How to dance at home
5 tips to help you practice
Practicing dance at home is a great way to improve your dance skills and keep you fresh between classes. It is especially beneficial if you are on a summer break or have a few weeks before your next dance session begins. Practicing at home is great, but often kids may struggle on the best way to practice at home. We have compiled a list of 5 tips that will help you have successful practices at home!
Schedule a time
Scheduling practice time is crucial for practicing at home. At home, we have all kinds of distractions, televisions, phones, siblings, chores etc. Setting a set time each day for practice will help you stay on track. It is a way to make sure that those distractions do not interfere with your practice. It will also help to schedule your practice time at peak energy times! You want to find a time of day that you feel energized and focused.
Make goals
It is important to create goals for your practice. A teacher plans a lesson before walking into a classroom to teach, you should have a plan of what you want to work on before you practice. Maybe there is a specific move in a routine you are struggling with. Your goal may be to practice the section of the routine that has been tripping you up. After a few practices you might have nailed that part of the routine, then it is time to create a new goal for your next practice. Creating goals for your dancing and taking the time to practice these goals at home will help you improve.
Repetition
Dance class is best suited for learning new moves and for receiving professional guidance from your dance teacher. Practicing at home is best for working on those corrections and mastering the moves before the next class. The more repetition of the movements, the faster you can advance to a new and exciting routine during studio time.
Analyze yourself on video
One drawback to practicing at home is that you do not have access to full-length mirrors like in a studio. In order to see what you are doing and to correct your mistakes, record yourself! Recording your dance practice with your phone or tablet can be very beneficial. Take the time to analyze yourself on the video to better identify strengths and weaknesses. This can help you improve and make corrections on your own.
Try new forms of dance
Why not have a little fun at home with your practices and try other forms of dance. You might be surprised to know that you can improve your dance skills at home by practicing other dance forms. For example, if you take ballet, why not practice contemporary dance moves or jazz at home? This can help you tone different muscles and gain better form – promoting more overall strength and flexibility in your dancing.
Dance steps to practice at home by age
Not sure what to work on? Here are some easy steps for each age group. They are a simple way to continue your child’s dance education at home and only take a few minutes to do.
Preschoolers
You can practice a few ballet moves with your preschool dancer, starting with first position and adding in some skipping later on. Ballet has many positions, and our youngest dancers learn first position early on.
In first position, your heels touch and your toes point away from each other, so your feet make a V shape. Start with your toes together, then have them say “Goodbye” to each other and turn apart into the V. Bring your toes back together to “kiss,” then have them say “Goodbye” again to go right back into first position. Be flexible! Your dancer is young, and if they cannot turn out their toes completely, that’s okay. We will keep working on it in class. The movement of angling their toes away is still good practice even if it is not a hundred percent perfect.
Next, try skipping. Words really help cue dancers to connect with their bodies, so saying “step hop, step hop, step hop” is a great reminder while they are trying to skip. It’s great for them to have their hands on their hips, especially if they are starting to master this step. You can take it slowly; they don’t need to do it very fast. If they are still learning how to skip, hold their hand and do it with them. If they are not quite there yet, take a step back and work on just hopping.
If your dancer is also learning tap, you can add in a shuffle. If you don’t have tap shoes, just wear your tennis shoes! The shuffle is just two sounds as you swipe your foot across the ground. Start by raising one foot behind you and swinging it across the floor, then raise it up in front of you and place it back on the ground. Some smaller dancers may not reach the floor when they swing their foot, so work with them on connecting to the floor and make sure the foot hits the floor two times. Remind them to keep their foot behind them when they start, and to use only the top part of the foot when it brushes the floor on the way up. Tell them it’s like kicking a ball forward and then bringing your leg back.
You can also work on rhythm by clapping to the beat of different songs. Start out slowly, then go faster as they catch the beat of a more upbeat song. If they master this, add in patting your knees and clapping every other beat to make it a little more challenging.
Elementary-age dancers
For elementary-age dancers, work on counting. How do we count music? We count to 8 with most songs. As your dancer may remember from class, we say “5, 6, 7, 8” and then start on one. Counts 5, 6, 7 and 8 are usually the last four counts of an introduction, or the last musical phrase before the dancer joins in.
Count out loud with your dancer up to 8 and see if they can keep up with the rhythm of the music. Not all songs have the same tempo, so you might have to count fast or very slowly depending on the song.
Then have your dancer work on their own choreography. At this age, kids are so creative and can come up with their own dances at home. It can be any type of dance: ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, or whatever they would like to do. Let them choose their favorite song and write their steps down. It’s good practice at writing down steps, and it brings their focus back to the rhythm and counting to the beat.
You can add in some footwork, too. Especially in ballet and jazz, there are three parts of the foot we use. Have your dancer show you where their toes are, have them point to their heel, then challenge them to point to the ball of their foot. When going off the ground, we go heel, ball, toe, with the heel leading first. Down to the ground, it’s toe first, then ball, then heel. Work on how their foot connects to the ground, and make their toe point even better by encouraging them to really lift with the heel.
Pre-teens and teens
Pre-teen and teen dancers can do these moves in about five minutes a day. The first thing to do before moving is always to warm up and stretch. Warming up can be simple things like jumping jacks, running in place or high knees. You are just trying to get your muscles warm, so you get the best stretch for your body without hurting your muscles.
Once you are warm, really stretch. You can come up with your own stretch routine or do the stretches we do in class at Nan’s School of Dance. Be creative and come up with your own stretches, in addition to flat backs and reaching over your legs. Do some isolations and think about your rib cage, really working those muscles out and in. Focus on your neck muscles too, and do isolations with your head. Don’t just think about your legs!
For your legs, start with your splits: your right split, your left split, and your middle splits. When you do your splits, make sure your front leg is straight. It’s totally fine if your back leg is bent; you’ll get there, and eventually it will be straight also. Your hands should be on either side of that straight, pointed front leg, with your hips squared. Frogs are awesome too. For a frog, lie on your front with your hips down on the floor, your legs bent out to each side (like a frog!) and the bottoms of your feet touching.
Work on your balance as well. If you’re in the kitchen, place your hand on the countertop and work on your relevé in first position and second position. This is assisted balancing that’s easy to do. For unassisted balancing, find a larger open space, start in first position parallel and balance in relevé, with your hands on your hips or at your sides, whichever works best. Pull your ankles in toward each other so they don’t roll out, and think about a string connecting your head to the ceiling. Next, do first position turned out and pull up into relevé with the same arms, reaching your whole body upright. Then do second position, parallel and turned out, with the same ideas. Now run through all the positions again, but this time close your eyes. You’ll see it’s much more difficult to balance this way, but definitely try it!
Reach your goals with Nan’s School of Dance
At Nan’s School of Dance, our goal is to provide top-quality instruction at a competitive price. We encourage our students to reach technical proficiency in their favorite dance form and build self-discipline, poise, and self-esteem. We offer instruction in Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Contemporary, Hip Hop, Acro, and Pre-Dance, at all levels.
We love having new members in our dance classes and will help get your child acclimated to our dance school to make them feel right at home. When your child attends Nan’s School of Dance, they will become a part of our dance family and share in our love for dance!
Don’t forget to register!
From ballet to hip hop, we offer dance classes for ALL ages and skill levels in a variety of styles. We place students in classes that will challenge them while offering a fun atmosphere for learning and growth. We also offer Mommy & Me classes (18 months – 2.5 years). Register online or give us a call at (919) 803-6044 to hold your spot!
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