Tag Archives: teachers

Holiday Gift Idea: Teacher Survival Kit!

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Need a fun and unique gift for your dance teacher? Create a “Dance Teacher Survival Kit”!  Make a list of items your dance teacher likes and create individual baskets for each teacher.  Stick it all in a cute basket or bin and wrap it up in a nice bow and you are set to go!  Since you’re customizing it, you can spend as much or as little as you’d like.

Practical Gifts To Include:

  • Hair ties or bobby pins if she has long hair
  • Aspirin
  • Mini-sewing kit
  • Small screwdriver if he or she is a tap teacher
  • Small massager tool (for sore muscles or feet)
  • Foot lotion or bath salts (although I’m guessing she already has a closet-full)
  • Pack of stickers (if they use stickers in class)

Funny Gifts To Include (you will need to add an explanation for each one):

  • A marble… for when you’ve lost yours
  • String / paperclip… to keep it all together
  • Sponge… to help clean dances
  • Rubber band.. to keep you flexible
  • Lifesavers… because you are one!
  • Stars (could be Starbursts, or an ornament)… you inspire your students to reach for the stars!
  • Candle… you light up people’s lives

More ideas like this from Angel’s Corner

Other Gifts

  • iTunes gift card
  • Bottle of wine (for after a long night of teaching!)
  • Gift card to his or her favorite restaurant (or to the coffee shop/sandwich shop nearby the studio)
  • Christmas ornament
  • Cookies or chocolate
  • Gum or mints

Share your own ideas: leave a comment!

Looking for more gift ideas?  Check out our ideas from last year.
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Lyrical & Modern "Shoes" – Do You Wear Them?

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I prefer bare feet for my modern and contemporary classes, but lately my students have been wearing FootUndeez or Dance Paws (the ones with stripes, polka dots, sparkles, etc) to class. I feel like an old lady but I tell them “when I was your age, those shoes didn’t exist and we toughened our feet by dancing barefoot. We we proud of our callouses”. In college, we were not allowed to wear them and quickly adapted to dancing on marley barefoot.

Then my students laugh at me and pull on their rainbow colored modern “shoe” over their tender, un-calloused feet.  So here’s my question to you, dear reader:

What do YOU wear on your feet to modern / lyrical class?  

Or if you’re a teacher – what do you allow your students to wear in class?  For performance?

If you’re not sure of what I’m talking about, they are little shoes that slip on over your toes and just over the ball of your foot to reduce friction and help with turns.

As a teacher, I allow my recreational students to wear them in class and in recital, but they must be skin-toned for the recital.  And they must make a choice – whatever they plan to wear for the show, they must wear for class.

For my competitive students, I do not allow the to wear them for modern dances and for lyrical, I make a decision on the day of competition based on the surface of the stage. For slippery stages, they go barefoot.

As a dancer, I don’t like the feeling of things between my toes while I dance.  I have a wide foot and the “Pawz” and “FootUndeez” cut off the circulation to my pinkie toe – does anyone else have that problem?  I think I might like the half-ballet shoe (top row, middle), but for now I will remain shoeless.

Thera-Bands for Dancers: Improve Balance

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Here's some other posts you might enjoy:  Preparing to Exercise, Foot & Ankle Exercises or read all the posts here: Thera-bands for Dancers
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Today's post contains exercises you can do in class or at home to improve your muscle strength.  Before you begin, remember to review our exercise tips.

Benefit to dancers: Strengthened hip flexor muscles and improving balance on one leg (which helps with turns and static poses).

All of these exercises need the band to be stabilized by a stationary object low to the floor.  At home, this could be a sturdy table, bed post or other heavy piece of furniture. In class, you could use a partner – just remind the students to check their bands for small tears which could cause the band to snap.

Slow Degages to the Side (Hip Abduction / Adduction)
Loop the band around your ankle and attach the other end to the sturdy object.

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Teaching Tip: Sticky Tendus

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I got this visual teaching tip from watching my ballet teacher’s preschool and Ballet 1 classes.

Her class was practicing tendu and the students had very slow and articulate feet during their parallel (preschool) and turned out (Ballet 1) tendus!  After class, I asked what her secret was and this is how she teaches tendu:

1.  Take out your imaginary piece of gum and chew it up so its really sticky (in the preschool class, everyone gets to say what flavor/color gum they are having)

2.  Take out some of your sticky gum and put it under your toes!  (An explanation of why we only do this with imaginary gum and never at home is also given at this point)

3.  With straight legs, try to slide the foot out… but the toes are very hard to move!  Finally we get all the way out and the gum pulls us back to the starting position.  Repeat while teacher says “sticky sticky (foot slides out) tendu (close)!”

