Get To Steppin
When I was young, I was never the shy kid at the cookouts or the birthday parties when it came to dancing. I was always the center of attention, and I loved it, It is just something about hearing people scream your name cheering you on that excites me. I was initially interested in stepping when I first saw the movie “Stomp the Yard”. I always imagined myself being a part of something like that and thinking to myself, wow it must be amazing. About a week after I arrived at Claflin University, I saw audition papers for the dorm step team. I snatched my phone out of my pocket to get all the information I needed without any hesitation, because I was excited. I showed
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up to auditions with my tee shirt, shorts and tennis shoes as listed on the paper. I listened to my step masters so well I could have repeated every single word they said because I was serious about this. Now of course I was nervous because this was my first time stepping ever in my life.
However, stepping became easy once I did these few things. First, I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. When you are stepping you have to exaggerate everything you do, because it makes it look better. If you do not feel foolish when doing something, then you are not doing it right. Even when you do your mean face, you have to exaggerate to make the ugliest face possible and believe it or not the people love it. Even for the people who cannot dance, that does not matter when you are stepping. As long as you can exaggerate good that will disguise the way you dance. Make sure you do not lose control of your body when you are exaggerating, because then it will look sloppy. You have to have precision and balance or else you will not …show more content…
last. Second, which was one of the hard parts is remembering the steps. When I stepped for high rise we had to learn four steps, two dances fast and slow, two transitions, dialogue, and some people had solo’s. When I heard that I said to myself, “I cannot learn of all that.” The key to remembering the steps is counting while doing them. Every time my coaches would teach us the step they would count off every step to help us remember. Also, make sure you take your time, when you are first learning your body has to get used to going through the motions so it is nothing wrong with going slow. If you mess up that is okay, but make sure you keep going; that’s the only way you will get better. Another way you can make it easy is by remembering the beat. Ever step has a beat and a tempo, make sure you listen to that. Say the beat in your head or as you step and keep doing it over and over. Repetition is the best teacher when it comes to stepping, so do it until it is drilled in your head. Third, make sure you come and leave with a positive attitude. It is no help to you or your team if you come in with a bad attitude. One, you cannot focus because whatever it is you are mad about is on your mind and it is blocking everything else out. Two, you become easily irritated; the smallest things will cause you to flip out. If you have a petty coach then they will punish the entire team which will cause your teammates to start yelling at you for getting everyone in trouble. To save everyone the trouble, just leave your attitude at the door, take your anger out in the stomps. I found that in my first year of stepping using these steps have made me look more experienced than I really am.
When the dorm step show came homecoming week I was so nervous you would have thought I was about to be interrogated. The female’s dorm Kleist had just begun finishing up and they came back and said, “High Rise you’re up.” From that moment on, my nerves began to take over. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. The crowd started screaming as soon as they saw us coming out onto the stage. Once I heard people yelling out, “yessss go Tre!, go High Rise!” those butterflies flew away and I instantly grew confidence. It was like I had a flashback of myself being in another cookout or party when I was a kid and I let it out. Before we could even finish our first step, the crowd nearly blew the roof off of the gym. Once I heard the crowd’s reaction that allowed me to get comfortable and start really having fun. After our performance, I knew we had a good chance to win but I wanted to stay humble because the other teams worked hard. After the last performance, they said that they were going to announce the winning team. I shook hands and hugged all of my teammates and closed my eyes tight like I was making a wish. The announcer said, “Drumroll please….and your winner is……. High Riseeee!.” The entire team ran out on the floor full of energy and joy; it was like we won the Super
bowl.
At the age of two I put ballet shoes on for the first time. At eleven I began touring with performance groups. By age twelve, I knew how to dance through broken toes and fractures.
I studied the graceful ballerinas that danced en pointe with ease. Although, holding my entire weight onto two toes is a task that requires stamina and dedication. My feet usually get used to the pain and pressure to some degree, but it doesn’t feels completely painless. There is always one blister constantly nagging me, or one cut that just slightly stings.
It was my final moments as a Chelsea High School cheerleader. My final banquet had quickly approached. It was then that I realized I was not ready for the season to be over. I stood in front of my friends, fellow cheerleaders, and their families as they watched and waited for me to recite my last words as the season came to an end. It took hours for me to write about what my teammates and my coaches meant to me. I did not want to sound too nostalgic since I’m not the emotional type, but I also did not want to come across as indifferent. It was a difficult task but I knew I could accomplish it.
