Point your feet

"You've got what it takes, but it will take everything you've got." -Anonymous
           Many people who watch dance but are not dancers and haven't been very involved in dance don't realize how much effort goes into it. Most people can see when dancers toes aren't pointed or when they are sickled (which is never wanted), but they don't usually realize how much effort dancers have to put into that before it becomes natural.
            Some people say "pointe your toes," but what people should really say is pointe your feet because if you just pointe your toes it is not the proper line so you must engage your leg and pointe all the way through your ankles. Yes, crazy enough there is a right and wrong way to pointe your feet. When your toes are pointed your Achilles tendon should go up your calf not clench. Many people who arent properly trained just clench their Achilles tendon not thinking anything about if because it looks pointed but what they don't know is that their pointe is not reaching its full potential and it could cause injury in the future. Stretching your ankles can help improve your pointe but some people have shorter Achilles tendons than others. This makes all the difference because shorter Achilles tendons means that you wont be able to pointe your feet as well as someone with longer Achilles tendons.
            Yes, some dancers naturally have beautiful feet and they can pointe them with no problem, or if you are properly trained from the moment you start dance it is easier to pointe your feet than for people who started dance with improper training. This is because it takes three times as long to retrain and correct your bad habits. To retrain people to naturally pointe their toes it takes a lot more than just practicing pointing your feet, their are pointing exercises because you have to gain muscles and create stronger neural passage ways.  So next time you are giving a correction to "Pointe your toes," actually say "pointe through your ankle" or something of the sorts, and don't be too hard on your self if you are a dancer with not the best feet because sometimes its genetic and other times it is improper training, and it takes a lot more work than most realize.

Conventions

"Dancing stimulates the mind, body, and sole. It has been proven to increase cognitive strengths and prolong life; that is the Miracle of Dance." - Lai Rupe's Choreography
              There are many different things that are involved to make a great dancer become an exceptional dancer; one being the dancers ability of picking up choreography quickly which also leads to being trainable and applying corrections quickly and effectively. These qualities can make a dancer shine above other outstanding dancers.
               A thing that tremendously help improve these things in a fun, challenging environment is a dance convention. You can attend dance conventions pretty much anywhere; their are endless amounts of them. Dance conventions are competitions plus their are classes you can take there. The class taking part is the part that will really expand a dancers abilities. The convention will have a number of the top dancers and choreographers in the dance world there teaching you combos.
               When you sign up you are signing up for all the classes at once and their are different age rooms so you are with dancers around the same age as you. You get a number and have to wear it all weekend so the instructors have some way to identify and remember you if you are a stand out dancer. There are usually around 6 classes a day. You can go to all around conventions where you get all classes from hip hop, jazz, modern, contemporary, ballet, tap and improve, or you can just go to an all genre convention, like monsters of hip hop is an all hip hop convention.
               Every genre is taught by a different professional instructor, this can be very stressful and push a dancer outside of their comfort zone but it is also a great growing experience and will help the dancer in the long run. Since each combo has a different instructor you are learning how to deal with different teaching styles and also might get to try some styles you have never done before. Not only do you learn how to adjust to new dance styles and teaching styles it also helps you become a more spatially aware dancers since their are hundreds of dancer in one big room attempting to dance all at the same time.
             At the end of the convention there is a ceremony where the instructors pick dancers who really stood out and were exceptional. These stand out dancers receive scholarships of some sort to honor their talent and hard work. These scholarships can range from a free admission to next year to asking them to go on their convention tour with them and be helpers for free. I think that every dancer should go to a convention of some sort during their dance career because it is one of the best things to help a dancer grow.

