Some YouTube Videos Of Foot Stomping Cheers (With Other Videos Of Similar Children's Stepping Motions & Routines)

swtytwty9988, July 4, 2006
steppingg -snip- I consider this video to be Showcase Video #1 in this pancocojams post. Imagine that girl joined by a least one other girl, but more often with at least four other girls, all of whom are doing the exact same movements while chanting in a distinctive group/soloist pattern to the beat of their foot stomps, hand clapps(and possibly also body patting movements.) That description is an example of foot stomping. 

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part Ii of a two part pancocojams series about the demise and survival of foot stomping cheers.

This pancocojams post showcases some YouTube video examples of children doing steps that are similar to foot stomping cheers. This post also showcases some examples of children or teens doing foot stomping cheers in a circle or a line formation.

Addendum #1 and #2 to this post presents examples of stomp and shake cheerleading and modified versions of those African American originated cheerleading styles. Addendum #1 also includes a video of members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. stepping.

I've included these examples because  I believe that some stomp and shake routines demonstrate that movement form's partial derivation from foot stomping movements and from historically Black Greek letter fraternity and sorority stepping. 

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-demise-and-survival-of-african.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post provides an overview of the textual structure and performance of foot stomping cheers and includes my comments about how some of those cheers have survived in the 2000s. Videos of foot stomping cheer-like routines are included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composer/s of these cheers. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post, the performers who are featured in these videos, and the publishers of these videos on YouTube.

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A BRIEF DEFINITION OF FOOT STOMPING CHEERS 
"Foot stomping cheers" is a relatively new category of children's recreational play that involves chanting and choreographed foot and hand clapping movements. The earliest documentation of these types of cheerleader cheers is the 1978 vinyl record entitled Old Mother Hippletoe, Rural and Urban Children's Songs. That record included four children's cheers, two of which I'd categorize as foot stomping cheers.
 

Foot stomping cheers are formulaic compositions which have a modified call & response structure that I refer to as "group/consecutive soloist". What "group/consecutive soloist" means is that the group voice is the first voice that is heard in those cheers. A designated soloist responds to the rest of the group's words and those voices alternate until that rendition ends (usually with the soloist's voice or the soloist & the rest of the group's voice). However, the cheer immediately begins again with the next designated soloist and this pattern continues until every member of the group has had a turn as the soloist.

Foot stomping cheers are chanted while their performers execute choreographed, syncopated, percussive movement routines that are very similar to African American originated Greek lettered fraternity & sorority stepping (steppin).

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
Although I've come across some YouTube videos of one or more people chanting versions of foot stomping cheers, unfortunately, I've only found a very small number of  YouTube videos of groups performing the movements to foot stomping cheers the way that I recall them being performed in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early 2000s.

Here are three Sesame Street videos that give some sense of how foot stomping cheers were performed:

SHOWCASE VIDEO #2

Sesame Street - Three Girls clap a song about Vegetables



wattamack4, Uploaded on Jul 31, 2007

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3

Sesame Street - Girls clap out a song about K



wattamack4, Uploaded on Jul 11, 2007
-snip-
The tune for this chant is exactly the same tune that I remember for the "L-O-V-E" cheer that is given below. However, the foot sliding in the front motion is different from the movements that I recall observing for this cheer, and I didn't observe girls performing that cheer standing in that formation.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #4

Sesame Street - Girls clap out a song about seven



wattamack4, Uploaded on Aug 1, 2007
-snip-
Here's a comment from that video's discussion thread:

dubbsakamelodee, 2009
"LOL! What they were doing was "stepping." it's derived from African cultures. Africans used to "step" as a way to prepare for war or celebrate. Today, it is celebrated as a form of song and dance. And speaking of boys, I know that little boy in the middle had to get some kind of slack for being the only one with all those girls at that age."
-snip-
That comment highlights the similarity between the movement arts of "foot stomping cheers" and "steppin/g". Besides who performed these two movements arts, and when they are performed, and the difference types of chanting that occurs while these movements are performed, the main difference is that once a foot stomping begins, the choreographed, synchornized movements continue in metronone fashion until that chanting is ended (i.e. until everyone in the group has a turn as the soloist.)

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #5
Here's a video of a historically Black university cheerleading squad chanting in a circle before a basketball game. I consider this chant a foot stomping cheer, although the group isn't doing  hard bass sounding foot stomps and the soloist performs movements and doesn't chant as soloist did/do for most foot stomping cheer.

Shaw Cheerleaders "Move Girl"

Brandon Thurman, Jan 9, 2011

Shaw High School Cheerleaders Before the game hype
-snip-
Here are the words to that cheer:
"You betta move girl you betta move. (3x). Now drop it low."

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #6
Here's a video of young African American girls performing a foot stomping cheer in a line The soloist does a movement without saying any words:

Popcorn On A Train



Ashaletta Johnson, May 14, 2011

The Pinks 
-snip-
The publisher of this video shared in a comment that this group is from Durham, North Carolina
 
Here are the words to that cheer as chanted by this group*:

Popcorn on a train.
Popcorn on a train.
Watch [girl's name] do her thing.
She said ah
Boom tic tic Boom tic.
Boom tic tic Boom tic.
Popcorn on a train.
[The girl whose name is called does a gymnastic motion]
The cheer then repeats from the beginning with the next girl whose name is chanted. That girl also does a gymnastic motion, a different one or one that has been done before.]

