleading and body image sorry). but she probably hasnt practiced cheerleading as much as the cheer squad has when she joined, so she probably isn't as body-coordinated as the rest and 5 times out of 10 can't stick the landing from the air because of how vertically tall she is (possibly kicked the squad in the neck and face more times from practice than she admits due to how long her legs are). however, she's extremely observant and is equal to trisha when it comes to being an effective base. from s3 we can obviously infer that Shay has really good and sound judgment, and in contrast to mackenzie and brittnay's hotheadedness, her demeanor is cool and level-headed. so her delegations as cheersquad captain would be pretty reasonable (if her ego doesn't get in the way). so she would be a really good coordinator when coming up with routines i imagine, and secretly lets mack have top spot in the pyramid and be responsible for most of the air stunts since she internally knows she cant catch up with mackenzie's athleticness by this point

ANYWAYS that's what ive thought of so far, watch @/Its.ccaylee, @/danielbuyeskeon on youtube, and read a bunch of cheerleading information on google to see where tf the brainworms are coming from

people keep stereotyping cheerleading like theyre for meanly competitive people(and thats prolly true at some capacity idk im very not athletic so idk much dont take anything abt this seriously) but it really opened my eyes on how physically demanding it is and now i can fully appreciate what type of gymnastics actually goes into these stunts like WOW