Dancercise Blog

Well, believe it or not, Fall is almost upon us.  Those of us working to build class schedule for the Fall are already hard at work, pushing the summer aside, and thinking about our classes for the Fall and Winter.  We hope you’re thinking about it, if only a little.  We’d love to see you at one of the child care centers that provide Dancercise Kids, or at our studio in Minnetonka, MN soon!

One of the things that struck me the other day, watching my daughter’s second grade musical over at Groveland elementary, was the power of music to motivate and inspire kids. In these days of never-ending budget cuts (except to politicians’ election funds it seems), too often it seems like art and music get the short straw. But when you think about what music really is, it’s a series of patterns, tempos, stanzas, tones and so on. Learning sequences, predicting the next elements, filling in the gaps - it’s all math. In fact, I seem to recall reading somewhere that there was a strong correlation between students who do well in music and those that do well in later life in science and engineering. So encourage your kids to be musical. Remember to always compliment them, even if they struggle sometimes to be tuneful. And the band played on.

I had a delightful conversation today with a parent of 4 year old and 7 year old girls who had come across our website, and was thrilled about our non-competitive approach to dance and fitness. It reminded me what a key part of our values this is. While a little competition is healthy in some circumstances - let’s face it, life is a competition of sorts - when you’re a young kid trying to figure out what you like and where your talents are, you just want to be in a secure, healthy setting that lets every child, regardless of formal skill - enjoy expression through the medium of dance, creative movement, music or whatever. In fact, I was reading a reply to a posting by one of the foremost instructors in the dance community who was castigating a letter writer who had asked for advice on “what to do with” the kids that “just don’t have the talent”. His answer was great and captures our thinking in a nutshell: it’s immaterial to us whether a kid can do every step by the book at age 3, or if they can just summon up the confidence to clap along with the music by age 7. It just doesn’t matter. Every kid should be appreciated for who they are. We’re proud of supporting this non-competitive approach. We encourage children of all ages to “be a good listener, try their best and have fun” our three rules of Dancercise.

Hi folks, if you’re out there listening, we just posted our summer camp schedule for the Dancercise Kids studio in Minnetonka here. We have some pretty exciting camps going on this summer that will keep your kids healthy, happy and having fun. You love that alliteration don’t you? Wanna be a rock star? Sign them up for our special Rock Star camp during spring break (space is limited, e-mail us for details).

Welcome to our new Dancercise Kids blog! We’re a bit new at this, but hey maybe that means we’ll be more interesting as we learn how to use this new technology. Just like everyone, we have opinions on just about everything, but we’ll try to keep ours constrained to the topics we know best: Kids, Dance, Exercise and Healthy Habits. Of course, we’re proud of what we’ve created with Dancercise Kids so you’ll forgive us if we refer to it often - after all, it’s why we’re here. That said, when you’ve worked with kids for as long as we have, we have a collection of quotes, experiences and wonderful moments that we’re unlikely to restrain ourselves from sharing! We hope you like what we have to say, and you’ll enjoy reading our experiences, and that you’ll also support what we do with your constructive feedback. Again, welcome - we’re glad to have you!

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