[When all the girls have had one turn as the soloist, they all say in unison]
Popcorn on a train.
Popcorn on a train.
Watch The Pinks [group name] do their thing.
We said ah
Boom tic tic Boom tic.
Boom tic tic Boom tic.
Popcorn on a train.
-snip-
*Transcription by Azizi Powell, with corrections by the video publisher, Ashaletta Johnson.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #7
"Rock It" as performed by the cheerleading group in the video below isn't a foot stomping cheer because the cheer is chanted in unison. (Foot stomping cheers have a distinctive  group/consecultive soloist textual structure.)

Dailey Tigers - Rock It



dailey tigers, Dec 8, 2013

-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPswNBnwvLQ&ab_channel=daileytigers for a YouTube video of the Dailey Tigers performing "Rock Steady". That well known cheerleader cheer and the "Rock It" cheer that is shown in the video that is embedded in this pancocojams post aren't foot stomping cheers because all of the words (besides the introduction) are chanted in unison. However, the foot stomping/hand clapping movement routines that these cheerleaders do are similar to how foot stomping routines were performed 

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ADDENDUM #1 - STOMP AND SHAKE CHEERS  IN BRING IT ON CHEERLEADER MOVIES 
Here are three examples of stomp and shake cheers in Bring It On cheerleader movies. The words of these cheers come from African Americans, but the way that the cheers are performed in those movies are modified (including the ways that Black actresses portraying cheerleaders in those movies did those cheers.)

SHOWCASE VIDEO #1

waveandsmile, Jan 4, 2007

introduce yourself

NO WAY!

introduce yourself

OKAY!

 

I do NOT own the video, it belongs to NBC Universal
-snip-
Click https://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-african-american-sources-of-bring.html for the cocojams2 post entitled "The African American Sources For Cheers In "Bring It On" (2000) & "Bring It On All Or Nothing" (2006) Movies".

Also, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/foot-stomping-cheers-alphabetical-list_6.html "Pancocojams Compilation Of Foot Stomping Cheers (Alphabetical List: H - J)" for examples of "Introduce Yourself" children's cheers that I have collected over time. Many of these examples were submitted to my no longer active cocojams.com cultural website. 

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Shabooya !! {Dance on duh Table}

iluzyoo, Apr 2, 2011

bring it on all or nothing
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/01/the-right-rhyming-pattern-for-shabooya.html for the pancocojams post entitled "The Right Rhyming Pattern For Shabooya Roll Call Verses".

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3 -Brr It's Cold In Here

flaco258, Jan 14, 2009
-snip-
"Brr It's Cold In Here" undeniably is an Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. chant. Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc. is the oldest historically Black Greek letter fraternity. 

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-real-origins-of-brrr-its-cold-in.html "The REAL Origins Of The "Brrr! It's Cold In Here" Cheerleader Cheer" for Part I of a two part pancocojams series on "Brr It's Cold In Here". Part II of that series https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/02/text-examples-videos-of-childrens.html provides video and word only examples of "Brr It's Cold In Here" in children's cheerleader cheers.  

Here's one YouTube video of Alphas stepping:

1st Place Winners for Chicago Sprite Step Off - Alpha Phi Alpha (Central State University) 

Gowhere Hip Hop, Jan 30, 2010
-snip-
The ways that historically Black Greek letter fraternities and sororities step differs between those historically Black Greek letter organizations and has changed over time within these specific organizations.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/05/an-overview-of-black-greek-letter.html for a post about historically Black (African American) Greek letter steppin (stepping).

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ADDENDUM #2 -THREE VIDEOS OF HIGH SCHOOL STOMP AND SHAKE CHEERLEADING

I believe that a lot of the stepping and hand clapping movements (but not the cheers' words or textual structure) are very similar to foot stomping cheers' choreographed, synchronized, percussive, bass sounding movements. Also, foot stomping movements are derived from historically Black Greek letter stepping. However, there are significant differences between the textual structure of all three of these chants/cheers and the way those words are chanted.

Here are three YouTube videos of high school stomp and shake cheerleading that demonstrate the foot stomping cheer lineage:

These cheers are given without any transcriptions of the words that are chanted).

STOMP AND SHAKE SHOWCASE VIDEO #1

Pump It Up



Sanura Kelly, June 14, 2022

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STOMP AND SHAKE SHOWCASE VIDEO #2

We Want A Basket



WestWood cheer, November 26, 2018 [Westwood High School, South Carolina]
-snip-
This is an example of a stomp and shake bleacher cheer. These cheers are also known as "stand cheers") because they are performed by cheerleaders either seated or standing or both in the gym stands (bleachers) while the competitive basketball game occurs.

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STOMP AND SHAKE SHOWCASE VIDEO #3

THESE CHEERLEADERS HAD THE CROWD ON THEIR FEET!

Stomp ‘N Shake Entertainment, Sep 9, 2023  #stompnshake #stompandshake #hbcu

WE TOOK A TRIP OVER TO INDEPENDENCE HIGH SCHOOL TO WATCH THE INDEPENDENCE HS VS. SOUTH MECK HS GAME! BOTH OF THE CHEERLEADING TEAMS DID A GOOD JOB KEEPING THE GAME EXCITING AND THE CROWD ON THEIR TOES!
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/05/overview-of-stomp-shake-cheerleading.html for an overview of stomp & shake cheerleading.

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This concludes Part II of this pancocojams post.

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