Hi Everyone!

How’s back to school going?  I hope everyone is settling back into the routine and I’ve loved seeing you all back at the studio!  It’s going to be a great year, I can tell!

Hopefully if you’ve been back in the studio for class, you were given a dance journal!  We wanted to give you a place to write down all things dance related this year!  Here are a few ideas for what you can use your dance journal for!

• Draw dance pictures!  You can draw pictures of your dance friends, moves you’ve learned in class, or famous dancers!
• Use it to keep your stickers that you receive after a job well done!
• Write down your goals!  It’s been shown that if you write down your goals you are more likely to achieve them.  So write down your goals for this year-whether it’s general things like working on your turnout, or specific steps you want to master.  Write them down and bookmark the page so that you can look at them often!  Don’t forget to write down HOW you are going to achieve your goals.
• Write down corrections you receive from your teacher!  Take a minute after class and think about all the corrections you were given (things like pointe your feet, work on your spot, etc) and jot them down.  That way you can look at them before class the next week, and really try to fix them!
• Write down your recital choreography!  It makes learning recital choreography so much faster and easier if everyone remembers the steps from week to week.  So write it down!  Even the act of putting it to paper will help you remember.  You can write down the steps and the counts (don’t worry if you don’t know the correct spelling-as long as you know what you mean!), draw pictures of what your poses look like, whatever works for you.  Everyone has a different system-you’ll find what helps you remember the most!
• Write down your formations in recital choreography! Obviously you won’t have everyone’s spot memorized.  But even writing down a brief note about where you stand will really help (“on the chassé, I move to the 5 next to Sally” for example).
• Write down any stretches or exercises that you really like!  That way you can remember to do them at home.

What are you planning to do with your dance journal?  We’d love to know!