Volleyball ace cheers occupy a special niche in the kinds of cheers used during volleyball games. Most cheers are quick (due to the fast-paced nature of the game) and usually pretty challenging and confrontational. The cheers have to move along and may even be as short as a few words repeated.
Volleyball ace cheers, however, are used either to encourage or celebrate the particular event known as an "ace" - when a serve from one team clears the net and hits the floor in-bounds without any of the other team's players touching it. Sometimes an ace is luck but more often a volleyball ace is due to skill (either the skill of the server or the lack of it in the other team). It's a devastating feeling for the team scored on and a big rush for the team serving.
For this reason, chants specifically for ace events are extra powerful. They are as in-your-face as the serve itself. In fact, it may be necessary to tone down some of the cheers simply because they can get so aggressive as to be offensive to the other team - such as the group of girls who ran to the side of the court shouting "BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA-LAKA!" and wiggled their backsides at the other team. While it was certainly a show of team spirit, the coaches and officials were not pleased and the group was reprimanded.
Examples of Good Volleyball Ace Cheers
There are at least three reasons why you and your team should come up with your own set of cheers, for aces and other things, and not just use something found in a book or on the internet.
- You might end up using the same cheer as the other team. They could have taken the lazy way out and stolen from the internet, too.
- It personalizes the experience of the game By creating your own cheers, you're helping solidify your group identity as a team.
- It's easy. Really, there's no excuse - you don't have to be a fine writer to come up with the kinds of short and rowdy cheers that really make an ace a special event.
Most of the time, when you're creating cheers, it's better to try and focus on the positive aspects of your own team rather than cutting down your opponent. One method of doing this is to come up with a cheer that is directed at whoever is serving:
Here's our server, (player)'s her name!
Watch her ACE and win this game!
Goooooo, (player)!
Of course, the downfall of this kind of cheer is that it puts added pressure on the server - if something goes wrong, she is the focus of attention. So more general cheers might be needed if a player is shy:
Uno, dos, uno dos tres
This next serve's gonna be an ACE!
That cheer is a good example of some of the other factors that go into good cheers, namely short words, easy to understand, and a rhyming scheme that helps the cheer stick in the head of the players and fans and helps them join in for the next one. It's also positive and non-confrontational which is always an added bonus.
Movements and Cheers
Unlike cheerleading for football, there's not a lot of time for complex moves in cheers. However, simple dance steps or large movements can reinforce a cheer, especially if the audience picks up on it. Having a bleacher full of people both shouting and moving in unison is an amazing thing.
An example of this kind of cheer would be yelling "A!" and raising the right arm, "C!" and raising the left, then putting them both down and raising them one at a time as you yell "A-C." The final "E!" to spell the word is yelled while the upper arms are crossed in an X shape, similar to a strike in baseball. This can be repeated until the serve is done.
These are only a few examples of ace cheers available on the internet, and with a little searching you'll have plenty of inspiration to start your own collection.
