Have you ever been told the same correction week after week by your dance teacher? Or maybe you ARE a dance teacher who feels like a broken record.
I get it. It can be incredibly frustrating.
Especially if you feel like you’re working hard and concentrating on the feedback you get from your teacher.
But it still doesn’t get easier and maybe you don’t quite understand how to fix that alignment issue or stop your ankles from wobbling.
Studio owners and teachers tell me this all the time. So I thought I’d share 2 super common corrections in the dance studio and give you some tips to correct the problem...
Correction #1: “You should be jumping UP, not out.”
What do you mean? I am jumping up as high as I can! How can I jump higher? What muscles do I use for that?
No matter how many times you go across the floor over and over again to practice a middle leap, your jump height won’t get better until you find the root cause of the issue.
Jumping requires a great amount of lower body power – specifically your glutes and hamstrings. Now power is what allows us to combine strength and speed. Without strength, you cannot attain the peak power that you’re looking for in a jump.
Most of the time, dancers are very quadriceps dominant movers because we’re so used to doing a demi plié and not a squat. There’s nothing wrong a with a demi plié, but the squat movement pattern is largely undertrained, which means a lot of dancers lack glute and hamstring strength.
So in order to actually jump higher, you have to start with the strength training then develop the power.
Correction #2: “You need to have stronger arms”
This is a tricky one because as dancers, we are also very lower body- dominant and we rarely train upper body strength. Upper body becomes incredibly important for things like balance, turns, floorwork, etc.
The idea of placing your arms into a position is drastically different from using your upper body strength to support your bodyweight while dancing. Because when trained correctly, your upper body actually HELPS you dance 🤯
Who would’ve thought!?
So I always recommend training upper body (especially back) strength with things like bodyweight exercises or resistance bands (click here to see my favorite bands on Amazon).
The strength will come with consistency and application to your movement. And I have plenty of exercises to share with you on social media and my 12-week virtual training programs using only a resistance band.
So in conclusion, these corrections that you get from your teachers are not just nit-picking (even though it feels like it!). These corrections will actually help you dance better because we are athletes.
So let’s train like athletes.
If you’re a dance teacher or studio owner who constantly feels like you’re repeating yourself and can’t quite get your dancers to understand those corrections, I include all of these things and more in my studio master classes!
I love traveling to different studios around the United States and helping their dancers begin this transformation process of strength and conditioning in the studio.
I’d love to meet your students either virtually or in-person! Click here to schedule a call with me and I’ll give you all the details.
-Kendall
P.S...
What if you could increase your pirouette count or increase your jump height AND improve your strength and balance all in 12 weeks?
If you want to walk into competition season feeling stronger and more confident, this is the perfect option for you!
Get access to 2 workouts per week focused on your turns OR your jumps PLUS a monthly group session for feedback on your technique and access to the BodyKinect app to log your workouts from the studio, the gym, or your living room.
Get a head start on your supplemental dance training with my new virtual training programs!
Click here to learn more and get enrolled in "Give Your Turns A Tune-Up" or "How To Boost Your Jump Height" 🙌🏻
