Unit 2 dance session 11/09

 In my first dance session, we started off with a warm-up which consisted of a cardiovascular exercise, we did some running/sprinting on the spot, to up our heart rates. Then, we went on to rotations to make sure all of our rotary cuffs were all loose and ready to move, we did some backwards and forwards rotation of our arms, hands and ankles. Lastly we moved onto our stretches, dynamic and static to make sure our muscles were ready to move and were all stretched. This was all useful because it showed us what a good warm-up looks like and how we should start all our rehearsals with to make sure we aren't causing ourselves injuries or injuring ourselves further during our show rehearsals. 

We then moved on to making and doing our own HIIT workout,high intensity interval training, to push our bodies and work on our stamina , which i will need to constantly try and improve for Legally Blonde because Elle is a very energetic characters who's in a lot of dance numbers and constantly moving on stage. We decided to do 2 rounds of 5 exercises with 40 seconds moving and 20 seconds resting so, in total, a 10 minute exercise. Starting off we did a 40 second run on the spot as our cardiovascular exercise, 40 seconds of squats to work our legs and glutes, a 40 second to workout our core muscles, 40 seconds of burpees to work our arms and stamina and then 40 seconds of crunches to work our core muscles again. This was really helpful to me because it showed me exactly where my stamina levels were at and how far i could push them and it taught me what i can do to improve my stamina.

Next in the session we were taught a simple corner work routine which we had to time and perform to music to show our skill of listening to the music and timing our steps right. Then we were asked to create our own, we were split into two groups and asked to include-

• travelling
• a turn
• a jump 
• a gesture 
• a balance

In our group, we made a routine that started with a step ball change going straight into a split leap in a turn which ended with the gesture of jazz hands moving into an arabesque. This was quite a complicating routine for something we had to learn in 5 minutes so we kept going over it making sure every person in our group was comfortable and tweaked the levels of difficulty for all the different strengths in our group. we then had to teach the other group our routine and in turn learn the other groups. This really helped with my memory of dance routines because even though it wasn't a particularly difficult routine compared to others i have learnt in the past, the short time frame meant we had to memorise it and know it well enough to teach the other group.

At the end of our session,we did a cool down to make sure our heart rate and blood pressure lowered to the around the levels they were before our dance session and that was the perfect time to do some stretches to increase our flexibility because i had learnt that the end of a dance session was the perfect time to do so because our muscles are more relaxed and are easier to stretch in that period of time.

My HIIT workout-

- Running on the spot: 35 seconds on 25 seconds off

-Squats moving left and right: 35 seconds on 25 seconds off

- Plank: 35 seconds on 25 seconds off

-Mountain climbers- 35 seconds on 25 seconds off

- Flutter kicks: 35 seconds on 25 seconds off