Progress Cards
Helping Dancers Progress Safely, Building Healthy, Strong and Balanced Bodies!
At LA Dance Acro, building a “Foundation of Technique” really means: establishing a baseline of strength, flexibility, and motor skill development that will allow us to safely and effectively start introducing basic acrobatic tricks. The amount of time this takes, and the difficulty of this process, is different for each dancer.
Each of our dancers has been issued with their own appropriate level of progress card to work on.
There are 12 levels of progress cards and it is possible to take an ‘Acrobatic Arts’ examination at each level if the dancer wishes. Each card has up to 30 skills to achieve before the dancer is ready to move on to the next level.
Some of the skills on cards may look easy to the dancers but to receive a star for a skill, it needs to be performed to technical perfection to prove that as well as achieving the skill, they have also acquired an appropriate level of strength and control performing that skill.
For example a technically correct bridge, should have straight arms, flat parallel feet with shoulders placed over the wrists.
A handstand against the wall for 25 seconds must be unassisted, with correct alignment and not loose postural form.
Cartwheels must have stretched knees and pointed feet that start and finish with control and be performed in both directions.
Acrobatic Dance is Hard Work!
It takes a lot of hard work, strength, discipline and dedication to be a skilled acrobatic dancer! Cardiovascular fitness is required, core strength and balanced flexibility.
We try and make this body conditioning as much fun as possible but it is tough work!
While bodies are getting into top acro shape, wrists may get sore from increased pressure on the hands (while upside down); necks may feel tight as the weaker muscles are gaining strength and sometimes bumps and bruises may appear while stumbling through the process of muscle memory development. In fact, the simple act of falling and getting right back up, trains the body to move more smoothly and efficiently!
So when a dancer finally gets a star for a single skill on their progress chart, there is a real sense of achievement and when their charts are completely filled with stars they get to celebrate their success by taking their completed charts home and moving on to the next level.
(We will make allowances if a dancer is finding the odd skill unachievable allowing them to move on but carry the particular skill with them over to the next level).
We understand that our dancers can’t wait to get cracking on the exciting stuff like back handsprings and aerials and honestly, that is exactly what we want them to eventually achieve but to acquire these skills safely, it is necessary to build up a strong foundation of technique in the first few years of their training.
Aches, pains, bumps and bruises are to be expected, it actually takes a huge amount or hard work to be strong enough to hold just a hand stand or bridge but the process of building a slow, steady and safe foundation of technique results in long-term success with healthy, strong, balanced bodies that are able to perform exciting Acrobatic tricks and skills safely and with ease!
Once a dancer has completed all the progress cards up to level 6, this will have safely conditioned their bodies to easily achieve aerials and back hand springs with grace and control.
It will be worth it!
We can understand dancers may feel a little impatient, wanting these “fun tricks” to come quickly and easily, maybe a little fed up with regularly feeling sore and tired with the amount of conditioning we do in our classes.
We have been so impressed with all the dancers, they have worked really hard and are achieving so much, so very fast! We really hope that they are having lots of fun but at the same time, learning how to be focused and disciplined in the art of Acrobatic Dance.
We feel that the addition of the progress cards will be encouraging for the dancers, help them understand the process and allow them to celebrate their efforts along the way!
If you would like to see a copy of your dancers card to find out what level they are and how they are getting on at any time during the term, please just enter your details and click on the link below and we will send you an update as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please contact us at…