Personal Narrative: Improving Team Dance

This weekend I, personally did not have much planned. The only activity I attended was a seven-hour dance tryout for the Foley Falconettes Dance Team. At the dance tryout, all the people were made to do learn a dance, jumps and leaps, the splits, and stretch plenty therefore people wouldn’t hurt themselves. I needed to attend this to figure out what team I will be attending this for the winter. After my seven-hour dance tryouts, my family held a campfire. I could sit under the stars and listen to the campfire crackle.

Each time we were recognized, we were ecstatic. It was this tiring bonding experience that made our team one of the strongest in Anacortes High School’s history. Taking home first place in a majority of the competitions and the first gold ribbon awarded meant all our hard work had paid off. One of my proudest moments was almost dropping a trophy while attempting, and failing, to hold them all for a picture. To me, the trophies didn’t mean we were better than the other teams, they meant that in those three days, we proved we were a team worth watching, even though we were relatively small and came from a 2A high school. They meant we had survived and made the best of camp as a

My apprehension only seemed to grow as the time dragged on. Suddenly, I heard our school name. Adrenaline rushed through me as we ran out onto the mats with gaudy smiles on out faces. The music thundered behind us as we jumped, stunted, and danced. It felt like it was over in a heartbeat. The experience as a whole left me utterly exhausted; so much in fact that when it came time for awards, I was quite frankly too worn out to care. We had done our best and there was nothing we could do to alter our fate at that point. Still, I couldn't help but attempt to play back our performance in my head. "We were nowhere near as natural or well put together as the other teams." I muttered. As it turned out, I was correct. We placed last in our

This weekend I will be at school trying out for next year’s Foley Falconette Dance Team. This consists of girls in grades seventh through twelfth,you do not have to have any experience of dance. It will last seven hours, it starts at nine in the morning and will end at four in the afternoon. We will work on a lot of dance moves, we will stretch, learn our tryout routine and work on our splits, kicks, turns, jumps and a lot more dance moves. Once we do all of the stretches and learn everything, we will move on to the actual tryout part. Our coach will put us into groups of three to five and we will perform everything that we learned that day. While our coach “grades” us on our moves and our flexibility that we have, our coach will tell us where she thinks we should be placed for next year’s team, the Varsity team, the Junior Varsity, or the C-Squad, Varsity is for the advanced dancers who can do anything without a problem, junior varsity is made up of dancers who have experience, but they are not at the varsity level yet, and the c-squad is for new dancers or for people who need help with their moves and everything else.

Our coaches had told us since the beginning that the months and months we would spend preparing for one particular day would all be worth it in the end. Taking place at New Castle Fieldhouse in early March 2015, I competed in the IHSDTA Dance team competition with my fellow teammates and members of the NHS dance team. We walked into the vast, expansive Fieldhouse knowing that it was the largest High School Fieldhouse in the Nation. The anticipation in the air was electric and full of excited chatter of girls who had been preparing for months for this one day… actually for these two minutes.

Dance has influenced my life in many ways, but one experience I will never forget is when I earned Senior Feature Dancer. As a dancer, a person, and the woman I am becoming dance has always been so important to me. It immediately caught my attention because it was my escape and my happy place. My passion for the sport is what gave me motivation to do better and gain confidence that I lacked. I was able to make friends who would last me a lifetime.

No one really likes to feel defeated and it is in those times that we may think we want a participation award. Some think that the award will take away the sting. Unfortunately, it is through feeling that sting that we truly understand the sweet feeling of winning. It is only with feeling the exact opposite that we can learn and appreciate what a win is really like. Likewise, it is only when we understand losing that we can feel compassion for those that do not win. An attribute that can also come about is learning to be a good sport in times that we fail to

My mouth hung open as I watched the gorgeous, graceful girls leap and twirl across the gym floor during their annual summer mini-camp. From that point forward, I knew that I wanted to be a Chiefette. I studied up on the history of the team, watched every one of their public performances, and enrolled in dance team preparation classes. Each year, the Chiefettes got better and better, and during each dance, their pirouettes and jetes grabbed my heart and carried me with them through their emotional journey. Their movement quality astounded me; I wasn’t exactly sure how a team of so many girls could dance in unison with seemingly effortless grace. I knew from talking to the girls on the elite team that they maintained excellent grades, participated in other school activities and sports, and volunteered within the community. These girls were my idols, and I thought that the only way to have a positive high school experience was to join the dance team. There was no question in my mind that I would be on the team all four years of high school, and because I had prior dance experience, that I would be one of the better dancers on the team. Throughout middle school, I dreamed about the day when I would finally be able to call myself a Chiefette, but I soon realized that I had no idea the amount of hard work and talent that it took to earn that

