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 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.