To begin with, many of the social dances that are popular today are come from dance instruction songs made relevant by popular culture. Dances such as the “Dougie” and the “wobble” have become popularized through the sharing of there accompanying music videos and songs. The music video for the song “Wobble Baby” by V.I.C has over twenty three million views on Youtube. The movement of the “wobble” is a slight lean while slightly bouncing the body up and down. I find the performance of dances at clubs and parties such as the “wobble” to be both embarrassing and entertaining. It was an interesting experience to watch my peers learn the social dances during our hip-hop class. Many of my peers appeared to be very uncomfortable while learning the
Irish Step Dancing started around 1750, when the appearance of dance masters came about. Dance Masters would travel from town to town teaching their dances to people that were interested and that could pay for it. They would teach in barns, kitchens, crossroads, and hedge schools. These teachings went on in secret due to Penal Laws that were enacted in the late 17th century. The English were determined to suppress Irish culture and abolish Christianity so these laws banned the education of catholic children, which was why the Irish created hedge schools. The Dance Masters would start with dances like the Reel and the Jig. Each dance master had his own collection of dance steps and would also create their own over time, which lead to Step Dancing. 8 measures or bars or music is one step, thus the name “Step Dancing”. Often competitions were held where Dance masters would show off there steps and perform on small areas like a table top, top of a barrel, or a small stage. Dancing in these small areas showed great talent. The greater number of steps that were preformed or known the more respect a dance master received. Some Dance Masters would even compete at Feisianna, which was a combination of a trade fair, political gath...
The world only sees a small fraction of a dancer’s life. While a performance on a stage may look flawless, the amount of work put into making it look like that is completely underappreciated.
The team was ready, we had been working extremely hard for the past seven months for this. We were all in great shape and very rested. A few of the returning players were meeting me at my house to carpool to the final game of the state championship tournament. Everyone knew that the hard work had paid off when we won the semi-final game the preceding day.
The entire week was memorable but the last night we had for All-State was the most memorable to me. It was a Friday night in the big city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the stadium lights were shining down on Tulsa Union’s football field. The football players, trainers, and cheerleaders were at the stadium before anyone else. As I began to walk on the football field with my black Muller trainer bag around my body like a purse, I realized not everyone has had a chance like this. I was very proud to be able to stand on that field with other athletes from different high schools that were very vigorous in football. Before the game started, the west side trainers filled up the water and Gatorade coolers. Then we began preparing the football players by taping their ankles and wrists. The crowd started showing up in the stands and eventually we got introduced before the game started. By the end of the game there were no injuries in the game and the west side I had lost. When the trainers started packing the equipment we used during the game, there was an injury in the stands. The lady had broken her
We had spent weeks on learning many routines. I was in the team group dance, I had a solo, and I was in another group dance, but with the older kids. I pushed myself so hard. I was determined to not mess up, and do really well. If the routine got messed up, I felt as if it’d be my fault. Especially since I wasn’t as old as the other girls and guys. Soon enough, I had much bigger things to worry about. I was about to go on stage. I had a massive amount of butterflies in my tummy. “Breathe. You can do this Winter-Lee. Just feel the rhythm, and let go.” I got onto the stage and I lost myself into the dance, and became less worried about what people in the audience would think. After my solo dance, I got a standing ovation. I have never felt so out there, from who I thought I was. I cried tears of joy because I conquered my stage freight with an act of bravery and confidence. I was so ecstatic, I couldn’t wait until the group number. When it came to the group number, we did really well. We are were in sync not only with our bodies and minds, but with our soul as well. I am very thankful for my experiences in dance. I am not as shy as I once was. I think dancing changed me, and made a big impact on my life.
With shaky knees, I hesitantly made my way up the large white steps. With the back of my hand, I brushed away a few salty tears of relief. As I stood at the top of the podium and looked up into the packed stadium, my mind drifted back to everything I had gone through to achieve this moment, the day I became a state champion.
