Passion for Dance

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 and jumps. We have a formula for working across-the-floor combos. We work on choreography, run it a few times full out and then rinse and repeat the next day.

There are definitely aspects of having a routine that is comforting, but if you get stuck in a rut, you can actually make it harder for your dancers to compete. There is a concept called practice variability in motor learning that focuses on how we can change up the way we practice a motor skill in order to improve how well we learn that skill and our ability to perform that skill at a competition. So while it is important to change things up sometimes so practice isn't boring, it's actually going to help your dancers better learn the skills they're working on and ensure they can perform them when it counts. In this episode, I'll tell you all about practice variability and 3 ways to use this new knowledge to help your dancers compete in any context.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

https://chelseapierotti.com/78

_________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 help? In this episode, I share a case study of how I helped one dancer through a serious injury so you have some tools and ideas you can use the next time you have a dancer who needs support.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

https://chelseapierotti.com/77

_________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 and why we need more minerals in our diet. I seriously learned so much, and not to give it all away, but we need more minerals when we're stressed, which includes physical stress like exercise! Kelsey also shared her important advice about the dangers of coffee (and no, she doesn't just tell you to quit caffeine) and so much more.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

https://chelseapierotti.com/76

_________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 experienced toxic positivity and 96% said yes. There is clearly an issue, and I think it's time we talk about it. So in this episode, I explain what it is and what it isn't, give you some common toxically positive phases to avoid, plus some better options of what to say instead.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

https://chelseapierotti.com/75

_________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 dancers on shows like SYTYCD and DWTS. They even wrote a children's book that I can attest my 6-year-old loved. There are some wonderful words of wisdom in this episode so listen in as Corky Ballas and Carolina Orlovsky share their inspiring stories of resilience and advice for following your dreams.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

https://chelseapierotti.com/74

ChloeBook.com

@corkyballas

@carolinaorlovsky

_________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 ourselves a lot. Maybe we don't mean to, maybe we don't even know it, or maybe we really believe those negative thoughts in our own heads. But we can be better. So let's talk about the lies we tell ourselves and what they really mean.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

Freebie: 23 Growth Mindset Questions

https://chelseapierotti.com/73

__________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 would start to just go through the motions, or stress about what it all means for my dancers. But even really positive changes can be difficult to cope with. So in this episode, I share some advice about how to handle big life changes as a leader.

_________

Show Notes and Resources

https://chelseapierotti.com/72

__________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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 report to you.

If you work with more than one dance educator but you have to be on the same page sometimes and this episode is for you. I'm going to share a little about my journey as a head coach with and without an assistant, and if you have assistants, the 4 questions you should ask them at the beginning of the season, plus if you are the assistant, I have some questions you should make sure to ask of your head coach or studio owner before we get back to the fall season.

_________

Freebie Download: Assistant Coach Questions

https://chelseapierotti.com/71

__________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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. She's the Education director for the USASF (or US All-Star Federation). For her class at the summit, she paired up with another USASF director Kinshasa Garret and they brought together other successful coaches and had a panel discussion about increasing dancers' confidence.

This episode is PART 2 of this conversation, so if you missed last episode, go back and start there! Here is part two of the Confident Dancer Summit Panel discussion with Mary Wendt and Kinshasa Garret.

All Resources Mentioned in Today's Show:

https://chelseapierotti.com/70

__________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.

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' confidence. I love how this turned out and am excited to share it with you. I'm going to break it up into two parts, so here is part one of the Confident Dancer Summit Panel discussion with Mary Wendt and Kinshasa Garret.

_________

All Resources Mentioned in Today's Show:

https://chelseapierotti.com/69

__________

Did you enjoy today's episode? Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts!

Be sure to visit me on Instagram @dr.chelsea.pierotti for more mental skills advice for dancers.