being nervous

As competitions come up and tensions get high on competitive teams, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and stressed out. That’s why it’s important keep your cool when those times arise. When Competitions come practices get more stressful and intense. Practices are longer and more tiring than normal. It’s important to keep your cool especially when you are being critiqued or judged. It’s easy to just think about all the negative in those situations but focusing on what you need to get better on and trying to fix what you need to fix is all that your team is trying to help you with.

When being critiqued don’t take all the negative comments as a personal attack on you. Your team is only trying to help you get better so as a team you can all look together, clean and sharp. It can get stressful, but just breathe and try to stay with it. Teammates during these, competition, times can easily get on your nerves as well too. Don’t take everything your teammates say as serious as you normally would. Routine critiques are important, but little obnoxious comments that people sometimes say shouldn’t be taken too seriously during competition times because everyone is stressed and anxiety in general is already coming from your coach not to mention your already boiling nerves.

It’s important to have friends on your team. It’s important to have friends on your team so you don’t feel lonely or left out. Especially when everyone else are friends, you don’t want to feel like the outcast. When competition times come it’s important to have friends on your team that can build you up and help you get through the long practices and critiquing of others. Sometimes it’s just good to have someone who knows what you’re talking about and can relate to what you’re struggling with. It’s also good to have someone you can have fun with on your team. As time goes on I’m sure you will be able to grow your relationship with the other people on your team and sooner than later you’ll all be friends.

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being yourself in dance

Dance is meant to be fun and creative. Improv is  a good way to let go and to just let the music speak to you. You improve everyday when you're in you're room dancing to your music. You listen to the beat and let your body move with out even thinking. Improv is a good way to just let go and be free. It lets you make up your own dance moves and dance with your own style.

At dance studios, often times the instructor will let the class improv for a song or two. Just to let you dance to your own style and be creative in your dancing. It's said that dancers are the first to loose themselves because they're told to copy and mimic dancers and learn routines as in synch as possible to other people almost to the point of perfection. They aren't allowed to have a personal feeling and style in a dance because it has to be together, or clean, as a whole with everyone else on stage and together. Improv every now and then is a good way to stay in tune to your style and enjoyment of dancing.

When improvisation is done at my studio, in my classes, I always get really nervous because I think I'm going to mess up or do something wrong and people are going to look at me because I messed up or danced awkwardly. When in reality no one really cares and the point of improv is to try new things and be creative with your dancing. It's hard to dance like yourself when you're surrounded by a whole bunch of people you don't know, but just listen to the music and dance to your own beat. You're there to have fun and dancing without stress, with you're own style can be very uplifting and enjoyable.

Improv is done a lot in lyrical classes. It's done in about every class, jazz, hip hop, etc. Lyrical though is a big place for improv though because its more of an emotional type of dance. The movements flow together more and improv is done a lot in this class just because since it is easier to express emotions there for easier to express your style and mood of dance in a lyrical class. Just remember to not think about you or how people think of you when you improv because it's a learning experience. It's a time to figure out what works and what doesn't, just have fun and dance to your own beat and style.

expressions

Faces are a big and important aspect of performing. No matter where you’re performing or who you’re performing in front of. Faces make your performance more enjoyable for you and your audience to watch. They also help in making mistakes less noticeable and add to the theme and mood of your dance.

Faces make your performance more enjoyable to watch. They make you look like you're having a blast even though you're actually exhausted and about to pass out. They make your performance more entertaining for people to watch and more enjoyable for you as well. Facials during your performance make you feel more energetic during your routine. The more faces you make and the more smiles you have the more fun you will have too. Faces help express the mood of your dance as well. Whether your dance is sassy, sad, or emotional, your face can express a lot to the audience.

 When you mess up, because it has happened to all of us, faces make it less noticeable to the judges or to your audience that an incorrect move was done. If you lose your face when you perform because you messed up or because you just don't do faces then the audience’s attention is drawn to you and either makes you look sloppy or unprofessional. Making the performance less enjoyable for you and your audience. Especially during a judged performance or competition it's important to play off incorrect moves, not that there should be incorrect moves, but if there is, not losing your face is super important so that you don't bring attention to yourself and get points taken off because the judges noticed you make a mistake.

 It’s important to practice faces in practice. Have you ever heard of the quote, maybe from your coach or the Internet, "perfect practice makes perfect"? Well this quote may not be entirely true because no one can be perfect, but this quote reaches a really good point. If you practice right in practice then you're going to perform it right. You'll get it right if you practice right. Practicing correctly and full out in practice will make it easier for you when competitions come. You’ll already have facials down and won’t have to be reminded or have to think about doing them in your routine or worry about them last minute. To help with faces, try practicing making faces in your mirror at home to get you use to making lots of faces. To help you make different kinds of faces try doing your vowels (a,e,i,o,u) faces. I’ve been told all the way back from when I was little and I was doing cheerleading that we need to practice our faces. Our coach would tell us to go home and practice our vowels in the mirror. Changing your faces a lot during your routine will make your performance more entertaining as well, so practice changing them often during your routine.

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Believing

In any situation encouragement is needed so much but is often forgotten about or pushed to the side. Encouragement helps lift the spirits of the people around you and can even boost your spirits as well. In competitive sports sometimes our focus is so much on beating our opponent that we try so hard to bring them down, especially with our words, and loose our desire to have fun and enjoyment of what we are doing. Stated by dictionary.com, encouragement is to inspire with courage, spirit or confidence. Helping each other get through a hard time even just by encouraging them can mean a  lot.