Abby Payne at Lake Travis High School claims her team is all about the show. They do football, contest, and spring show but spring show is the team’s favorite. One thing that seemed unique about her team is that they devote an entire group or the “Elite team” to preparing the dancers who want to dance collegiately. This is a great idea when you are in an area like Lake Travis because those dancers work hard in both academics and dance so they are more likely to attend prestigious schools that have excellent dance teams. It is a wonderful that Abby is taking steps to set them up for success in their future. Another thing that is interesting to me is that Abby encourages them to be in other organizations and to involve themselves in other things besides dance team so they can build their resumes. From my experience a lot of directors prefer their dancers keep the dance team as the number one priority and to not make too many other time commitments that take away from their devotion to the team. It’s very generous of Abby to allow the kids to take these opportunities to further prepare them for their future. The thing

A dance team has to be centered and grasped by the concept that respect comes first, along with respect comes discipline. Team members have to respect themselves, in order to respect the people surrounding them, their environment, and administrators over them. To be better than our best we cannot be lazy. Laziness is the strongest weakness any team could ever have, it shows in everything a dancer performs, such as techniques like kicks, smiles, character and poise. I will press on the fact that, “if you truly want to win, work hard the FIRST time”, when taught a new step, dance it like you’ve known it for years, perform while in practice, aim to stand out amongst

During my elementary years, my second home was at the cheerleading gym. Each week, I would spend over sixteen hours in Shrewsbury, PA practicing with my cheer team for competitions. I was a member of Titanium Athletics, an allstar cheer team that trained to compete against other teams all over the country. Cheer was essentially my entire life for five years, and I had no idea how much my family and I would be impacted when I quit.

I’ve been able to travel to places I’ve never been before, to bond with ladies who share the same passion as me, and of course to grow as a dancer. One of my most memorable dance experience’s was competing in my first national dance competition my sophomore year in high school. I was able to compete with thousands of teams from across the United States and even a few teams from other countries. I love the competition atmosphere and the moments I have to bond with my teammates. There’s nothing that can compare to dancing in front of thousands of people underneath those stage lights. The adrenaline rush I get is indescribable and to know that I’m sharing the dance floor with thirty-four other ladies that have the same goals as me is unbelievable. One of the best moments at the competition was walking away as third runner up overall when we competed against over 200 teams. Another memorable dance experience was when I went to dance camp at Oklahoma State university my senior year. I remember the very first day of camp they ran out of food and we had to order pizza to our dorms. The worst part about this was that we had to be performance ready within an hour and try to eat at the same time. It was extremely frustrating and stressful but at the end we performed and received our bid for nationals in Orlando, Florida. I honestly believe that the most excellent

As soon as I get home, I call a family meeting. “Guess what? Ms. Taryn is bringing a couple of students to the World Ballet Championship, and she has invited me!”

This past learning period I have been doing alot of ballet with children. I recently taught a level two ballet class and showed them some of what I will be dancing in the upcoming performance. The children were about 5-8 years old and mostly girls. I had alot of fun teaching them how to do new steps they had never done before and seeing their reactions to me doing things that seem xxxx simple to me. They were so impressed and showed such awe and wonderment that it warmed my heart. In addition, I later went to the Tutu School, a ballet academy specializing in younger dancers. Unlike my school's level two class, the age range was younger as most of the kids were 3-5 years old. Dancers from my ballet school and I performed an exerpt from the

Twelve years doing the same thing, and it never gets boring. Dedication, commitment, and perseverance are are the most important qualities to achieve any dream. Becoming a ballerina is no exception. Natural abilities help the process, but not having them makes it even more possible. Some people are born to succeed, naturally do good, but they never have to work for their dreams. Me on the other hand I learned from a very young age I was not like them, I had to have passion to succeed.