Session Two Day Eleven (TR)

Class One Jazz (Younger):
We had a fun day today! I decided to try and do the isolations seated, for both classes, to try and help them distinguish movement of their hips and their ribs. It worked pretty well! It is a lot harder to use your hips to move your body when you have both sitz bones on the ground, and they looked good! I think it will still be a while before I can have them move just their ribs while standing, but I think this is good progress, and a good solution to the problem.
We still worked on the usual things; pirouettes, kicks, leaps, chaines, side leaps, and normal leaps, but I began to combine things together. I had her do 8 counts of kicks and then an 8 count pirouette (the music was kind of slow) and it worked pretty well! She got mixed up about which foot to use when starting the pirouettes, but I think that was more me confusing her as I tried to mirror her (I may have done it backwards the first few times). I think with practice we'll be able to get them down really well!
The stag leaps are coming along pretty well too! She gets mixed up with which foot should leap, but they're getting better. I had her practice a high chaine and a low chaine with out the leap before we started the stags, and that seemed to help. She still bounces between each step, which throws off her momentum, but that'll come with more practice.

Class One Jazz (Older):
This class went well too! The girls are getting a little more rowdy, and want to play tag through all the exercises, but they are doing well. We did pirouettes, kicks, kick and pirouette combination, side leaps, leaps, chaines, and I began to teach them how to do a floor roll. We started by doing one chaine and then tucked the back leg to allow us to do a bum roll so we could come back to standing and turn under ourselves. It was pretty rough, but I think they'll get it with practice. I am hoping we can do chaines into a bum roll into two chasses and a side leap, but it'll probably be a few weeks before we attempt that. We made it farther in the hip hop routine, and they are doing well. They understand the counts pretty well, (even if their counting with the music still needs a little work). They all take corrections really well and are a delight to work with.

Session Two Day Ten (MW)

Class One General Dance:
I began teaching modern this time, and it was a lot of fun! We started class by watching part of the Taylor Swift "Shake It Off" music video to show them different kinds of dance. It was a fun way to introduce a new style of dance. We did a combination with the "x" and fetal positions, plies, tendus, walking and leaping patterns and began learning a dance/combination. It was a fun day, and the dancers really enjoyed it! I had quite a few who said they liked it better than ballet, which is kinda fun.

Class Two Ballet (Younger):
Today was a little crazy. The boy and the three younger girls were very hard to get to pay attention. One kept swinging on the barre and the boy would alternate between kicking or punching one girl to the other. It was chaos. I'm starting to realize he needs a lot of personal attention, to keep him on task and to give him the encouragement that he needs. I am very excited to have an assistant!
We made it through plies, tendus, rond de jambs, eleves, releves, kicks, sautes, pas de chat, leaps and chaines, and I tried to have them do a pirouette combination where you do four quarter turns, two half turns and four whole turns, but after the eleves and releves they were pretty tired, so it didn't work very well. I think I'm going to do something else next time.

Class Three Ballet (Older):

I did a few new things to try and help this student progress a little bit more. I had her try and do the combinations without me saying anything and only directly following me on the first side. She did pretty good, but I think I want to keep working on it. I want her to get to the point where she can count and remember most of it on her own. We did plies, tendus, rond de jambs, eleves, releves, pirouettes at the barre, sautes, center tendu and pas de bourree, chaines, pas de chats, and leaps. The pas de bourrees are looking a lot better! I made a center tendu combination that ends with three pas de bourrees and it's helping a lot! I'm excited and I think I'll be able to put them in her dance! She really struggles to remember things, and I think she's not as hard of a worker as the other student who has her own class and I forget that sometimes. I want to inspire her to push herself or even just exert herself so she can do even better without me telling her exactly what to do next. 

I've been struggling with finding ballet music that I like to create dances for the showcase. Everything I find is either too slow or just doesn't fit. I'm going to keep looking and hopefully I find something soon so they can start learning it!

Session Two Day Nine (TR)

Class One Jazz (Younger): 
This class went quite well today. The dancer's tumbling classes ended so she is able to stay for the whole hour for the rest of the session! I was quite excited. I decided to add isolations to the warm up for both classes to help them with the hip hop routine, and it is fun to see them learning a new concept. We worked on our leaps, kicks, chaines, pirouettes and I began teaching the stag leap. It was fun to see her attack a new challenge, and I think she'll be able to get them down quite well by the showcase.