Dancers Edge Nutcracker

        The Nutcracker Ballet is one of the most well known, and famous ballets out there. Most people have seen it, read the book of it, or heard of it; and many little dancers dream of being in it one day. Some dancers in cedar rapids, Iowa get the opportunity to be in it every year, this is because The Dancers Edge puts on the show annually.
         The base line of the Nutcracker story is that a little girl Clara gets a nutcracker doll from her crazy uncle at Christmas. Later that night she has a dream that the nutcracker doll comes to life and he is her dream prince. Then the dream turns into a nightmare and she starts to get attacked by mice, with the king mouse having seven heads. The nutcracker prince ends up fighting off the mice and saving Clara. Shortly after they go on an adventure all over the world, they meet Arabians, tea cup dancers, the sugar plum fairy, the doo drop fairy, and many more. But, eventually her mischievous brother wakes her up from her spectacular dream.
         There are many parts in this production so some of the dancers in The Dancers Edge Nutcracker production are double or even triple casted. There are many leads like: Clara, the nutcracker, the sugar plum fairy, the dew drop fairy, the king mouse, the mechanical doll, the uncle, and many more. Some of the more difficult group parts are the merlatins, snow, and flowers.
        The nutcracker in this production of The Nutcracker is a 15 year old boy named Drew who is originally form here but moved to New York to be a lead on Broadway, and attends performing arts school. Clara is a young girl named Lexi who dances at The Dancers Edge Studio and is in sixth grade, and the Sugar Plum Fairy is a 15 year old girl named Katie who also dances at The Dancers Edge.
         The show times are this Saturday, November 21, at 2 P.M. and 6:30 P.M. and it is twenty dollars per ticket in the Prairie High School auditorium. It is a show you won't want to miss.

Why KHS should have their dance team on the track

        In past years cheerleaders and the dance team have both done sidelines at football games for Kennedy High School. However, the past two years the cheerleaders have decided it was not fair that the dance team girls got to dance on the sidelines because it was the cheerleaders job. So the dance team hasn't done sidelines the past two years to eliminate conflict, and now they may not ever get to do them again.
         I am on the dance team and i think it is absolutely ridiculous that the dance team isn't allowed to be on the sidelines helping support their schools football team. I am a junior and my freshmen year we still did sidelines and it was my favorite part of the year. Performing at half to music that no one can hear and having no one pay attention because they are too invested in their conversations is not quite as fun. So i am going to really push to be able to do sidelines my senior year.
           The sad part is that majority of the student section asks us dance team girls why we aren't on the sideline and they tell us how they wish we still were because they liked us dancing. The football team too says they miss hearing our sideline music; and i often have teachers question me on why we don't do sidelines anymore and say that they miss us dancing on the track. How is this fair? Our school has let the cheerleaders who are supposed to support every activity make an administrative decision. Yes, i believe this decision should be made by the student body and administration not just the cheerleaders.
            We are one of the only high schools in the area that doesn't have our dance team dancing on the track, and you will not find a single college with a dance team that doesn't do sidelines at the games. In fact colleges call their dance team and cheerleaders combined the spirit squad. I think this is a perfect name because the cheerleaders and dance team are both for the same team.We have recently had two of our dance team girls graduate and make D1 college dance teams and they both said how upset they were that we are unable to do sidelines now. Their reasoning is because a lot of us girls on the team now aspire to be on a college team just like them and they said there is no way we will be ready for game days. On game days the college dance teams do pre-game, sideline, cheers, halftime, and more sidelines and cheers. Our team gets to do halftime only.
             Since we are supporting the same team and are the only school in the area whose dance team never gets to dance on the track and do sidelines, i think it is a little out of hand and that Kennedy High Schools student body and administration should make a vote to bring us back down on the track for at least the first half of the game; because in all reality it should be an administrative and student body decision not a cheerleader or dance team decision.

