At that time I was a grade 10th student. I entered a private school in my region near my house. Back then, my high school is quite well-known for its cheerleading extracurriculars, since my high school is the only private school that has cheerleading extracurriculars in my region. Until one day, we as the 10th graders were required to choose our “preferred” extracurriculars because extracurriculars were one of the requirements for the point of activeness in school. At first, I was a bit confused in choosing it, since none of them interest me. However, because I had no choice and I also couldn’t find an extracurricular that matched my passion, so I decided to choose cheerleader as my extracurricular.

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My first day as a member of the school cheerleading team began. My first impression at that time was quite bad, some seniors seemed arrogant towards us as juniors. Luckily, I have some of my fellow grade 10th students who are on the same "frequency" as I am, so I didn’t feel too lonely. On the same day, I finally met my school's cheerleading coaches, they are husband and wife and both of them are very nice although sometimes they can be serious too especially when they are coaching us. In the early weeks, I experienced difficulties and wanted to leave the team, because I feel like "cheerleading" wasn’t my passion and I didn't even have the basics for it. But, thankfully my sister always encourage me, which then kept me going until 12th grade.

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It's been almost three years since I joined the team, and our cheerleading extracurricular is still running as, usual, we practice once a week, perform for school events, and recruit juniors to join the team. Until one day I wondered,

“When can we join the competition?”

“When can we represent the name of our school?”

“When can we make our coach proud and prove that we are capable to compete?”

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One day, our coach suddenly asked us to meet at the school’s pavilion to discuss something after school. After receiving the order, we immediately gathered and looked at each other. Honestly, on that day my friends and I were quite nervous because we thought we did something wrong and embarrassed the school, and our nervousness was also supported by the expression on our coach's face who looked very serious. Then, our coach started to speak, he asked "Do you want to join a competition?" we are very shocked and still can’t believe what our coach’s said. Our coach continued, "There is a regional championship called ROYAL CUP that is held by the Indonesian Cheer Association, and I think you guys can take this opportunity". When I heard it, I was like “this is what my team and I have been waiting for for almost three years”. I feel so thankful, this is like a dream come true.

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A week after that, we practiced routinely towards the D-day. If in usual we only practice once a week, but now we have to practice a minimum of three times a week. We are also busy in manage the forms, asking permission from our parents and also definitely the school. Moreover, I clearly remember that in the weeks we were practicing hard, the school was also holding Mid-Semester Examinations, where my team and I had to be smart in managing our time. Honestly, I was at a point where I gave up because on the other hand I wanted to get a good score in my exams but I also wanted to perform optimally on the D-day of the competition. Almost every day we came home later than usual, we even also had to take time outside the school days to practice together.

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The D-day is finally arrived, while waiting for our team’s turn, we had the opportunity to watch performances from other teams, and honestly, they were amazing and it makes me unconfident. Briefly, at the end of the event, the announcement of the winners started, I didn't expect much at that time to win because our opponent is also good. But unexpectedly, our team name was called by the MC. Guess what? We won the category of the "1st Runner up Team Cheer All-Girl Elite (LV5)". Since then, I realized that hard work will never betray the results.