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…

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…

Creating Genuine Team Unity with Dancers of All Abilities

Team bonding is such a big focus of the summer, but there are two important rules to team bonding. 1) You can’t force it and 2) You have to do it all year. One big challenge I hear from coaches who are trying to establish team unity is when…

The Fundamentals of Instilling Remarkable Mental Toughness in Your Dancers

How do I inspire mental toughness in my dancers? It’s one of the most common questions I get, and honestly, it’s something I think about a lot as a coach and a parent. I intentionally try to build mentally tough children (be it my own children,…
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…

4 Ways to Take Practice Planning to the Next Level

As a dance coach who is in-season 12 months a year, there is always a sense of urgency. There is always a game to plan for, a fundraiser that’s necessary, competition routines to perfect, and the never-ending list of administrative behind-the-scenes…
judge

3 Quick Things To Do When A Judge Gives You Difficult Feedback

The day of a competition is filled it excitement, anticipation, and probably some stress too. But for many coaches, the stress doesn’t end at the award ceremony. Regardless of the outcome, many of us pour over the judges feedback sheets with…
positive reinforcement

The Special Power of Positive Reinforcement

Whenever I discuss the negative side to punishment, and why you should always avoid physical punishment I get questions about what to do instead. The focus is usually on the side of consequences. Coaches want to know, how do I get them to stop…

4 Reasons Not To Punish With Pushups

Did you ever have to run laps when you were late to practice? For many of us, we grew up with coaches and dance directors who used physical punishment for bad behavior and mistakes. It’s relatively common to have a team do wall-sits when…