Coaches Making Dance More Fun

[coachmolly]

I have a group of girls ages 7-10ish who we are trying to prepare to move into the pre-team group within the next few months. I've attempted to started working on little dance things to get them on the right track, but it's met with extreme resistance. It's just really basic stuff- turns, jumps, and leaps mostly but they absolutely hate it! It's not a long session, just 15 minute or so out of a 90 minute class, so they aren't missing out on other events.
Any of you great coaches out there have some ways to make these things more fun for the girls?

 

[MaryA]

No suggestions, but I have to say that it's funny that some gymnasts seem to be anti-dance. I've suggested to my DD that a dance class would help her gymnastics and she is in violent opposition. In her case I think it's because she's a twin and, from very early on, she and her sister have divided things up into "mine" and "yours." Dance is Tory's thing so there's no way Kathy would want to do it, and vice-versa.

Kathy's been taking an Acro class at the local dance studio. The teacher has said that, next year, she can offer an Acro/Lyrical class... a combo of dance and acro. I'm thinking of just signing Kathy up for it and not even telling her that it's anything other than her normal acro class. I think that, maybe, if she doesn't know she's dancing, she'll be O.K. with it. What does she think she's doing in the floor routine in between tumbling passes anyway?

Is there any way you can tie what you're doing into actual parts of the routines that they will be learning eventually? Like teach them a "dance" part of one of the level 4, 5, or 6 routines. You don't have to call it dance. You can say, "I'm going to teach you a part of the level 5 routine!" and then break it down into its individual parts (turns, jumps, leaps) and maybe they will be excited about learning part of a routine and won't think about it as "dancing."

 

[coachmolly]

I was an anti-dance gymnast myself, it's not that I was against the idea of it, it was just something that was REALLY hard for me, that I progressed at very slowly, and as a result was very frustrating. But that was more so when the gym brought in dance teachers to work on specific, very technical, dance things. I am totally tone deaf and lack any sense of rhythm or musicality. I don't feel like I minded the "gymnastics" dance quite as much, but maybe I'm just blocking those memories out! Dance on beam was also a much easier thing for me because I didn't need to perform it to music. So I understand the hesitation in some respects, but I really think the importance of leaps, jumps, and turns in gymnastics and how necessary those elements are to compete, should help override the initial distaste. Maybe if I just don't call it dance...
I like your idea about putting it in the context of the routine, maybe I'll see if that works out any better.

 

[gymcoach26]

Make leaping a contest.. how many mats can you clear when leaping/ or how tall of a mat stack can you leap up onto? Try using props. We put out hula hoops for turns. When breaking the turns into stages either on floor or beam I have them use bean bags on their heads (starting in lunge and going up to coupe in releve). As a reward for a good dance practice we will let the girls make up short dance series to popular music. They love this since they get to do dance to their favorite song and it's a change from the "boring" gymnastics music without lyrics. Of course they still get corrected on their own made up dance series but they don't seem to mind.