Dance Teaching Vs Box Ticking

In a certificate driven world, the emphasis on completing a task with all the necessary sections ticked unfortunately means we're becoming a box ticking society. It's apparent when applying for a mortgage, it's apparent when beginning the process to get married and I'm sure it's apparent when getting your kids into the local school (I've not ticked that box yet) 

These are legal requirements, cool, but I didn't realise that taking your primary ballet exam was legal procedure. 

Using a syllabus to teach definitely has its pros and its cons, that’s not what this blog post is about, nor do I think there will ever be a blog post from me that brings that to the alter! (The Rosina Andrews Method that teachers attend my intensives on is a teaching method that can be applied to all forms of dance and used alongside any syllabus)     

Earlier on a social network group I saw a worried teacher concerned about the leg of which her primary class test little dancers should start their gallops on; a discrepancy had occured in the notes vs the DVD. Rightly so, as I'm sure the examiner will notice this in the clarity of the teachers work and could mark the children down for it. As dance school teachers we're so careful to make sure everything is 'so' for the exams. The worry of a child coming out with a mark that they or their parents do not like straight away affects our business. We've all heard it "We're going to the school down the road, they all get 100% in their exams and medals too" 

But this is where it's all going wrong. 

My first thoughts were; 

Why does it matter which leg a child gallops on as long as they show their gallops. 

How does the teacher get her 5 year olds to start with the correct leg consistently anyway!? 

If you feel like this then forget ticking the boxes, dance outside of them. The kids and you will feel much better and they'll probably do better in their exams, as you'll have spent more time teaching them how to dance than tearing your hair out getting the correct leg to match the book. 

Safe Stretch Plans

After lauching his safe stretch plans, Samuel Downing Personal Trainer is astounded by the range of dancers wanting help with their stretching. It seems that many dancers spend over 1.5hours stretching each day and they're often not happy with their results. Worryingly, many dancers find their stretching inspiration on Instagram and parents really are concerned about the crazy looking trends on stretching- even though they're too scared to mention it.

Sam's stretch plans are being created for dancers at ballet schools, professional adult dancers, teachers who are recovering from injuries, younger dancers attending auditions and even sportspeople who have nothing to do with dance. Their personal plans are created after an initial consultation and Sam creates a plan that is optimum for their body type, something that copying from instagram doesn't do. The plans are specific and created to minimise the amount of time spent stretching yet allowing better results.

Sam is only doing a certain amount each month to allow personal follow ups and excellent results.

Be sure to book your plan online with Sam.
https://www.rosinaandrews.co.uk/safe-stretch-plans

When 'a lot' becomes 'too much'

Dance training has changed a lot recently. 

In 2010 I completed my degree via distance learning whilst working professionally and I chose my final research thesis to be based upon the training of young dancers. 

As I have grown up as a dancing teachers daughter I always found it interesting that it got to a point where some of my dancing friends had to choose between doing their homework and doing that extra lesson. I always managed to do both and wanted to see how being a ‘busy scheduled child’ affected a child’s development both physically and mentally. Open mindedely I entered the research process and I was pleasantly surprised with the findings. 

It seemed that the busier child had better time management skills, self discipline and the activities stimulated their minds in different ways therefore aiding development. Dance and hobbies reduce stress levels and therefore have more of a positive affect on development than a negative one. In fact there's a lot of research that ‘busy children are seen to do better’.

The problem is busy children in 2010 were much less busy than the ‘Busy dance child’ today. In just 5 years the length of training time, the amount of classes, masterclasses, competitions, private lessons, and the age that this intense training begins has got younger and younger and more and more. 

I totally understand that in order to get students to the standard that they and also us as teachers desire, dancing more than once a week is necessary. But training until 11pm on a school night, 3 hours of conditioning, private lessons before school, and competitions every weekend are NOT necessary. 

I’m a workshop teacher; schools booking workshops on Sundays are part of how I make a living. I’m obviously biased but I do feel that workshops are a really important part of a young dancers development (learning from different teachers, different styles etc is inspiring and refreshing; we could all do with some of that). I also am an advocate of gymnastics training, which I know has intense training schedules and with my technique teaching I know intensity is required. Yes we’ve all eaten our dinner in the car as dancers, but not everyday. We’ve also all fallen asleep in the car after a long rehearsal day, but not everynight. Hard work is needed but where do we draw the line on what it too much?

