This is the third practice you’ve spent drilling the same section – the leap series. Your team just isn’t getting it. So, you do it again, and again, and again, one more time, and one more time… They still don’t have it. Mary seems to be landing before everyone else, Kelly is landing late, Ashley’s back leg is bent and Sarah’s feet aren’t pointed. You tell the girls to take a water break. Sound familiar?
Rehearsing technical skills can be challenging for any team – and stressful for any coach. Even though dancers do often learn by repetition, the method of repeating the same movement again and again often proves to be ineffective. Sometimes, when a coach is watching a team of 15 dancers, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the problem lies. What exactly is hindering the girls from being able to move on from that eight count?
BPDS will help you troubleshoot technique problems by providing you with helpful suggestions in your Coach’s Manual. For each technical skill in your choreography, we will provide you with specifics of what to watch for when there is a problem. For example, if when they jump, they’re not getting any height, look at their preparation for the jump. Are they taking a deep plié (bending their knees) in order to get the spring to get off the ground? We will instruct you as the coach on what to look for, what the problem-causing factors are in each technical element. Identifying the problem (other than “it just doesn’t look good”) is half the battle in solving it. We’ll then direct you to specific exercises found on your instructional technique DVD/VHS that will work to fix the specific problem. Dancers often have different hurdles that hold them back. By being able to troubleshoot the specifics, you can give feedback to each dancer regarding what they personally need to focus on rather than the generic solution of “do it again…”
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