Posts

Teaching responsibility

This is What Happens When You Teach Accountability to Your Dancers

I believe one of the biggest challenges facing coaches today is fostering accountability on a team. What's more upsetting to me though, is that it wasn't nearly as much of a problem 15-20 years ago. While accountability on the team used to…

2 Steps to Make Sure You Can Compete in Any Context

As coaches, we can all get in a rut sometimes where our practice structure gets repetitive. We have a similar warmup every day, we do similar drills for turns and jumps. We work on choreography, run it a few times full out and then rinse and…
dance team inspiration

Top 5 Unique Ways to Bring Inspiration to Your Dancers

We could all use a little extra dose of inspiration sometimes. Whether it’s a typical season and you’re in the grind of daily cleaning practices, or you’re in quarantine 2020 and struggling to motivate the team… coaches often need to…

How to Perform Under Pressure and Radically Reduce the Chance of a Mistake

Unlike other sports, dance coaches don’t get to coach ‘during the game’. Instead, we have to watch from the side and hope that our team can perform under pressure. We have to simply stand back and hope they don’t make a mistake during…
dance team

How to Clean a Dance Routine and Improve Team Unity in Your Dance Team

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Love it or hate it, dance coaches spend HOURS every season cleaning routines for their dance team. Whether it’s just a surface cleaning for a quick tailgate routine or an in-depth down-to-the-pinkie-finger-placement cleaning of a competition…

Station Cleaning: A Powerful and "Social Distance" Approved Strategy

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One thing you can count on every season, you’re going to have to clean your routines. Whether your dance team is game day focused, preparing for a championship, or performing through videos this season, we all want our routines to be as clean…
Erin Harold Alvarado

Coach Interview: Erin Harold Alvarado, Texas Tech

Erin Harold Alvarado is in her ninth year as the Pom Squad coach at Texas Tech University. In 2017, she led the Texas Tech Pom Squad to the squad’s first national championship in school history in Division 1A Jazz at NDA. Her team has won…
new skill

Teaching a New Skill: How to Build a Dancer's Confidence

When dancers are learning a new skill, they are often overwhelmed, frustrated, and can experience a lot of self-doubts if they keep making mistakes. We understand as coaches that learning a new skill can take time, but our dancers often want…
UK dance team

Coach Interview: Dawn Walters

Dawn is the Head Coach of the University of Kentucky Dance Team, which is currently ranked 5th in the Nation in Game Day and 5th  in the Nation in Hip Hop at Universal Dance Association. In 2017, her team was chosen to represent…
intention

Why You Need a Daily Practice Intention for Mental Focus

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It’s become somewhat of a buzz word: INTENTION. There are lots of influencers and psychologists alike who talk about setting your intention and all the benefits it can have in your life. But what about setting an intention for dance team…