This high school freshman loves a little friendly competition, which he recently proved in a video that’s since gone viral. Sean Kennedy, a student at Southern Cayuga Central School in Aurora, New York, challenged the rival school’s cheerleaders to a gymnastics battle while attending a basketball game, and it led to an epic series of flips that you’ve just gotta see for yourself.
Thankfully, a friend of Kennedy’s was nearby and able to film the interaction between Kennedy and the cheerleaders. The video shows Kennedy approaching the cheerleaders and asking them if they’d like to participate in a gymnastics-style showdown. When there are no takers, Kennedy performs a back handspring and walks away.
This encourages one brave cheerleader to then show Kennedy what she’s got. Of course, Kennedy’s got a response to her moves and, all in all, the interaction’s pretty incredible.
Watch how it all went down:
Posting this vid on every platform possible because
my best friends an ICON #iminthestripes pic.twitter.com/dlX8gvsmyq— Abi (@abigailesweet) January 20, 2018
The video, which has been viewed over 11 million times, was posted alongside the caption, “Posting this vid on every platform possible because my best friend’s an ICON,” and the fans in the gym where the competition took place couldn’t agree more.
People online are loving the video, too. On Twitter, they keep making comparisons to the cheer film “Bring It On,” because this is basically the 2018 version.
What I saw in my head. pic.twitter.com/oAGUfsJ0cp
— iTEM MAGAZINE™ (@itemmag) January 22, 2018
Even though these schools have a “rivalry,” Kennedy admits this was all in good fun.
“Healthy competition is important in furthering our skills and I respect the cheerleaders who clapped back,” he told BuzzFeed. “All we wanted to do was to get the crowd energized and make the basketball game more amusing.”
After all, for Kennedy, gymnastics is just “a way to express [himself] and have fun,” the told The Citizen.
Seems as though he did a really great job of encouraging competition and building excitement. He told The Citizen that it was “the most [he’d] ever heard anyone cheer at a high school basketball game.” So, mission accomplished. He showed school spirit to the max and the end result—well, it was awesome.