What Can You Do To Make Practice Go Great
By Cindy Clough

I want to issue you a challenge....
What can YOU personally do to make the practice go better? If you feel you are one of the top dancers on the team.....you need to pick up the pace. You should be setting the example for others. Smile, be tight, know the dance. Smiles are contagious....BE A CARRIER. Start an epidemic on your team. If you have always depended on others, now it is your chance to lead the class.
Mentor others! Start having extra practices on your own. Get a tape and get together with new dancers and help them catch up. Arrive early and go down the hall and work. Weaker dancers...realize that if you are not yet at the level you need to be, you really have to “put it in gear” in order to catch up. Know that you have to work harder than others so you don’t hold the team back. Imagine starting to read high school. It would be tough right! You would have extra homework. It’s the same thing on dance team. Make sure you are putting in the time outside of practice to make your personal goals a reality.
Do a personal check (access your skills.)
* Am I attentive and positive at practice________
* Am I in shape? (Can I kick and run through the dance without getting
easily winded.) ______
* Kicking skills (height and form)_______
* Splits_______
* Pirouettes_______
* Tightness _________
* Jazz skills__________
* Facials, energy, stage presence ___________
* Knowledge of the dance _________
(Can I be counted on to know what comes next?)Just remember that if everyone tries 10 % harder...it multiplies by the number of dancers on the team. If there is 35------That’s about 350% better. Double it and it’s 700%. Can you do more????
Wishing your TEAM MUCH success!!!

REALLY READ THESE THOUGHTS AND TRY TO APPLY THEM!!!!

OPTIMISM
A bright outlook makes each moment a celebration. There’s no thrill in easy sailing when the skies are clear and blue, there’s no joy in merely doing things which anyone can do. But there is some satisfaction that is mighty sweet to take, when you reach a destination that you thought you’d never make.
Spirella

Other people may not have had high expectations for me... but, I had high expectations for myself.
Shannon Miller

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.
Beverly Sills

Failure is not failure to meet your goal. Real failure is failure to reach as high as you possibly can.
Dr. Robert Schuller

Never look where you’re going. Always look where you want to go. Bob
Ernst

You have to set new goals every day.
Julie Krone

To be a champion, you have to believe in yourself when nobody else will.
Sugar Ray Robinson

I’ve always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn’t have a chance to win.
Arnold Palmer

It may sound strange, but many champions are made champions by setbacks.
Bob Richards

When you’re not practicing, remember that someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.
Ed Macauley

Don’t just learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade!!
James Bennis

Being the best that you can be is possible only if your desire to be a champion is greater than your fear of failure.
Sammy Lee

People acting together as a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.
Daniel Considine

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Benjamin Franklin

Even when I went to the playground, I never picked the best players. I picked the guys with less talent, but who were willing to work hard, who had the desire to be great.
Earvin “Magic” Johnson

In basketball, you can be the greatest player in the world and lose every game, because a team will always beat an individual.
Bill Walton

Never let yesterday take up too much of today.
Texas E. Schramm

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
John Wooden

If there is no wind, row.
Latin Proverb

Turn your wounds into wisdom. You will be wounded many times in your life. You’ll make mistakes. Some... will call them failures, but I have learned that failure is really God’s way of saying, “Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.”
Oprah Winfrey

Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish.
Cecile M. Springer

You’ve go to get up every morning with determination if you are going to go to bed with satisfaction.
George Horace Lorimer

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
Joseph Campbell

In the long run, you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you may fail, you have better aim at something high.
Henry David Thoreau

Confidence is a lot of this game or any game. If you don’t thing you can, you won’t.
Jerry West

It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice.
Eric Lindros

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you much hammer and forge yourself one.
James A. Foude

Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.
W H Auden

Everyone has the will to win, but few have the will to prepare to win.
Bobby Knight.

Courage is grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway