OUR BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

So, the long awaited announcement has finally arrived! We will be attending an event in Lakeland, FL for the first time under our studio name! The event we will be attending is the

Showstopper Regional Dance Competition

This will be the first time we are officially competing at a competition under the name Soles On Fire Dance Academy! Therefore, this is our first big event to help get our name, who we are, and what we stand for out there! We will be having 4 numbers competing, these numbers will consist of 3 solos and 1 duet! Our 4 numbers will be competed April 29th, 30th, and May 1st! We will have a long weekend ahead of us in only two and a half short weeks! If you'd like to know more information about this competition, comment below or send us a message! We are very excited to attend our first competition, while we know it is not located where we will be starting our first location, we are very excited to allow some amazing dancers to have their first experience at an amazing dance competition, as well as getting our name out there and known! 

Dance Competitions: The Preparation (Food Edition)

Recently I wrote a post about the preparation it takes when getting ready for a dance competition. To refresh your memory or give you a quick overview, I talked about the different ways I have been preparing for an upcoming dance competition. I discussed the different types of classes or exercising I have been doing and told everyone I would be posting pictures and recipes of different types of food I have been choosing to eat during my preparation for this upcoming competition! In today's post I'd like to go ahead and keep my promise and give you guys some ideas of foods that you can eat to help you start a healthier lifestyle through your food.

Breakfast. As we all know, it is the most important meal of the day! I know a lot of us have extremely busy schedules and don't always have time to cook something in the morning that not only tastes good, but will keep you full throughout the morning and until lunch. Well, I personally have those days too and have a solution that can be carried in the car, eaten at work, or at the breakfast table on those days that you might not feel like cooking. On these days, my breakfast has consisted of the Chobani Greek Yogurt with the fruit on the bottom! My personal favorite is the blueberry and my husband prefers the strawberry. This is a great choice because it contains 40% less sugar than regular yogurt and has 12 grams of PROTEIN!! For those of you that may have a gluten allergy, guess what! It's GLUTEN FREE so you can enjoy it too! You can find this amazing yogurt at your local grocery store in more than just these 2 flavors! Trust me, you will not regret trying it!

Lunch and dinner. I have been eating salads and some form of protein for both lunch and dinner. There are currently two different salads that are my favorites right now! The first is your basic salad that has a little bit of dressing, protein, tomatoes or cucumbers, and occasionally rice noodles! When I say protein, I'm talking about grilled chicken, chicken salad, tuna, turkey, or any other form of lean meat that you would personally like to pair with your salad! When it comes to the salad dressing, I personally use the Hidden Valley Ranch, however I don't use much because that is where you get a lot of your fattening calories from!

The second salad I am currently loving is something I recently tried at Dave & Busters. It is the Sweet Apple Pecan Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette! I had mine with grilled chicken as well and it was a great salad that was also extremely filling! Now, because you can't exactly get all the ingredients from Dave and Busters for your meal at home, I decided to do a little research and found a website that gave me a couple of great ingredients to remake it at home! These ingredients consist of, a bag of mixed greens, Emerald Original Glaze Pecans, Ken's Lite Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette, sliced red Gala apples, and grilled chicken! The smoky flavors from the grilled chicken, sweet and tanginess from the gala apples and dressing, and the crunch from the pecans truly tie together to create an amazing salad that is truly enjoyable!

Snack time! We all have those moments where we question whether or not we're hungry or just bored. In these moments I like to drink about half a bottle of water, and if I'm still feeling hungry I will often snack on some fruit or carrots! I hope you've enjoyed reading a bit about how I have been eating to prepare for my upcoming competition! If you have any recipes you'd like to share comment below! Also, keep checking back for our upcoming announcement about our event we have in only two and a half weeks!!

Dancing: Taking Care of Yourself and Your Injuries

If you're an athlete or dancer of any kind, I'm sure you have experienced or know someone that has experienced an injury of some kind. I'd like to talk about a couple of injuries that not only my students have had, but some that I've had as well.

A couple of weeks back my two soloists performed at the LCS Festival at Southeastern University. Previous to that competition one of my soloist went to an audition and pulled their right hamstring. If you're an athlete or dancer of any kind, you know just how painful it can be to pull your hamstring right before a game or performance. You also know even better what it's like to take care of that injury and make sure it is healing. With only a few weeks left till the competition he had to make sure he was not only resting, but icing, compressing, and elevating his leg in order to make sure it was healing properly. As we arrived closer to the competition his leg was extremely close to being healed and he decided, as many do, "THE SHOW MUST GO ON!" Therefore, he competed at the LCS Festival, however during his performance he pulled his left quadricep muscle (quad muscles).

