Maintaining your skills over summer

While the best way to maintain your technique is to continue coming to class over summer, we know that that may not be possible. It can be easy to lose skills that you have mastered from the past season while on break, but you can do a few things to help you maintain your skills this summer. By doing the four things listed below, you will have an easier time getting back into classes this fall.

Stretch and condition daily:

It is important for a dancer to stretch and condition to maintain their skills. By stretching for 10-15 minutes a day, you can keep your flexibility and even improve on it this summer. If you aren’t sure what kind of stretches to do, you can look up some online. Another thing that is important to maintain strength is conditioning. Conditioning is crucial to keeping you strong and in shape. You can do situps, pushups, and hold planks for core and arm strength. You can also incorporate ninja walks, bear crawls, and inch worms for added exercise.

Keep doing drills:

During class, we do a lot of drills to help with the skills. They can be as simple as ninja walks or something a little more difficult such as passé releve holds. These drills should be done almost every day along with stretching and conditioning to help your body maintain the correct technique for your skills.

Find space to practice skills:

If possible, find a space either at home or somewhere else to actually practice the skills you have learned. But just remember that safety is a priority, we don’t want to practicing anything you can’t complete on your own. But practice the skills you mastered during last season. Repetition of skills leads to muscle memory and that will lead you to be able to do the skill consistently. This way, when you come back from summer vacation, you can learn a new skill and not have to start over with something you had last season.

Get with a friend from class:

Something fun you can do is to practice with a friend. It can be fun to conduct a mini dance class with your friend. You can stretch and condition together, help each other with the drills and also watch each other do the skills and talk about how to improve them. It also holds you accountable to actually work on your skills over summer.

Doing these simple things this summer will keep you in shape for fall. So keep practicing and we will see you soon!

The authors：

    Mandy  

Mandy 

Mandy was born and raised in Fullerton, California. She attended the University of Arizona where she graduated with a degree in Journalism and Communications. Mandy has been an instructor for UDA for the past 5 years. She has taught all across the United States in both the junior high and high school level.