stretching

"Will it be easy? Nope. Worth it? Absolutely." -anonymous
         Many people don't realize the importance of stretching. Even more people don't realize the importance of stretching correctly; or even realize how incorrectly they are stretching. Not stretching at all can lead to pulling a muscle or injuring yourself but so can stretching incorrectly.
         While stretching, it is extremely important to make sure your knees track directly over your toes and also make sure they stay in line with your toes or behind them. This may seem unnecessary but it is an injury waiting to happen. Having your knees invert or not align with your toes causes pain in some people, but even if you don't feel any pain it is hurting you and will cause issues in the future. It stretches the ligaments and tendons in your knee's ways they shouldn't be stretched causing them to loosen. This causes the chances for you to tear your ACL or shatter your meniscus sky rocket, and those could potentially not just be a temporary injury but it can often be career ending.
           Another thing people don't pay much attention to is the proper way to do your splits. However, practicing your splits wrong will cause you to leap and do some other things wrong while you are dancing as well. While doing your splits you must make sure your hips are aligned and NOT opened. opening your hips can cause hip flexor pain and issues in the future. Also dancers are not supposed to use their hip flexors as much as most probably do, so by making sure your hips are correctly aligned will decrease activation in the hip flexors for the time being.
               The worst is when a dancer is "naturally flexible." If a dancer believes they are naturally flexible or the are just lazy their is a big chance that they either wont stretch, or they wont stretch well. By not stretching they will not be able to reach their full potential and their body wont be as warm; they will be more susceptible to injuring themselves in pulling a muscle. Sometimes not stretching can be so severe that a muscle tears. So stretching and stretching effectively are more important than just to make you "more flexible."
                  Make sure you stretch every part of your body as well because, you might not realize your arms, legs, neck, back, and core all need to be stretched along with your legs and hips.
              

Ballet Class

“Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.” –Alexander Pushkin

                Like I talked about in a previous blog, ballet is the base and foundation of dance. Ballet classes are very calm and focused but take a lot of work physically and mentally.

                It is expected of you in ballet class that you treat your teacher with the highest amount of respect. At the start you are supposed to greet your teacher and at the end you are supposed to go up and personally thank them. Not only do you need to welcome and thank them you also must be very focused and attentive the whole time.

                In ballet class it is required that you wear a leotard, tights, and your hair in a bun, with the proper ballet shoes or pointe shoes. Some may think it’s silly that it is such a strict dress code but there is a reason for it. The form fitting leotard and tights allow yourself and the teacher to be able to see your alignment and pick up on little flaws. Pointing out the flaws in your alignment help you fix them faster and this will translate into all of your other styles and improve things you didn’t even know were wrong. Also it helps for injury prevention.

                In professional ballet schools the highest level students generally already know their class’s combinations before it starts; and the combinations and exercises change every day. Also in professional schools along with colleges there is often and accompanist who will play the music to go along with the combinations on a piano. There are many different time signatures for different combinations so the accompanist has to be very attentive to make sure they don’t play something that doesn’t fit with the combination. In average studio ballet classes the music is played from a cd or iPod but the music still has to be selected carefully to make sure the phrasing of the music fits with the phrasing of the combination. In average studios they also learn their combinations for the class while they are in the class. For more advanced classes it’s usually learned verbally and the dancers have to translate it into their body.

                Many young mediocre dancers or even a lot of audiences don’t realize how intricate ballet is especially combinations. The dancers don’t just have to worry about feet positions but also arm positions and head positions and they have make sure they are also relaxed and only engaging the necessary muscles for that specific move. Ballet is a lot more structured and difficult than most realize.

Bun Head

Many dancers prefer to wear their hair in a bun while they are dancing to keep it out of their face and for turning purposes. A great thing to help make perfect buns fast is a bun maker. There are many different sizes, colors, and types. You can get them at local dance studios, Claire's, Target or Walmart.

Teamwork

“You don’t inspire your teammates by showing them how amazing you are. You inspire them by showing them how amazing they are.” –Robyn Benincasa, World Champion Adventure Racer

                Teamwork can cause a great amount of success or ruin very successful athletes or player. Teamwork is very important in dance for many reasons, one being partnering. When you are partnering with someone you have to be able to connect and trust if you can’t trust your partner the dance or lift or move will never reach its full potential. Also with group dances, you have to work together to feel each other’s energy to know how to stay on time, and to match the dancers around you.

                Respect is one of the biggest parts of teamwork. You must respect your teammates and coach because when people feel disrespected they get discouraged and may even feel unwanted, once this starts people start to slack off and the negative work ethic is way more contagious than the positive work ethic is.

