Dance

Seanna completed a big event last week ... she attended dance camp at Paula's Dance Academy.  As a 3 year old, she was among the youngest there, but we've been hearing from her that she wanted to take dance lessons for well over a year now, so it was time to try things out.

Getting Ready to Head to Dance Camp

I will admit, the first day I was pretty sure that we should have waited to try dance classes.  My normally out-going child was shy and very clingy ... I literally had to hide so that she couldn't see me.  She still left the dance floor at one point and didn't want to go back out there because she "couldn't dance."  Basically, she couldn't do what the other girls were doing as well as they were so she just gave up and didn't want to try.  Following the first break (at which point she informed me to "go away"), she was much more out-going but was all over the place!  Yikes!  Here's the thing, though, I don't know what or if there was a refund policy with the dance camp, but I felt like it was important for Seanna to beginning learning that you've got to stick with things that you commit to do.  If she hadn't wanted to do dance classes any more after the dance camp was done, that would have been fine, but she needed to keep working at it and trying to learn during that week.

The second day, I didn't stick around much since she seemed to do better the first day when she didn't know that I was there and since Cayleigh was along.  So, Cayleigh and I had a fun play date with my husband's cousin and her 2 little girls.  Seanna was definitely less shy before class, though!  I think that maybe it helped having her little sister to show off for :).

I stayed and watched from the parent's area on the 3rd day ... what a difference!  She still didn't have everything down, but she was trying and was getting many of the dance moves.  The recital was the last day.  I think Seanna definitely had a bit of stage fright/shyness as she did much better the day before when she was just in class and didn't have an audience, but, you know what?  That's part of the learning experience ... learning that it's ok to not be perfect as long as you give it your best.

Watching the other girls show off what they learned during the week

Dancing all on her own for the other girls during circle time ... what a change in confidence in just 4 days!

Here's the video from Seanna's recital:

It may be just coincidence, but I have noticed that just from those 4 short days of dance Seanna has learned to have more confidence and to keep working at things that are hard or that she may not be able to do right away.  Of course, that's something that my husband has long talked about being an important lesson learned from sports (when done the right way).  You see, it's not always about winning or being the best but learning that hard work and doing your best bring great rewards.  I'm pretty sure that we'll be doing dance again.  Seanna will probably not get all of the moves right every time, but she is learning important lessons and is having fun.