What to do when you miss dance class

Did You Miss Classes This Winter?

Here are some tips on how to keep your dance momentum going when “stuff happens”.

This winter we missed quite a few classes and rehearsals here in Virginia, where schools and businesses seem to shut down at bad forecasts, let alone bad weather itself.

For several months now I’ve been encouraging my students (and readers) to make their home dance space special and share what they’ve done in photos. My Pinterest board on Home Dance Spaces has photos that run the gamut from the usual cleared space between the bed and dresser, to full-out dance studios. The reason for this board is to encourage others to make a space at home, no matter how big or little it is, and to inspire others who are dancing at home. If you want to participate, send me your photo of your dance space too! I’ll credit it however you like.

When you’re stuck at home and missing class, you can either re-create the entire format of class for yourself, with a warmup, stretching, drills, and combinations or choreography; or you can just squeeze in a few moves here and there during the day. Whether you have kids at home, or you’re holding down an outside job, few people these days have unlimited time to themselves to spend dancing. If you do, count yourself lucky!

Here are some tips for practicing at home:

• make a playlist or cd with all the music you want to use, so you don’t have skip around and hunt for a song.
• if you want to practice a group choreography, just do little bits at a time, and start from the beginning. Once you feel confident in your memory, add another sequence. I feel this works better than trying to run through the entire number when you’re not sure of the steps.
• the ideal situation is to have your class material or choreography on video. I don’t mean any old belly dance video, but your actual class material. Practicing class material is the only way to excel at the class material. Following other videos won’t help there. 
  

Since I do provide my students with videos of class material I feel confident they can keep up their skills when we have to miss class; but as a reminder while we were missing each other, I gave them short “home-dance” tips on doing just a few combinations here and there during day, or going over a short section of their choreography whenever they could.

If you’re a dedicated home dancer or would like to be, I've also written an article that can help you plan, called “How to Dance at Home using the Eastern Way of Daily Practice”.

I know we all have busy lives, and though you may want to keep up with dance when you miss class, I also know how any free time gets filled up like magic with mundane tasks! So if you can snatch a few moments here and there, it will keep the dance alive.