Passion for Dance

Summary: Gratitude has become a bit of a buzzword lately with people everywhere telling you to start a gratitude journal, have a gratitude practice every evening, write down the top three things you're grateful for today. Expressing gratitude, either verbally or writing it down, on a regular basis can help rewire your brain. There's an old saying: "You can't live a positive life with a negative mi...

Summary: Do you have big goals and dreams for the year, but when it comes to actually put in the work and practice, you find yourself feeling stuck, too tired, and unmotivated to push through? In this episode, we'll be talking about what to do when we need a mental reset as dancers or dance educators. Sometimes we can get stuck in a negative mindset, and we need a way to kick us back into a more p...

Summary: If you've ever used affirmations with your dancers, this episode introduces a tool for a different way to use them. My guest today is Dr. Noah, a former professional dancer and a peak performance executive mental coach to the stars, who speaks on the power of using AFFORMATIONS instead of affirmations. This might be a subtle change, but it might make a huge difference for you and your dan...

Summary: Just imagine you get up on competition day and you are pumped and excited but actually not nervous. You know your dancers are ready to crush it today! Just imagine how good it would feel to know you did everything possible to support your dancers and no one is going to be a deer in headlights when they take stage or fall apart today. You'll be able to just exhale, relax, and enjoy competi...

Summary: We're going back in the archives today with an interview from 2020 with the amazing Dawn Walters of The University of Kentucky Dance Team. Dawn's approach to coaching is so relatable and refreshing. She has such genuine advice and a superpower as a coach. We talk about opening the door for more dancers of different genres and backgrounds to join a big university program. She really led us...

Summary: You may or may not yet know that I do a lot of coaching the coaches in my business. This is where I work with dance teachers and coaches to help them discover how they can best support their dancers' mental skills while improving their own skills. After doing this work for years, I've found that many people are struggling with similar situations, and I believe in the value of hearing how...

Summary: If I know our dance world, then I know that one thing you can count on every season is you're going to have to clean your routines. Whether your dance team is game-day focused, you're preparing for a championship, or you're performing the nutcracker this holiday season, we all want our routines to be as clean as possible. I always, personally, admire the routines that are exceptionally po...

We naturally bond over shared complaints rather than shared wins. Why do we find a better connection with people when we share our frustrations? Why do we simultaneously feel like we aren't allowed to share a win or it's boastful? Research even shows that while we may bond over shared complaints, it can put us all in a bad mood. So why don't we share wins and put everyone in a good mood instead? L...

Imagine this, you're lying in bed, exhausted from a long day. You start thinking about the email you need to send to that one parent. Then you start to fix the opening sequence to your jazz routine in your head because it isn't reading the way you want it to. Then you start to calculate how long it will take you to rhinestone one costume and realize you have some late nights ahead of you. Have you...

Do you have more slow twitch or fast twitch muscle fibers? Does your body process B vitamins quickly making you more sluggish sometimes? Maybe you're like me and you have no idea. So what if a genetic test could tell you specific information like that and even more like information about nutrition, and heart health, plus caffeine and sleep?  T oday I talked with Sarah Haslock Johnson, founder of D...

Have you ever had your dancers do really well in practice, everything looks fine in the studio, but then when you go to competition and change venues, all of a sudden, the routine is a mess? Some of that can come from getting too stuck in a repetitive rehearsal structure. As coaches and teachers, we can all get in a rut sometimes, we have a similar warmup every day, we do similar drills for turns...

Dealing with an injury can be devastating to a dancer. And it's not just the physical pain, but the mental load that we deal with during recovery is substantial. As dance educators, many of us have been through this ourselves, or we've had our students struggle with serious injuries that just break our hearts. But why does being injured hurt so much mentally as well as physically, and how do we he...

If you're a dance teacher who feels like you can't dance like you used to but just chalk it up to being old, you have to listen in to today's episode. My guest today is a functional dietitian who was also a studio dancer, college dancer, and cheered for the Kansas City Chiefs. Kelsey sat down with me to talk about improving your ability to sustain energy during long performances and competitions a...

Have you heard of the term toxic positivity? It's becoming a bit of a buzzphrase, so I want to dive into this complicated topic.  I'm seeing it more and more on social media and hearing it in conversations with the dancers I work with. Sometimes is a great conversation, and other times there's a lot of misinformation going around. I even recently asked my community on Instagram if they had experie...

As you may know, one of the main themes of this show is resilience. I love talking with successful and talented dancers about their own resilience journey and to hear what they can teach us about perseverance and following your dreams. As for today's guests specifically, they not only have multiple ballroom championship titles, but they have also coached and worked with some of your favorite dance...

There are so many times I've heard dances say things like "I can't do left" or "I'm not a turner." And of course, there are many times I've thought those things too. As a coach, it honestly wasn't a lot better. I would think, "I wish I could be as talented as she is," or "I can't do that like he can." But I've learned something over the years that I want to share with all of you today. We lie to o...

If you are a dance educator long enough, you will go through some big life changes that will impact your career and your dancers. When you have something big happening in your life like a wedding, a medical issue, the birth of a child, or moving, it usually causes a lot of stress and can be hard to navigate as a leader. When I think about my own big life changes over the last 15 years, I know I wo...

Are you an assistant coach? Do you have an assistant in your program? Maybe you're in the school setting and lucky enough to be an assistant coach.  Or maybe you're a head coach doing everything alone and wishing for some help! While this typically applies to a school or all-star setting with head and assistant coaches, it can also apply to studio teachers and owners who have younger teachers that...

Last summer, I hosted an online conference called the Confident Dancer Summit, where 20 different dance educators came together to teach a short course on different aspects of confidence. It was a great weekend and I decided to share one of those inspiring conversations with you today. One of the summit speakers was Mary Wendt, an incredible woman I've had the pleasure of working with a few times....

Last summer, I hosted an online conference called the Confident Dancer Summit, where 20 different dance educators came together to teach a short course on different aspects of confidence. It was a great weekend and I decided to share one of those inspiring conversations with you today. This summit class brought together many successful coaches and had a panel discussion about increasing dancers' c...

Do you have a teaching or coaching philosophy? Personally, it took me years to come up with my own personal teaching philosophy that was really specific to me and not just words you say on a job application. It took years of experience, challenges, successes, and choices. After all of that time, my personal coaching philosophy is simple but powerful. And above all else, as an educator, I have lear...

Today's guest is Caroline Liviakis, she is the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of the Caroline Liviakis Dance Company (CLDC), choreographing and producing live performances and interactive experiences. In her most recent project, she brings her creative visions to digital form as a choreographer and director of film, music videos, and commercials. Caroline currently teaches at Loyola Marym...

This episode is a little heavier, but I'm learning to lean into the hard, so I hope you'll join me. I'm grateful that there is a growing conversation around mental health, increasing awareness and hopefully supporting your dancers. However, I also think that can leave dance educators feeling like they should be doing more or that they don't know enough to be responsible. Consider this episode an i...

Today's guest is Stephanie Westbrook, who is based in Sydney Australia, and currently coaches the University of New South Wales Warriors Premier Dance Teams. Over the years her teams have won multiple National Championships, multiple international bids, and multiple Dance Grand Champion titles, and Stephanie has also received several awards for choreography. In this conversation, Stephanie shared...

If you're a part of this community, I am pretty confident you are a lifelong learner and someone who cares about being the best version of yourself. Not every dance educator out there will spend time reading books, listening to podcasts, and attending conferences in an effort to improve. But you are here… so let's talk about personal growth today.  When you are reading or listening and consuming a...