Herkie in cheerleading: one leg straight to the side, the other bent. Step-by-step build-up, hip mobility, rules by level and the typical mistakes.
The herkie is a jump in which one leg goes straight up to the side and the other points down, bent — a classic that above all demands hip mobility and clean side balance. It is a "jump skill", meaning a jump with a change of position in the air [2].
On the history: the herkie carries the name of Lawrence Herkimer, a US cheerleading pioneer. By his own account he developed the jump by accident when he actually wanted to show a split jump [1]. That is the only source for this anecdote, an encyclopaedia entry; take it as a story, not as expert knowledge.
The honest answer to "Do I have to be super flexible for this?": no, but a bit of work on the hips helps. And flexibility is not an end in itself. A review on dancers and gymnasts lists cheerleading among the sports that demand high hip mobility and warns that extreme positions can favour impingement and instability in the hip joint [8]. For you that means: the herkie is built in the hip, not forced. How long it takes depends on your starting mobility; a few weeks of regular training is a rule of thumb, not study evidence.
Tuck jump and straight jump sit, the landing is quiet. Milestone: ten clean landings in a row (practice value).
Leg lifts to the side standing and lying on your side, dynamic and without bouncing. Static stretching belongs in its own sessions, not right before the jump: in a review of 23 studies, static stretching improved flexibility by about 3 % but lowered performance slightly by 0.9 %; dynamic stretching raised performance by 0.6 % — although 15 of the 23 studies were of low quality and concerned sports such as gymnastics and dance [7]. Milestone: hold the straight leg at hip height for 5 seconds, upper body upright.
Try the leg position standing and in small hops: one leg straight to the side, the other bent, eyes forward. Use a mirror or video. Milestone: the position holds for 3 seconds without losing balance.
Only take up the position at the top of the jump, not already at take-off. Anyone who "opens" too early lands already in the position. Milestone: on the video the position is visible at the highest point.
Practise left and right equally often. Then come the arms, as your choreography sets them, and the timing on the count. Milestone: three sets of eight jumps per side, the landing stays equally quiet.
This guide explains and motivates but does not replace supervised training.
Film yourself from the front in slow motion and pause at the highest point. That is exactly where the position has to be. Most herkies look good standing and crooked in the air — the video shows you where. That is coaching experience, not a study.
A jump with one leg straight to the side and one bent. It is a jump skill because you change your body position in the air [2]. In choreographies it appears with different arm positions; the leg position is the recognisable feature. You learn it after the tuck jump because it demands more hip mobility and more side balance.
From Lawrence Herkimer, a US cheerleading pioneer. By his own account he came up with the jump by accident when he wanted to show a split jump [1]. The source is an encyclopaedia article, so the story is tradition rather than established expert knowledge. It plays no role in training the jump; what counts there is hip, balance and landing.
Regularly, without pain and in separate sessions: static stretching raises flexibility by a few percent but can slightly lower performance in the short term [7]. Dynamic warm-up belongs right before the jump [7][9]. If the hip pinches, have it checked [8]. There is no guarantee how much mobility you gain in what time; the evidence is thin.
In standing tumbling not in level 2, but from level 3 [3][4]. With a standing flip, the direct combination is prohibited in level 4 and allowed from level 5 [2][3][4]. Which level you compete in, your coach settles with the rulebook of your federation.
Hurdler in Cheerleading: One Leg to the Front, Landed Cleanly