Jackie Vigil got kicked in the throat a couple of times while doing it. She got a fractured nose once, too. After one grueling performance, Cassandra Tapia tore her Achilles tendon and had to take two months off. In comparison, Janelle Ortega had it easy: The worst she got for her troubles was a busted lip.

Vigil, Tapia and Ortega are members of the Santa Fe High School Varsity Demon Cheer Team, engaged in a sport that's sweaty, bloody and often involves being thrown about 10 feet up in the air by teammates.

Their team took top honors at the first All District Cheer Team Competition at Bernalillo High School on Feb. 4. And Thursday night, they were sharing their talents with other girls at a Demon cheer and dance camp at Santa Fe High School. The event attracted about 85 girls between the ages of 2 and 16.

Vigil, a senior, said the camp gives experienced cheerleaders the chance to display leadership skills, inspire athletic excellence and encourage teamwork.

Sophomore Shantal Roybal, part of the Demon Cheer Team, recalled going to a similar camp when she was a young girl.

"I remember when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get out there and try all this stuff out," she said. "Now that I'm part of the team, I want to show them how to be a role model."

Roll models, too, it seems, since the young ladies do a fair share of tumbles, sprints, somersaults and back flips. Team stunts with such names as the Bow and Arrow, the Scorpion, and the Basket are performed with aerial agility, bringing to mind the work of The Flying Karamazov Brothers or the Flying Wallendas.

The Demon cheerleaders are 23 strong -- 22 females, one male. Head coach Nathanial Batista said men are still involved in cheerleading, which shouldn't be too much of a surprise, given that when the activity started in the 1890s, it was with all-male pep clubs.

As the International Cheer Union website notes in its history of the sport, men dominated cheerleading into the 1920s. It wasn't until the 1940s -- when so many men went off to war -- that women began to take over. The first cheer camps were organized around 1948; the National Cheerleading Association began in 1961.

Batista took over coaching the cheer and dance teams at the school two years ago. According to junior varsity head coach Gina Branch (the junior team has 13 members) and several of the Demon cheerleaders, he has contributed exciting dance choreography and jaw-dropping stunt work.

In other words, he's brought sass, one onlooker said.

"You can get hurt," one cheerleader observed.

"It's up there with football for injuries," Batista said.

Sure enough, during the rehearsal of one routine right before the camp began, one of the girls came down from the sky a little too hard, taking an unexpected tumble on the mat. She limped off, insisting she was OK.

Batista said the team's routine in the February competition was 2 1/2 minutes long -- 90 seconds of movement choreographed to music, and a minute of cheering. Usually the cheer team performs a 2 1/2 minute routine at basketball and football games, while the dance team of 13 does a routine in the stands.

The team will take part in the state competition in late March, he said. As far as he is concerned, the team has already made history, since the recent district cheer competition was the first of its kind.

"That was big for us," he said. "It shows a lot of pride for our school."

The cheer camp continues at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the school. The team will be joined by camp participants in a halftime performance at Saturday night's boys basketball game against Capital High.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.