Class Two Jazz (Older):
We had a fun day in this class as well. The students are very engaged and well behaved (even if they are quite talkative). We worked on our kicks, pirouettes, side leaps, chaines, leaps, and really pushed straight legs today. They are all improving a lot and it is a fun group! I also talked more about spotting in this class especially. It can be a difficult concept to pick up, but they are doing pretty well. With the spotting their chaines are staying straighter, but there is still a lot of wobbling with each step, which will be the next thing we work on.

Session Two Day Eight (MW)

Class One General Dance:
Today we did ballet again, and I realized that with how many classes we have left I may have spent too long on this style, so we may be rushing through the other styles. It will be good though. We worked on plies, tendus, round de jambes, kicks, leaps and chaines. I tried to teach a center tendu but we ran out of time. I think we might just show different technique things for the showcase.

Class Two Ballet (Younger):
The class went fairly well today. We did plies, tendus, rond de jambs, kicks, chaines, leaps, and I started pas de chats with the students today. It was a bit of a struggle, but with work it will get better. It was a struggle as always to get everyone to pay attention, but it's getting a little better.

Class Three Ballet (Older):
Today was a pretty good class. She doesn't do very well with remembering the names of things, but I'm hoping that she'll get there. We worked on plies, tendus, rond de jambs, releves, kicks, practiced pirouettes at the barre, pas de bourrees, pas de chats, leaps and chaines. It was a good class and I can see her coming along. The pas de bourrees are looking a little better and less confused, but I think I should have started with the simple pas de bourrees (that start with a tombe) instead of the coupe pas de bourree.

Session Two Day Seven (TR)

Class One Jazz (Younger):
This class went really well! My one dancer is progressing quite well and I think I'm going to start her on some harder things. We did leaps, kicks, pirouettes, chaines, and leaps, and I think she could do stag leaps as well. She is doing better with the hip hop routine and told me that she has been practicing it. She is doing really well, I'm very excited to get to continue to work with her!

There was another applicant today, and she did really well! She came at four and stayed until partway through the second class. She had a good aerobic warm up, and got along well with the students. It was very fun to see them interact with a new teacher, and it was nice to have someone there to help give corrections and keep the class going.

Class Two Jazz (Older):
This class went well today too! We worked on pirouettes, kicks, leaps, chaines and began learning side leaps today. I've had them do 8 counts of kicks and 8 counts of free dancing, and am trying to work them up to counting on their own. It's kind of fun, and I think this will be an excellent way to teach them how to count music and do each movement on the assigned count. They are doing really well with their hip hop dance, and are all very excited to learn the whole thing!

We had a talk today about failure. Some of the dancers seemed a little frustrated about their progress, and so I decided that it was time for a talk. I told them a story about when I was learning to ice skate from a professional ice skater, and she said that if we weren't falling, we weren't learning. We then talked about what this means in dance. I told them that it doesn't matter how many times we don't get it quite right as long as we keep trying. They took it a little bit literally, (there was a lot of talk about falling when we dance) but I think it helped. The rest of the class seemed to go smoother, and they all seemed determined to keep trying to progress.

Session Two Day Six (MW)

Class One General Dance:
This class went very well today! I have one applicant come in to help assist with the class. She was very good with the kids, had an excellent combination, and did really well keeping their attention. She was an excellent assistant and just jumped in to assist, answer questions and give corrections wherever necessary. The class went really well and was really fun! We worked on plies, tendus, rond de jambs, kicks, chines and leaps. It was especially nice to have help getting everyone turning the correct way on their chaines and keep everyone in line while waiting for their turn.

Class Two Ballet (ages 5-8):
I had another applicant come assist for this class, and she did well too. She was less comfortable with the young kids, but she gave very good corrections, and kept them all in line very well.
We worked on plies, tendus, rond de jambs, kicks, leaps, center tendus, and chaines. The class definitely did better having another teacher there. We were able to divide up giving individual corrections and leading the class, and it worked a lot better! I am so excited to have help running this class!

Class Three Ballet (ages 9-12):
We still only have one girl here (I don't think her friend is going to show up) but I don't think I could merge her with the younger class. We worked on plies, tendus, rond de jambs, releves,