As teachers we must remember that perhaps 2% of our students are going to go into the industry and dance the rest of their lives. As parents you must understand that the success of your children's dancing isn't reflective upon being seen in the studio, at every workshop, nor constantly practicing and posting on instagram. The success of you as a parent is also not spending your life in the car and never seeing the family at weekends. The pressure is so much, especially for the ‘versatile child’. Dancing is a hobby foremostly, there's got to be some fun in it. I often hear ‘but my daughter loves it’- of which I have no doubt that she does. But don’t you think she’d love having a Saturday afternoon off shopping too? Perhaps that day off would do more good than you think; muscles need a rest, kids need sleep to grow, let alone the hair follicles which are being pulled from day after day in a bun…and I’ve not even started on her social, mental and educational development too.

It's a free world, it's your choice. But I just want to give you an insight into a couple my rules…
(As long as it isn't a competition or show rehearsal- of which I don’t actually have too many)

-If you've been invited to a party…go to it. 
-If you're going on holiday..go on it.
-The school holidays are the dance holidays. Yes, that means all 8 weeks off in summer. (With a summer school or two)

I have never said no to any ‘event or time off’ unless it clashes with something that the dancer has committed too. Commitment is a big one for me, but that's a whole new post! How many childhoods do we get? 

But Rosina, you're an advocate of training like Americans don’t they dance every single day of the week for hours on end? Yes, by the time their at an age where they know that that is the route that they want to follow then yes the training is very regular. But remember their home schooling system helps this. Perhaps they do 4-5 hours a day of dance, but they also haven't done 8.30-4pm at school like English dancers. Spending time at Mather Dance Company this summer gave me an insight into the schedule of their younger dancers, it was busy but in no way anywhere near the ‘busy’ kids I witness here! And their standard? Better. Development takes time, lifespan and maturity, whats the rush? There are exceptions, Sophia Lucia and Autumn Miller both mention there long schedules, even though they're young, this is now they're careers. Some parents I have come across on my travels with exceedingly talented young dancers have managed to persuade their academic schools to have them in the mornings for the core subjects and then have the afternoon off to cooridate their dance training too. If only all schools would allow Elite dancers to do this, Ballet exam practice could be at 2pm, rather than 7.30pm! 

Here's an example schedule of one of my Professional Extension Program dancers, Cosima’s schedule Age 13… perhaps it may shock you? Perhaps you still think it's too much, or too less, but no-one can deny it definitely works for her.

Monday  
6-7pm Drama and Performance Developnment 
8-8.45pm Ballet Virtuoso

Tuesday 
5.45-6.30 Tap 
6.45-7.45 Modern

Wednesday 
-

Thursday 
4.45pm-5.45pm Ballet
5.45-6.30pm, Singing
7.30-8.30 Gymnastics 

Friday 
3.15-4pm Private lesson 
5-5.45pm Hiphop
6.15-6.45pm Pointe 
7-8pm Recreational jazz 
8-9.15pm Contemporary 

Saturday 
9.30-10.15am Rehearsal dependent on competition
10.30-11am Leaps and turns
11-11.30am Conditioning
11.30-12noon Extension ballet 
12noon-12.45 Stretch 
1-2pm Aerial silks and hoops.

Sunday 
Workshop twice a year 

She does stretch at home but doesnt have any home practice programs. She does sometimes do gymnastics out of the studio and sometimes attends masterclasses or workshops. She is also homeschooled, of which we could over schedule her to the max...but what is the point? Shes academic too, so I'd far rather her spend some time developing her mind than her grande battemenent. At the end of the day, an Intelligent dancer will go far. 

The new year is upon us, make the resolution for quality training and not crazy quantities of it. We're always telling people to stop, take time, live, remember to apply that to the dancers too! 

'Squeeze Your Credit Card'

You know me. Well, maybe you don't know me! But if you've seen me teach or read Pirouette Surgery® then you'll know that I like imagery, and not just saying it, implementing it and acting it out!

Last weekend I was trying to get my Level 1 Extension Program dancers (aged 7-10) to squeeze their inner thighs. Activation of the inner thighs is the first step to awesome dancing, they connect to the Transverse Abdominus and then into the rest of the core. Yet, it had been the Christmas holidays and their focus on what I was saying was rather all over the place (I teach normal kids not perfect robots!)

I tried the whole 'imagine you're holding a twenty pound note' between your thighs, and wandered over to my wallet to get one out for them to try...ironically in our cash free society, (I'm a Londoner, contactless is my best friend) there were only cards. Wide eyed and looking at me waiting for the prop to practice with, I found myself handing out my cards for them to squeeze. The most awkward was the Driving license...'Miss Rosina, is that really you!?'