Many of you are probably thinking, "well, he clearly did not stretch before he performed at either the audition or the competition." However, as many of us that have endured injuries with sports or dance, we know that sometimes it does not matter how well or how much you stretch there are some injuries that are occasionally inevitable. Since his performance at the LCS Festival he has been resting, icing, compressing, and elevating his left leg to continue to help the healing process. Something he has also continued to do is make sure he is still taking care of his right leg as well in order to make sure to prevent another future injury.

I myself have dealt with wrist injuries, ankle sprains and breaks, extreme knee injuries and back injuries in the past that occasionally still flare up. When I was about 14 years old, I injured my left knee in a dance class while doing a leap that I have done since day one. After this happened, I was unable to dance for weeks that unfortunately turned into a little over a month. Therefore, I visited an orthopedic surgeon multiple times and after many MRIs I had finally received a J-Lateral knee brace that would continue to prevent future complications. Shortly after I had begun getting my knee problem handled, I was at a dance convention and was abruptly and forcefully kicked in the back therefore causing irritation to my vertebrates and nerves in my lower back. During my competition days I learned many ways to take care of injuries and still be able to perform like I wanted to.

A lot of times, people become afraid of their injury. Once you've become afraid of your injury you begin to baby your injury. Unfortunately, this can become an even bigger trouble to your injury. You do not want to baby it because most often it can prolong the injury. When some part of your body becomes injured, you want to take care of it but you also want to try to treat it somewhat normally. Meaning, you want to continue to take care of it, but you also want to make sure you are stretching it little by little to make sure your injury is not tightening up to a point where it hurts. Something that everyone needs to know is when you pull or sprain something the lactic acids in your body begin to harden within that injury to help make sure it comes back stronger than before. The only issue with this is, you must break up the lactic acids in order to make sure the injury doesn't become stiff and even more painful.

A few things I have done to help take care of injuries consist of, resting, icing, compressing, and elevating the injury in order to help inflammation subside, taking ibuprofen only when the pain becomes to a point that icing, compressing, and elevating are no longer helping, and stretching or massaging the muscle to make sure the lactic acids are broken up. When it comes down to it use the R.I.C.E. therapy technique.

R- Rest your injury as often as possible,
I- Ice your injury for only 20 minutes at a time, meaning 20 minutes with the ice on your injury and 20 minutes without the ice,
C- Compress your injury, use either a brace or ace bandage to compress the swelling but remember to allow enough space for two fingers to fit in between the brace/bandage and your skin. You do this to ensure you are still allowing blood to flow freely.
E- Elevate your injury as often as possible. For example, if your injury is on a jointed part of your body (elbow or knee) make sure to allow your leg or arm to bend in order for blood to flow freely.

Something else that has become my best friend over the years when I don't have time to do the things listed above is using BioFreeze. This is not an addictive muscle relaxer, it only helps to relax the muscle that it is injured in order to help you be able to perform longer with slightly less pain. When you are in a world where injuries are possible you have to make sure you are taking care of your body as well as possible, you need to stretch before every practice, performance, or game, you also need to occasionally take baths with epsom salt to help relieve your muscles of any soreness that may already be there or may become a future occurrence.

If there is a way that you prefer to take care of yourself that you have found helpful, write a comment below to help others as well! Remember to check back for more new posts!

Dance Competitions: The Preparation

If you've read the recent posts, Choreographing: Seeing Your Piece Come to Life (Part 1 & 2) then you have a little bit of insight into how I like to choreograph and clean up the dances I create. While many people know that a dance is created, learned, cleaned, and then presented, they do not know what goes on behind the scenes with making sure your body is prepared to perform. Dance Competitions: The Preparation is all about what my students and I have personally been going through to make sure our bodies are ready to compete.

Many people do not know how dancers generally eat. For example, some people I have met have asked "Do dancers even eat?" or "Why don't you ever eat anything bad?" I'd like to answer these questions. To begin with, YES DANCERS DO EAT! In fact we love food just as much as the next person, however we choose to eat healthy food in order to stay healthy and be able to perform properly on a daily basis. For the second question, it's not that we don't eat anything bad, while we do eat healthy, we will still eat "bad" food but in moderation. Just like everyone else, dancers like to have some ice-cream or a cookie every once in a while.