I recently went on a church retreat and the topic was encouragement. We talked about how only good things can come from genuine words of encouragement and how important building each other up is. Our words mean a lot and can change someone's whole day around. We were encouraged to stand out and be known for our kind words and encouragement. The speaker at this retreat made the analogy of being called Barnabas. Barnabas was a man from the bible whose name means son of encouragement and our speaker encouraged us to be known as Barnabas's. We watched this video on encouraging one another, and although it's a little cheesy and on the kid side, I think it really gets the point across.

When a teammate or someone is having a rough day and may not be performing their best it's helpful to encourage them to keep up their spirits and keep at it. Building each other up can only help them as well as you. Especially on a team, it's important for everyone to work together and help each other out. And just think, if you were having a bad day then you would want people encouraging you to keep trying. Even just saying something small can mean a lot to someone. Even just saying "good job" or "keep trying" are encouraging words that can help. When you encourage others it makes you feel good as well and lifts your spirits to try harder. Working together and encouraging one another can only help out your team,  giving them confidence as well as you  to perform your best. So I encourage you to be an inspiration to others through your encouragement and kind words to lift each others' spirits up.

The importance of team building

Team building is very important on any team, but especially on a team where there are new or lots of new members. My dance team just recently acquired five new members to the team. Some or most of the original members who have been on dance team before or the previous year know the new members. They know them just through their studios or other activities, but not all of us know them. Team building activities are good to get to know the other people on the team better and to build bonds between the team. It helps the team as whole to become one and work together better. This will also happen with time, but team building encourages it to happen.

There are many different team building activities and you can choose one based on what you want the focus to be. Whether you want that to be communication, problem solving, memory, or just "getting to know you" games to help with that. Creating a connection between your teammates and yourself is important and can help with many problems that may arise with you or your team if you all are not all on the same page or working together for a common goal.

Girls can be very judgmental and often compare themselves when jealous. So when you have a new team with a bunch of very beautiful and talented girls you can either all be friends and get along together or be enemies and we all know that being friends is the better option here. In order to be a successful team and accomplish things together everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to have to do their part to make the team a success. You're not going to be friends with everyone and there will be conflict at times but making sure you all know each other and putting forth the effort to get to know each other will ultimately benefit the team for the good.

Everyone needs to participate and do their part other wise someone will be left out or slack off. Have you ever heard the phrase "You're as strong as your weakest link," well our coach says this all the time because its true. If your weakest link is not at the level as the others then the others will slack off and not get better. Making sure team building is a factor in a new season is very important and hopefully you start getting to know your knew teammates:)

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The importance of organization

Now that I'm a captain on the dance team a lot of things need to get done and get accomplished. It's important to stay organized or in my case get organized in order to complete and fully accomplish these tasks. There's so much to do. Lots of decisions need to be made and lots of things need to be figure out. Making sure you're organized, not just with papers and stuff, but with your time and plans should be organized as well.

There's lots of benefits to being organized. As stated in this article The Importance of being organized. Being organized makes life easier in many ways. It helps in not losing things and helps in staying stress free. Say you have a paper you need to bring to a meeting you are having for dance, but you wake up late and are running out the door. You misplaced the paper and don't know where it is. If you weren't organized then you would be looking for it until you find it and who knows when that would be. Being organized saves you time and helps you out when certain things happen that you can't control, like running or waking up late. Being organized helps you not be so stressed because you'll be able to find the things you need when you need them and in a timely fashion.

Being organized in your plans and everyday life are very important as well. As stated in the article Why Getting Organized is Important being organized will save you a lot of trouble in the future. Missing someone's birthday or an important date is never fun. This article suggests writing down all the important dates and things going on in your head that you are trying to remember. It's hard to remember and keep straight all the things you need to do and accomplish with such a busy schedule.

Being organized is a great way to have a plan and make decision in the future. Being organized allows for you to get a better grasp on your life and what is going on. So when you need to make a decision, whether big or small, you can properly assess the pros and cons of that decision knowing all the facts of what is going on in your life. Being in dance team a lot of decisions need to be made regarding clothing, music, choreography, etc. A lot needs to be decided and it helps to have a another senior on the team, but with only two of us it's still hard to get everything done. I'm hoping this season goes well and we can work together to make decisions quickly but still make decisions that are good for the rest of the team and for the team in the future. I need to be more organized and hopefully this will help make this year as stress free as possible.

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A New Team

Starting a new season can both be a good and a bad thing.  You just lost your seniors, the most experienced and probably the best dancers on the team, but on the bright side you just gained some talented members as well. So it's both good and bad, happy and unhappy. It's difficult because you have to train the younger members. But exciting at the same time because they're new and excited to be on the team.

You are going to miss your teammates who are gone, but in the end you need to look forward and focus on the team that you have now. Focus on becoming the best team there is and the best you can be. Look at the bright side and be positive. There's a lot of talented young girls who are excited to be there and excited to be on the team. They've worked hard and they deserve to be on the team like everyone else who has made it. Its important to make sure they feel welcome and not too scared at first.

The younger teammates will be scared and nervous at first, but making sure they feel comfortable and welcome is important. Don't be too mean or haze them or anything because you are all going to have to work together to make this year good and in order to be the best team you can be. Just have a positive attitude. Make sure you step up as a leader as well. Make sure the younger girls, the ones who are new and the ones who have been on it before. One of the things me and the other senior captain are going to do is make sure the attitude among the girls is at a minimum.