Dance Team Training... Much more than just poms!

Hey there! Whew! It’s been a while, ok, actually its been a long time. I haven’t blogged in a long time and here’s why. We’ve been a little busy here at Legacy Dance Project. Let’s review shall we:

We have moved! We are now located at 2535 E Ash Street behind Taco Bell! :) We had an army of the LDP Tribe in the studio fixing, painting, and creating a beautiful dance home. We are loving the new space. We are continuously growing and that is such a wonderful blessing. We’ve added 4 more petite/tiny classes to our schedule and also many level I classes to accommodate our growing dance family.

We participated in many extra performances this year outside of the studio including the Fire Princess Pageant, Thriller, and the great Vet Stories performance this year.

We have added events to our repertoire and we’ve hosted holiday parties, goal setting workshops, birthday parties, and tea parties, with more still to come.

We’ve added new styles of dance to our schedule like modern and cheer dance. Both of which I personally feel very fondly about.

But I wanted to take a second to talk about cheer dance or other wise known as dance team training.

I was on the dance team in high school and my freshman year and I continued on the judge dance team tryouts and had students to go on to be on university dance teams. I absolutely looooove good dance team training and a good dance team routine. The crispness, the energy, and attitudes, the attack, the teamwork… it all inspires me a lot. I had so many students that went to tryout and make it onto dance teams that I thought that is just another way I can help facilitate my students to better chase their dreams. I want everyone to know that just because you graduate from high school doesn’t mean you have to stop dancing… and dance team is only one option of that opportunity.

The benefits of dance team training are exponential:

fitness, core strength, teamwork, dedication, building a tough skin, working hard to not disappoint your coach, your teammates, and your self, pride in your personal appearance, being positive on the field and on the court, stamina, rise in technical ability as a dancer, still experiencing the joy of dancing and performing, stepping in the position of a role model, being part of the community, and the list is pretty much endless!!!

We start them young with their dance team training. We begin with drills of motion and trying to gain speed and fluidity with those movements. We constantly and consistently work on technique… the basis of our training studio wide. But it is essential for dance team success later on. We work on picking up choreography quickly to prepare them for the fast paced world of dance team.

I can remember stepping out onto the field at Dowdy-Ficklen for the first time. I was still under big lights but they weren’t stage lights anymore. It was grand stadium lights. The audience wasn’t a couple hundred anymore, it was thousands. It was a monstrous feeling of accomplishment, of adrenaline, of excitement! Something I wish all my dancers one day get the chance to experience.

My old-school picture of the ECU Dance Team circa 2004. Yes, my proud mother highlighted where I was in case you couldn’t spot me.

This old gal dancing with the dance team alumni two years ago… and getting it!

Mrs. Megan is in the far right corner performing as an ECU Alumni Dance Team Member in 2016

Legacy Dance Project Alumni Kailey Howard and Taylor Whaley (captain) perform and dance at ECU!

Next year, we’ll be adding more levels to this class and can’t wait to see all the other amazing paths that these up and coming dancers will take!

Until next time,

Megan