Now that I've answered a couple of questions, I'd like to explain why I chose to talk about this subject and call this post "Dance Competitions: The Preparation". Recently, I have been working with my two soloists for their previous and upcoming dance competitions. At first, I was under the impression that the two of them were going to be the only ones competing at their second competition. However, many years ago when I was working with my group of hip hop dancers I had promised them if we ever went to a large scale dance competition I would compete with them. Having forgotten this promise, one of my soloists that was in that group reminded me of my promise, long story short, I am now competing after having not competed in about three years!

A few weeks ago, I decided since I am doing a solo and a duet with one of my students that I needed to prepare my body to look and feel how it should for a dance competition. I began eating healthier and working out more often and have dropped 5 inches off of my waist in only 3 weeks. A few things I have been doing to prepare myself through healthy eating consist of eating greek yogurt with fruit for breakfast, salads with chicken, turkey, or fish for lunch and dinner, drinking water throughout the entire week, and having healthy snacks during the day. My snacks have consisted of carrots, fruit, or protein. Like I said earlier, like anyone I enjoy having something sweet sometimes. Therefore, on either Friday or Saturday night I allow myself to have one meal that is considered "bad" and one small dessert. As I said before, "bad" food is only bad if it is eaten all day long, however in moderation, such as one meal a week is perfectly okay.

A couple of things I have begun doing as a workout regimen consist of, Mat Pilates, Yoga, Cycling/Spin classes, and Ballet, Hip Hop, and Zumba dance classes and a light amount of weight training. I have been going to at least one or two of these classes a week, as well as doing light weight training to help continue to tone my body. As you can see my main source of working out consists of cardio which plays a large portion of help into the preparation process for this competition. While I may not be where I want to be yet, I am getting closer and closer to my goal everyday. I started my journey almost three weeks ago and have three more weeks ahead of me to reach the goal I have set for myself. If you are interested in eating healthier and would like to know what I have been eating for breakfast or lunch, be sure to check back later and I will have some recipes and photos for you to follow! If you have an idea for a healthy meal or snack the you'd like to share comment below and tell us about it! Stay tuned to for other upcoming posts and an announcement about an event that's coming up in only three weeks!

Choreographing: Seeing Your Piece Come to Life (Part 2)

I recently wrote a post titled Choreographing: Seeing Your Piece Come to Life, as many of you may have realized this is a two part post. In the last post, I discussed what it's like to be in the beginning and middle of the creative process and what it's like to experience watching someone learn your choreography and how to clean it up. This time, I am finishing my second part of this post. If you have not read the part one you may want to read it before continuing! With creating a dance for someone comes a great deal of not only imagination but also a determination to tell the story you choose to portray. After you have decided your story, style of dance, and song choice, then comes the choreography stage. In my last post I discussed the way I prefer to choreograph and do my cleaning process. Today I'd like to share what it feels like to go from the practice space to the stage.

Many people have recently asked me, what does it feel like to watch something you've choreographed go on stage? Truthfully, it's a feeling unlike anything else and funny enough it can sometimes be difficult to describe especially in the moments after your student has just performed. I have recently had time to think about it and want to answer that question from my point of view as a choreographer.

When you go from practice to performance you no longer have control over what goes on the stage. To elaborate, during practice you have complete control over how the dance looks, feels, and is portrayed. You have time to tell your student, lengthen and use your energy all the way through your finger tips, when you execute your arabesque bring it higher, straighten your leg all the way through the back of your knee and don't drop your chest. However, once that students checks in backstage and is on deck, the dance is completely in their hands now. You have groomed them and trained them to do what you have envisioned, but now it is their turn to make it their own.

The feeling that comes over you is slightly overwhelming, but not in a bad way, in fact it's a very good overwhelming feeling! You suddenly begin to remember where you started with this student and how far they've come. You remember why they chose the story, song choice, and style of their dance and how much they have moved and inspired you emotionally and physically. You begin to think, I truly hope they remember everything, but it's ok if they don't because they've been trained to improvise if something goes awry. Then you start to remember the laughter and horror stories you've shared about the bruises not only they received but you as well because you had to show them how to throw themselves on the floor and you haven't done it in 5 years. Your last thought before they step on stage is always you trying to remind them, "Do your best, you know your dance, I know you're nervous right now, but feed off of your adrenaline and remember your story. We're here to reach someone." Even though you know they can't physically hear you, you know they can hear you in their heart.

