The Other Side Of The Curtain-----Of Dance

If you have not been a regular reader of my blog you would not know that for 23 years I was a dancer and for 12 years I owned my own dance business and taught many classes to many ages of children. Dance has always been my life. The past 3 years now my studio has been closed and I miss it greatly. My older daughter Amanda grew up in my studio and dance from the time she was almost 2. Gracie was able to dance for one year with me.

This summer I put Grace into a summer dance camp in a nearing town. "Hip Hop camp".  So for a week now I have been on "other side of the window".  A friend I know was there with her daughter too and said "see being on this side isn't so bad". I said "no i would rather be teaching this class".   I found myself judging the teaching at first because the class for a camp is not what I expected it to be. It was mixed with K-3rd Grade. Big age difference. The dance and style was also 3rd grade level dance class. They all come in and are just shown the entire dance routine and now work on it. I could see Grace was overwhelmed, but she pushed through.  I just wondered where are the ribbon sticks, music props, and creative movement that 5 years olds love so much? Well I guess that is not what this camp is. It made me realize what a great teacher and great curriculum I had for my little ones of this age and no wonder why those classes for me were full!

In the mean time, Gracie keeps pushing through and really starts catching on to this pretty hard and fast routine!! By day 3 she was having fun. Got a t-shirt and will be dancing on stage at the down town summer festival. To see her smiling and having fun melted my heart. She did awesome and by the end of the week had a fun time and was proud she learned "hip hop"