Base, dip, full-out? The cheer ABC breaks down every key term in plain language before you hit it in our guides and lose the thread.
## Introduction What do "base," "dip," or "full-out" actually mean? If you keep tripping over words like high-V, backspot, or round-off in the cheerleading guides, you're in good company — cheer has its own language, grown out of gymnastics, dance, and its own level system. The good news: the vocabulary fits on two hands once someone explains it plainly. That's exactly what this guide is — your reference for every term (Fachbegriff) in our cheerleading guides, grouped by topic and explained like a teammate would, not a dictionary. Read it once, and the rest of your cheer journey stops tripping you up.
Everything in cheer is built from four elements. Know these, and every other guide makes sense right away.
Stunt (Stunt): A lift where one person (the flyer) is raised and held up by one or more people (the bases). Picture a human statue held up from below.
Pyramid (Pyramide): Several connected stunts where flyers support or touch each other. Think of a house of cards made of people — if one part wobbles, everything wobbles.
Tumbling (Tumbling): Floor acrobatics done without a partner's help — rolls, cartwheels, round-offs, back handsprings, saltos. The gymnastics side of cheer, performed solo on the ground.
Jump (Jump): A jump with extended legs held in a specific shape, like a toe touch or a hurdler. Unlike tumbling, you stay upright in the air.
Base (Base): The person (or people) on the ground who lift, hold, and set the flyer back down. Needs mostly leg and core strength — like the person carrying the heavy end of a couch.
Flyer (Flyer): The person held up top in the stunt. Doesn't need bulk, but does need maximum body tension and balance — like a diver who keeps their line even mid-air.
Backspot / Spotter (Backspot/Spotter): The person behind the stunt who protects the flyer's head and neck and helps control the timing. The spotter isn't a bystander — they're the team's insurance policy.
Count (Count): The 8-count ("1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8") that times every movement in cheer. Without a shared count, nothing in a stunt stays synchronized.
Motion (Motion): A straight, sharply stopped arm position — the alphabet of cheer that every choreography is built from. The best-known ones are high-V (arms angled up in a V), low-V (arms angled down), T (arms straight out to the sides), clean (arms tight at the sides), and touchdown (arms straight up, like a football referee's signal). The difference between a sloppy and a sharp motion isn't strength — it's end-position tension.
Hollow-body position (Hollow-Body-Position): A full-body tension hold on your back — shoulder blades and legs lifted slightly, lower back pressed flat into the floor. It trains the tension that makes a flyer "tight," stable, and easy to balance. Think stiff board, not floppy towel.
A stunt runs through clear phases — know the terms, and any instruction makes sense.
Load-in (Load-in): The moment base and flyer get into starting position before the stunt begins.
Dip (Dip): The synchronized leg pre-load of bases and flyer right before pressing up, similar to bending your knees before a jump. Without a synchronized dip, the force transfer breaks down and the stunt "dies," as cheer slang puts it.
Extension (Extension): The phase after the dip where the flyer is pressed to full height and stabilized there.
Dismount (Dismount): The controlled descent or jump-down of the flyer at the end of the stunt, usually caught by the bases.
Thigh stand (Thigh Stand): A low, typical beginner stunt where the flyer stands on the bases' thighs — the classic first lift in cheer beginner training.
Basket toss (Basket Toss): A throw stunt: several bases interlock hands and toss the flyer up, who performs a shape mid-air before being caught again. One of the most advanced and highest-risk elements in cheer.
Round-off (Round-off/Radwende): A cartwheel with a two-footed landing that reverses direction — usually the entry into sequences like the back handspring.
Back handspring (Back Handspring): A backward handstand flip over your hands, landing back on your feet. The classic next step after the round-off.
Salto / tuck (Salto/Tuck): A flip with no hand contact with the ground, usually with the knees tucked in. The most demanding tumbling element, trained only with clearance and active spotting.
Toe touch (Toe Touch): A jump with legs extended out to the sides where the hands touch the toes — the most recognizable cheer jump of all.
Hurdler (Hurdler): A jump where one leg extends straight forward and the other bends out to the side, mimicking a hurdler's stride in mid-air.
Arm-swing (Arm-Swing): The downward-then-explosive-upward arm motion before takeoff that pre-loads jump height.
Full-out (Full-out): A complete run-through of a routine at full energy, with no pauses, repeats, or shortcuts — the stress test before competition.
Spring floor (Spring Floor): A sprung competition and training floor that absorbs falls far more safely than concrete or vinyl. The single most important safety factor in the sport.
Crash pad (Crash-Pad): An extra thick cushioned mat placed on top of the surface that adds cushioning while learning new elements.
Body check (Body-Check): The quick routine before every session — jewelry off, nails trimmed, hair tied back — that rules out common, avoidable injuries in a team sport.
CCVD: The Cheerleading Community Verband Deutschland — Germany's national federation, setting the rulebook and level system.
ICU: The International Cheer Union, the global governing body sorting elements worldwide into comparable difficulty tiers.
Level system (Level-System): The classification of all stunts, pyramids, tumbling, and jump elements into difficulty tiers (usually levels 1 through 6/7). The iron rule: master an element at one level before moving up.
## Pro Tip Keep a small vocabulary list and add every new term your coach uses that you don't immediately understand. Once you've got the basics from this glossary down, you'll pick up specialist terms in practice much faster, instead of losing the thread every time a new word comes up. Train Smart. Play Hard.
### What is a stunt in cheerleading? A stunt is a lift where a flyer is raised and held stable by one or more bases. A backspot protects the flyer's head and neck during it. Stunts are one of cheer's four core building blocks, alongside pyramid, tumbling, and jump, ranging from the low thigh stand to high throw elements like the basket toss.
### What is a flyer in cheerleading? The flyer is the person held up top in a stunt. What matters isn't height or weight but maximum body tension and balance — a well-braced flyer feels like a rigid body to the bases and is easy to control. The hollow-body position is the foundational drill flyers use to train that tension.
### What does dip mean in cheerleading? The dip is the synchronized leg pre-load of bases and flyer right before pressing a stunt up, similar to bending your knees before a jump. It's the actual engine of every stunt: without a synchronized dip on the same count, force transfer collapses and the stunt fails before it really begins.
### What is a spring floor and why does it matter? A spring floor is a sprung competition and training surface that absorbs falls far more safely than concrete or vinyl. Measured by critical fall height, it offers roughly 22 times more safety margin than concrete. That's why cheer's rule is simple: train stunts and tumbling only on a proper sprung surface, never on hard or wet ground.
### What does full-out mean in cheerleading? A full-out is a complete run-through of a routine at full energy and speed, with no pauses, repeats, or shortcuts. Teams use full-outs to test conditioning and error rates under real competition pressure — unlike partial practice, where individual elements are drilled in isolation.
Cheerleading: Getting Started Overview