"C'mon, Chris, you get in the shower first," Taylor ordered from the other bed. "You're already up." Chris conceded and worked his way to the shower. Everyone in the room knew it too, due to his grunting and whining under his breath. Soon enough he was out of the shower and so were Taylor, Anders, and I. We ate breakfast with the rest of the team downstairs in the hotel in silence. It was too early to talk or chat. Everyone knew that one thing was going to be on their minds: winning. It was not worth discussing, either. Everyone knew that our varsity eight was possibly the strongest that McCallie had ever had, and that we had a good chance of winning some gold medals that day, if not a great chance. We loaded on the bus like ants, noiselessly flowing into one little opening. The bus ride was silent all of the way over as well. Everyone's heads, looking intently forward, were slightly jostling along with the bumps in the road. Some tried to sleep, but the tension and excitement was too much for most of them to be successful.
It was a cold cloudy Friday morning. The day of the most nerve racking championship game had finally arrived for the two rivalry basketball teams, the Kress Lady Roos and the Hart Lady Horns. Weeks and weeks of hard, aggressive, closely won ball games one after another. Only a little bit of time after that to get ready for the most important game ever; this is the game everyone has been preparing for. A ton of exhausting conditioning and an enormous amount of shooting lead up to this moment. Every girl on the Lady Roos basketball team feels excited, pumped, and ready for the game later tonight. Constantly thinking and feeling overly enthusiastic of what the outcome of the game would be like. We all had predictions of what we wanted the game to be like but it was up to whichever team wanted it the most. With all the confidence and motivation that we had that morning we just wanted school to be over with already. It did not end quickly though. School was such a drag. We all could not wait for that three-thirty bell to ring so we could hop onto that big, yellow, warm bus. Finally, the loud, annoying bell goes off. It was now, “Game Time”! Only hours away until we would play the game of our lives. As we approached the humongous school our opponents were already there. We did not want to even look at them when we walked in. We did not want to be discouraged by what kind of players they were. As the minutes passed by it was time to get ready. We could already hear our loud and passionate fans approaching the gym. We love our dedicated and supportive Kress community. As the warm-up started we all became very anxious and jittery but knew we had to shake it off and stay focused. As we had our last talk with the coach and said our glorious ...
Two weeks before school even started, the Hotchkiss High School Marching Band began its march to the state-qualifying competition in Delta. We worked four hours a day for five days, getting our fundamentals going and getting a feel for our new show. Once school did start, we started practice at 7:00 a.m. and went for two hours every day, working on music and marching. Our band was once again small (eighteen people!), but our sound was great. It was actually easier trying to teach a smaller group because of the difficulty of the moves we were attempting. Of course, I didn't help matters much by my trials of congeniality with the podium. I figured if I didn't fly off with flapping of my arms, then surely I would walk right off the stand.
Have you ever thought about the history of dance, or how long human life has known it? Dance has been here longer than we actually think. We can take dance back all the way to 600 BC to Now. Dance has made very big changes overtime. It went from doing it in honor for only the dead or religious situations to now just doing it for fun. The way or different moves have also changed over this big course in time. It ways and moves have changed, and the outfits used to perform these different types of dances. There has been clean and dirty dancing all along, some of things in those dances have stayed, others haven’t. Dance has been a very great thing and will stay being a great thing during human life because it expresses a lot. It expresses itself, and a person can express their feelings, in the different kind of moves. It does take time to get to know the moves but you can get through.
Next, we went down to the bleachers and watched the rest of the teams from our section. I was amazed at how good their routines were and how many people were on their’ teams. Before I knew it the awards ceremony was up. We got down from the bleachers and sat in a circle on the gym floor. Surround by about twenty other teams sitting exactly like we were. My heart was pulsing loudly, and my hands were shaking. I was super nervous. The announcer said,” In 3rd place, the team from Decorah.” Everyone cheered. Once it is quiet again he said,” In 2nd place the team from Cresco.” Then after everyone was done cheering the announcer said,” Drumroll please.” We all started a drumroll loudly on the floor. Then he said, “ In first place…” Everyone went silent from the anticipation. The gym was still. It's not going to be our team we did our best that is what matters. Then he finished “, The team from West Union!” I immediately jumped up and started hugging everyone around me. “ I can’t believe we won!” I said to the person next to