Too often young dancers lack physical and mental stamina in their work and they feel tired and drained by activity that should not have that effect in a young person.
Physical stamina first. In today’s world, children are very often shuttled from place to place by car to keep up with everyone’s frenetic schedules and so the simple act of walking from place to place is eliminated from their daily lives. Walking also takes time so, again, very often that makes it impossible to do. As teachers I believe that it is important for us to find ways to help our students improve their strength and stamina. I noticed myself that my dancers were getting tired too quickly during class. They needed more cardiovascular work and I needed to get them into really good shape.
Here are some ideas of ways to get your students moving in a positive direction:
1) Spend 10 to 15 minutes of each class working on small jumps, big leaps, hopping steps and running steps. Repetition is the key. Doing anything just once or twice is not enough to build stamina.
2) Include in your regular schedule a fun aerobic class. You can use Hip Hop music, Latin music—anything that is energetic and fun. Start with a warm-up, keep them moving and then do a cool-down. Making it fun really is essential so that they want to do it. The idea is to keep their heart rates up so that they are sweating. Don’t let them stop moving, even if they need to have short stretches of walking in place.
3) Devise sections of your classes where you can use:
· Jumps from 2 feet to 2 feet, i.e. sautes in 1st, 2nd and 4th, echappes, assembles and changements.
· Jumps from 2 feet to 1 foot, i.e.: sissones, jetes ordinaires and ballotes.
· Jumps from 1 foot to 1 foot, i.e.: ballones, coupes sauté, pose temps leve in retire, in arabesque, saut de basque and grands jetes.
4) Use props to encourage and help with the action of jumping. It makes it more fun and can actually be quite a challenge. Depending on the age and level of the students, different props will be appropriate. For younger and less experienced students, mats and hoops are always helpful; for the very young stuffed animals work well; and for the older and more experienced dancers, different sizes of blowup exercise balls present a good and safe challenge.
5) Make an obstacle course on the studio floor that they have to hop through on 2 feet and then on 1 foot.
These are just some ideas to help you build your student’s stamina. Keep in mind that they will moan and groan to you and probably forget to take some good breaths while they are doing all of these jumps. Encourage them to breathe deeply and to keep going even when they think they have no more to give. I always tell my students that when you start to feel that you are out of gas, that is the time to put the pedal to the metal. It’s going to feel slightly painful but once you push past that point you reach a new plateau of energy and fitness.
Mental stamina is sometimes harder to work on and, in some cases, will not be attained. I work with my students on understanding the importance of breath control and the use of relaxation. Without either one of these things mental stamina is hard to achieve. Mental stamina means being able to push yourself to do something that you feel extremely uncomfortable doing over and over again. It is being able to lift your body off your toes when you are doing pointe work so that you no longer feel the extreme moments of pain that can occur from time to time. It is literally being able to rise above the tiredness and the pain by focusing on something else. The key is to understand that the mind is stronger than the body and that the mind must be in charge. When I make my students run a routine through 3 times without a pause they are ready to kill me, but I know and they will find out that it is only by doing something like that that you realize that you actually can get through it in one piece and that when you have to perform it only once you are ready for it. Building mental stamina also builds confidence and self-esteem. It gives dancers a feeling of being able to give more to their dancing and in the long run to get more enjoyment out of it. Your dancers will need lots of encouragement to achieve mental stamina, but it is a gift you will be giving them for a lifetime.
