Typical Day at Practice (summer)

In the summer of 2011 we had captain's practices and clinic/weight training practices. We had captain's practices starting at 8 a.m. and ending at 11 a.m and I would get up at 7 a.m. Clinic/weight training days started at 7 a.m. and ended at 10 a.m. I got up at 6 a.m. At the beginning of the summer I hated getting up so early when I knew everyone else was still sleeping, but I eventually got used to it.

I didn't like captains practices at all because they were the hardest. When we would get to Sioux Trail, the school we practiced at. We would always do a really hard warm up, usually we would all go on a 20 minute run and part of it would be uphill. It was even harder on really hot days. When we got done with our runs everybody was really sweaty and very tired. When we got inside we would stretch for about 15 minutes. Then we would do different things such as, kick technique, jazz across the floor, or learn our fall kick and jazz dance to get ready for performing it at JFK camp in a couple weeks.

At clinic/weight training days half of us would go to the weight room for the first hour and 15 minutes and the other half would go to the clinc the first half of practice and then we would switch off. These days were more laid back and easy so I liked them better even though we had to get up earlier. At the clinic our winter coaches were the leaders and we would usually do an easy warm up to start practice and then we would stretch, do kicks, jazz, etc. In the weight room our coach was Mr. Sali. He had us lift weights and do all kinds of things to get us stronger. I didn't really like weight training because it was boring and hard to me and I didn't see how it was making us better dancers, but I knew it wasn't hurting us in any way so I just went along with it and worked hard.