Join Cindy and Sharaia as they discuss the importance of maintaining high standards in dance routines and teaching young dancers to work together as a team. They share their personal experiences, strategies, and analogies to help kids visualize the importance of unity in a performance. Discover the value of pushing dancers out of their comfort zones, getting them to perform for one another, and building a culture of hard work and commitment in your dance studio. Listen in for practical tips and insights from these seasoned dance instructors.
Join Cindy and Sharaia as they discuss the importance of maintaining high standards in dance routines and teaching young dancers to work together as a team. They share their personal experiences, strategies, and analogies to help kids visualize the importance of unity in a performance. Discover the value of pushing dancers out of their comfort zones, getting them to perform for one another, and building a culture of hard work and commitment in your dance studio. Listen in for practical tips and insights from these seasoned dance instructors.
Hey, everybody, Cindy Clough here with Sherea goalball. And we just started talking about cleaning routines, which I feel like I've been on a mission to clean your teens lately for people and help them. Go talk about your puzzle. So I just got today was like trying to figure out how can I get my little kids? So I have like a second through fifth grade hip hop class. I was like, How can I get them to understand that when you're not dancing together, it doesn't look effective, or look, you know, visually pleasing, or you don't understand maybe what's happening. So I was like, the big picture. Yeah, the big picture. So I was like, I want I said, You guys all know, like, those huge puzzles with the really big pieces. And they were all like, yeah, and I was like, okay, so because they're really big pieces. If like, four or five of you weren't, were missing, would you be able to see the big picture? They were like, No. And then I was like, okay, so I want to pretend like you are each piece of this puzzle. And when some of you are off, maybe on timing, you can't see the whole picture. But when you are all together, the big picture is there. So I think that they really were able to like visually, like, you know, they can picture that in their mind. Like, oh, yeah, if a bunch of puzzle pieces are missing, and they're big pieces, you don't get to see, you may not know what the whole picture is. So I think that that was a good analogy. And maybe that's something you can say to your class to to get them to understand that it's not just the good kids that will carry the class or right, right, the majority? Well, I know that I feel like I've been doing a lot of talk tapes for people I do them for I actually do them for dance team union, and I do them for our own directors internally. And one of the things that I keep giving them the feedback, and then they'll write back oh, I've told them all those things. It's all things I've told them. Maybe if they hear it from you, they'll do it. And I'm like, No, they won't, because you've got to be the one to get them to do it. So I think I think a lot of people settle and they don't no, go, no, let's do it again. I was having a competition. And I was walking around giving feedback to our internal directors for just for kicks. And some of them were running the whole routine. And then they'd go, good job. And I'm like, No, it wasn't you could should have stopped it after beat. Not that it wasn't good. But I'm just saying, You've got to be so picky. If you want to win, and you want to be up there. You can't just run the whole chain and say, good job, your expectations have to be really, really high. There's many times I will say, Okay, we're gonna run it and they think, okay, we're just gonna run it through. But if I see one thing that I'm like, woof, that was not what I expected, I will stop the music and say nobody can do it. Again, we're a team. And if you don't look together as a team, it doesn't count. So that's part of like, there's no I in team. So we need to make sure that we're all together. And so I will stop the music and say, Okay, now I'm gonna rewind and pick it back up, and then they'll continue to go, and then make it through the whole dance. And I'll be like, Okay, that was up to my expectation. But the second that they're not, I just hold them to a very high expectation. I think that that they like that, like, they want to make you happy, and they want to work hard for you. Well, even things like solos, we were saying that, like when we watch solos, talk about at the competition. So as a teacher when I'm at a competition, I was just at a solo one this last weekend. And so when we were there, if I'm watching myself as practice, I'm like, nope, straight your base, like nope, do your arms better. Nope, you need to fix this. And maybe I'm not saying nope, every time but I can say great job on this. But you need to work on this like sandwich the compliment said what the thing but don't settle exactly like I never just stand there and don't say anything. I'm always like trying to give them feedback. And I also try to let them know what they're doing well, but they want to get better. Kids don't want to just be average or below average, they want to be the best they can be and they'll and so as a teacher, you need to give them the tools to do that. Because they don't know what they look like. I think when you don't you're dumbing it down for them. And you're not letting them reach their potential at all. You know, it's interesting, even watching my granddaughter play basketball on different teams for AAU and locally or whatever you play by what's expected of you, you know, and I think like if I often have told my high school dancers, if you had to go to be on y Zetas team for a week, or you were going to be on East view's team for a week, why are our big competitors? Would you carry yourself in a different manner. And I think you could ask your kids that too. Like if you had to go be on a different team would they carry themselves in a different way and it's what you expected them they start knowing that you expect them to be perfection, I think in what you were saying to like a couple of weeks ago, Ali and I combined our class we combined our elite team with our elite team of our next lower grades like our nine to 12 with our sixth through eighth and when we were together, I was like that's so quiet and here is because they're uncomfortable. And that's like a big thing you know, you grow where you're uncomfortable, you never grow uncomfortability so making sure that you're pushing them out of their comfort zone because that's when they're gonna grow. And you know, maybe you if you are able to like combine some classes to make them uncomfortable and push them a little more or perform for each other. Yeah, you know anything thing that you can do to make them uncomfortable will make them grow. We're lucky that we have five studios going at a time in our facility and so we can always pull a class in to go watch another class and sometimes we do it just for that purpose go all right, but if you don't have that situation, create it have like a show and tell day. And I always think that the little kids try way harder when they see the older dancers really pushing and it's a culture to get that to build in your in your area. So even if you don't have you know, multiple studios happening at once you can say, okay, next class, your next class or the night have them come in and perform for the class after them so they can get used to performing in front of other people. It doesn't have to be, you know, you don't have to have a ton of classes happening at once for you to be able to perform or telling your parents I want you to come in at the last five minutes to watch. Well, good. I hope this helps you guys. We just were talking here ourselves today and we thought let's send it to everybody. Take care. Thanks, Maria.