4.  Repeat with the other foot.

As they progress during the year, the teacher only needs to say “sticky sticky tendu” and the students recall the sticky sensation and slow down while pushing through their toes.  I think this imagery would also benefit older students – after all, who doesn’t love a little silliness in their class every now and again?

Hope it helps you or your classes!  What teaching tips do you have for tendus?

Teaching Tip: Spaghetti, Meatballs and Pancakes, Oh My!

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This creative movement idea was inspired by this Fruit Tree post at Maria’s Movers and the comments from Zan (of Hullabaloo Danceshop).  Zan describes her “turnip dance” in the comments and I loved the idea so I’ve been trying it out with my Modern I / Creative Movement class (ages 8-10).  We have changed it to fit our needs and the kids have come up with different food names (since most of them have never eaten a turnip).  We tried to keep it to somewhat healthy foods.

Our food stretch goes like this (movements in parentheses):

Spaghetti, toast and… pizza?
Ok there’s no pizza stretch.. yet!

Flat as a pancake (lie on back)
Round like a meatball (contract and roll into ball on side)
Stretch like spaghetti (stretch long on side, keeping balance)
Flat as toast (lie on belly)
Up like a banana/mermaid (cobra or mermaid pose*)
Flat as toast
Stretch like spaghetti
Round like a meatball
Flat as a pancake (repeat other side)

The only trouble is they always say they’re hungry after we do this stretch!

*Some days we do cobra pose (leaving feet on the ground and using hands to push up to stretch back) and some days we do mermaid (lifting feet and kicking arms off ground balancing on belly) – also known as superman pose.

Happy dancing!

Tap Teaching Tip: The Snappy Shuffle

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This year I have three classes of 1st and 2nd graders in tap / jazz combination class and we are focusing on increasing the speed and clarity of their tap steps.  I've noticed that they are still doing the large "baby" shuffle — where they use almost their entire leg to swing the foot back and forth to make the sounds.

I was trying to think of a way to help them understand the faster shuffle and we came up with the "snappy shuffle" which we practice during tap barre.  The "snappy shuffle" is a quick shuffle that is small and the dancer uses the knee to do most of the work (lifting the knee up and down as opposed to bringing the whole leg forward and back).

I am having good results so far.  The kids love "going fast" and enjoy the challenge of doing "steps like the big girls/boys".

Now we are working on translating that same "snappy shuffle" into our other steps, like irishes (shuffle hop step) and buffalos (leap shuffle leap).

Here is our tap barre that I use for a warm-up, lately we've been using "He Could Be the One – Hannah Montana to give you an idea of the tempo.

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Playlist Update for Fall 2011

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Now that the studio is open and I’m getting back into the swing of things, I updated some of my playlists for class and wanted to share my favorite new songs with you!  Most of these are from the Top 40 and some are old favorites, but hopefully they might inspire you or give you something new for the season!

 

Not offered on iTunes:
Pumped Up Kicks (RLYNX Remix) – Foster The People
Party On The Floor – DJ Earworm Remix – check out his other remixes too!

Review: Tempo Magic App

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I was so excited to try out my new Tempo Magic Pro app last week at our dance intensive tap classes (see previous post here).  I will admit that every time I see it on my iPhone screen I cannot resist the urge to say "tempo MAGIC" while wiggling my jazz hands with a magician-like flair.  Try it with me now… tempo MAAAAGIC!

Ok.

Moving on.

The app is pretty straight forward.  The first thing you have to do is add the songs you want to slow down.  Tap the playlist button.

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Link Love: Great Teaching Ideas!

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Times Union

Hurricane / Tropical Storm Irene went through my area in upstate New York, but luckily power was all we lost yesterday.  Many places in my area are flooded, but we just had a few downed branches and trees. The creek by one of my studio locations overflowed and closed the road and parking lot, but didn’t get close to the building.  I am so thankful for all of the workers who were out yesterday repairing the power lines and keeping people safe from flooded roadways.  Hope all my readers are also safe after the storm.

Now that the power is back on, I have been catching up on some dance blog reading.  There are some really great teaching ideas I can’t wait to use in my classes in the fall and share with my teachers.

Happy reading!

Tempo-Changing App!

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Just read Morris Partee’s post over at Dance Advantage on this awesome new app for changing the tempo of your music:  Tempo Magic Pro

This app allows you to adjust your song tempos on your iPhone or iPod touch.  As a tap teacher, I am so excited about using this app in class!  Our sound system currently has tempo-changing CD players, so I used to burn my music to a CD and then use the CD player to playback with different tempos.  I am hoping this app will change my life.. hah!  I am teaching this week at our summer camp intensive, so I will report back with results.

…off to go play with my iPhone now!

If you’re also an iPhone addict, you might also like to check out this post on two free iPhone apps that I use as a dance teacher.