                Trust is also very important. If you can’t trust your teammates and tell them stuff and know they will be there for you it is going to not be as fun to go to practice. When teams work the best together is when they get along and know that no matter what their teammates will be there for them no matter what at the end of the day.

                Bonding makes team closer. You need to know your teammates and be comfortable around them to be able to perform at your highest ability and to reach your greatest amount of potential. Getting to know every single person on the team and have personal relationships with all of them usually makes teams come together quicker, and makes everyone more comfortable on the team, also leads to having more trust and respect. Plus it’s more fun when you know your teammates well.

                Encouragement. It is important to have great encouragement within a team; some nice motivational words to push you through the end, to keep you focused or even to just keep you working hard. Encouragement is not always an easy thing to do, when teams hit rough spots or less successful times, but it is necessary to get the team back to a more successful route.

                Leadership. Not just a captain or a coach but every team is going to have people that are natural leaders; you don’t need a label to be one. Leadership is not hard when the team is successful; it’s hard when the team is having a rough time. Great leaders are great even in the hard times. While being a leader you have to make sure every single person on the team know they are special and there is a reason they are on the team, they are a contributing member and that the team wouldn’t be the same without them. This may seem silly, reminding them they are special, what does that have to do with anything? Well knowing you help actually is motivation in its self. The cliché statement, “a team is only as strong as its weakest link,” is actually very true. The back row is what is pushing the front row to be better, and so on.

                Teams will always be more successful with great teamwork but that has to start with great teammates.

My Dance Life

“I dance because there’s no greater feeling in the world than moving to a piece of music and letting the rest of the world disappear.” -anonymous

I dance because it is a part of who I am. When I am sad I dance, when I am happy I dance, there hasn’t been a single day of my life that I haven’t danced in some way.

I started dancing at Studio Dance when I was 3 years old and have been in love with it ever since. When I was 7 or 8 I was a snowflake in the nutcracker ballet when it came to Cedar Rapids. I started competing at age 11, and did my first solo when I was thirteen years old. When I was thirteen I also made it on the Kennedy Varsity dance team as a freshmen, this was my biggest dance accomplishment so far.

My sophomore year I switched studios and went to The Dancers Edge to further my ballet training. The Dancers Edge has opened so many doors for me and has given me many great opportunities already in the year and a half that I have been there so far. The director of the Russian Ballet came to our studio and did master classes with us which was an amazing opportunity to further my technique. Jaimie Goodwin an amazing professional dancer and choreographer came and did master classes with us and I happened to be lucky enough to be in a dance piece choreographed by her so I got to dance and work with her for a week. I also got to do a solo private with her that was very helpful and one of the greatest experiences I’ve had. They also had Bryan Tanaka, Beyoncé’s choreographer come and I got to take a master class with him. This year we are having another professional guest hip hop choreographer come in to set two pieces for us.  For the great tap dancers at our studio they had Kaelyn Gray a professional tapper and choreographer come and set two pieces for them and also teach master classes.

                The dancers edge made me fall in love with dance all over again, It made me realize how far behind I am and how much work I have to do to get there. I also have learned more about my body and injury prevention.  Jaimie Goodwin and my ballet teacher Mrs. Carol where looking at my alignment and realized that my ribs are offset and a little twisted they think due to a minor case of scoliosis. This is so helpful to know as a dancer because I am now working on how to find my center of balance and counter balance the minor flaw in my body. It’s a stressful thing but will help tremendously in the long run.

                The dancer’s edge and Kennedy dance team made me realize that I don’t want to be done with dance after high school.  My dream is to be on University of Wisconsin Madison’s dance team, or on University of Iowa’s dance team. Both teams are some of the top in the nation so I have a lot of work to do but I think that dancer’s edge is putting me on the right track.

                Some people wonder why I dance so much or how it’s even any fun because I do it so often; but to me dance is the most relaxing, and stress relieving thing in the world. It saves me from pointless fighting because I dance it off. It gets out words you don’t know how to say, it puts you in a great mood and it helps you met friends that will last a life time. I hope that I can dance until the day I die.