This week, while stores are selling chocolate, and everywhere you turn there are hearts and bears and little cupids flying around, make sure you’re giving your dancers a positive message to carry with them. You can celebrate some dance family love with a treat, but it’s even more important to teach them that the most important thing is directing positivity inward.

Self-Love in Dance

The more time we spend loving ourselves and cultivating positive thoughts and emotions, the stronger we are and the better we are at seeing how amazing we are. Show your students how important they are. Dance is a great place for learning these skills because they are constantly accomplishing new things. Use this as a backbone for teaching them to encourage themselves to be their best and recognize that they are powerful, inspiring, young performers! Let them know that their greatest performance is being themselves. That’s the performance that we all want to see encores of every day.

Self-Love in Action

An easy way to do this is to take time to do a quick group activity. You can do this during warm-ups or at the end of class as you cool down. Get in a circle and have each dancer say something they are good at. Once everyone has had a chance to give themselves a pat on the back and acknowledge their own accomplishments, go around the circle again. This time, have each dancer say something about the person to their left. Now, they are not only learning to love themselves, but they are also learning to project their confidence onto others.

 

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Veronica Good has been with Showstopper Magazine since 2016. When she isn't keeping you updated on the latest trends, she is at home with her many pets or probably playing The Sims 4. Veronica has a BA in English and an MA in writing from Coastal Carolina University. She is also a writer of fiction and poetry, and her work can be found in Archarios, Tempo, and Scapegoat.