I’ll never forget the first time I learned how to do a jump-split.

It was my freshman year at Southlake Carroll High School, way back in 2002, and I was at my first practice after making the junior varsity Emerald Belles dance team. My coach was a former varsity Belle herself, and she knew the JV squad was essentially boot camp for the next year’s tryouts. And when I made the varsity team my sophomore year, I learned other tricks like the death drop and flying splits.

But the jump-split — that’s the Emerald Belles’ signature.

Locals who have been to a Carroll Dragons football game have likely seen it the during halftime show. The dancers, adorned in sparkling skirted uniforms and sequined white cowgirl hats, spend 2 to 3 minutes high-kicking their way across the field, making innumerable different shapes. Once the finale comes, they jump and spend a moment suspended mid-air as a solid unit before landing in splits on the field. The crowd goes wild.

The shock and awe of the spectacle never seems to lose its edge. And it certainly didn’t on June 4 when the whole country got to see the Emerald Belles in action on the TV show America’s Got Talent.

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(From Guide Live)