Starting the season off right!

By this time everyone is back to school (finally, for some of the districts that had a rocky start right?), and back to dance team practice. As you are getting into full swing of your Fall schedule, Elite Performance wanted to help encourage you along the way with great tips for starting out the season well. Many of the coaches, team leaders, and students gained awesome suggestions at camp this past summer about making and keeping up a well oiled dance team, so it is time to pull those ideas out from under your flip flops and beach bags.

• Set goals and rules for your team. Include your team leaders and members in brainstorming. Make sure your members feel invested in the goals and rules for their team. Revisit the goals and rules you set up periodically to make sure they still jive with where the team is at.
  
• Start practice out right. Have a schedule that works well for the coaches and team members. Plan ahead and be ready to start practice on time, members ready to lead warm ups (in a healthy and proper way) and technique (begin with the basics and work up), choreographers ready to teach routines, clean, do formations, etc. Being prepared and staying consistent at each practice is key.
  
• Begin with what you know best. Build up your team's confidence with having routines they feel excited and pumped up about.
  
• Step out of the box. Try new types of choreography. Have team leaders or new choreographers teach a routine that uses a different style than what the team is used to. Dig out the video camera from camp and remind the team about all the different routines they tried this summer. The more diversity your team is exposed to the better. If hip hop is your team's nitch, try jazz, or lyrical, a kickline or show routine for the first time.
  
• Get to team building. Don't forget to work on the camaraderie in your team. The team will only improve with cohesiveness. Get some new ideas here for games to schedule in at practice, plan a fun social outing altogether, serve in the community together, etc.
• Find opportunities to perform. Whether it is at a football game, pep assembles, or for the nursing home around the corner, the team will build their confidence with each performance, and will be ready for competitions when they come.
• Get busy fundraising. Start organizing and running a rummage sale, car wash, wreath sales. Find a local restaurant that will give you a percentage of their sales if you frequent their location. Be creative and start working together to raise funds for your team! Start a booster club, a great way to have support and funds for your team (more information on starting booster clubs will be in our October post).

We are excited for you and your teams this year! Let us know if we can help you in any way, whether it be connecting you with an educator or choreographer from camp, helping you start a booster club in your school, or just being their to cheer your team on for a performance. You can leave comments on our blog here, or email at performelite@yahoo.com. Make it a great start dance teams!