Then, the announcer says, "Up next we have..." and they're name and dance are announced and they walk out and it is officially in their hands. The music begins to play and nothing is going through your head other than every move you've taught them, you are doing the dance with them in spirit! You continue to watch and this feeling of accomplishment comes over you because you remember again how far they have come and how proud you are! As you continue to watch, you can't believe how everything you envisioned is truly coming to life right before your eyes through another person or group of dancers. That is usually the moment that tears begin to form in my eyes because it is the moment I realize someone is being touched and is seeing their story and what we came to do.

As soon as it is over, the feeling of immense joy, excitement, and truly being the most proud of your dancer(s) you have ever been begins to sweep over you! You meet them outside and hug it out and tell them you cannot believe how far they have come and how proud you are! The first thing out of their mouth is, "THANK YOU!! But I messed up on this part..." However, in that moment you don't care because you are so proud and saw your vision come to life that you don't even care if one channe turn was left out! All you care about is how amazing they looked, how someone was truly reached, and how ready you are to take them to the next level!

After all of the post-performance excitement has calmed down, you rematch the dance and continue to think how amazing it truly is that you created a piece and told someone this is what I'm envisioning and I'm believing in you to make it happen. Not only do they make your vision come to life, they take it so much farther and make it even more and even better than you had originally hoped and longed for! If you have a story about what it's like for you to see your piece come to life, comment below and share it with us or if you feel the way we feel let us know, we'd love to hear from you!

Stay tuned for new posts and an upcoming dance competition that we will be performing at at the end of April!

Choreographing: Seeing Your Piece Come to Life (Part 1)

For many people, when you watch a dance at a recital, dance competition, on tv, or at any other event it may seem like any other day for you. It may also seem like it's just another dance you were able to watch. In my last post, I talked a little bit about how dancers should practice and perform as if it's their last performance and how choreographers create each piece they do as if it's the last one they will ever present. However, I did not go into much detail about what it's like getting to the end of a new piece or when you finally see that piece come to life.

When it comes to teaching students you definitely want your kids to have the determination and ready-to-learn attitude, because without that your future piece will not come to its full maturity like you have envisioned it. During the time I have recently spent traveling and choreographing I have had the honor to work with people that have that determination and want to give you what you are seeing in your own mind. The process of creating a new piece for someone truly begins with deciding what is the story I want to tell and how can I portray that through my dancers and my choreography? For example, many of you may have already read a previous post of mine, Standing In the Rain. (If you have not, you definitely should!) In that post I discussed the dance Stand In the Rain started with the word PERSEVERANCE. Once it had been decided what this piece would be about, I was able to begin choosing a song and creating choreography.

After knowing the story, song, and choreography that would be used, then came the teaching and learning experience. I personally prefer to teach as much choreography as possible in one time period as long as the student can handle it. Basically, as long as they can continue learning more and working on it with the music once a new section has been, I will continue to add on. Once I have taught the entire dance I personally prefer to have my students sit down, close their eyes, listen to the dance and run the choreography in their mind. After that has been done, I have them sit, eyes closed, and only listen to the song. By "listen" I mean, truly listen to the lyrics or if there are no lyrics to listen to the way the instruments sound. During my years of training we did this in many dances, because in doing this you grasp a completely different side of the song and it helps to make your dance better because you dancer(s) now has more of an understanding of what the song fully sounds like.

Now onto the "cleaning process" during the cleaning process I begin breaking the dance down as small as I can. Basically, what I like to do is look at each part of the body individually throughout the dance and fix one thing at a time so that my dancer knows what to begin working on. Not only has this made it easier for them to remember, it has made it easier on my part as well because I am able to look at one thing only rather than everything at one time. After I've cleaned and sharpened their dance we continue to run the number until the day their performance arrives. Stay tuned for my next post Choreographing: Seeing Your Piece Come to Life (Part 2) where I will discuss what it's like to visually see your piece come to life in a performance!

Being the Student and the Choreographer

To begin today's post, I will start by apologizing for such a long break! As many of us have been on spring break, I too took a small break as well! Thank you for waiting for me to get back to the blog and staying tuned for what is to come!


Today I want to discuss what it's like choreographing for not only yourself and classes you teach, but for others that perform within the community and those that compete as well. I've had a lot of people ask me how come you choreograph or what is like choreographing for other people? I'd like to answer these different questions to give you a little insight into what it's like on my side as the choreographer, as well as what it can be like being the one learning the choreography.

When you are learning choreography for the first time it can be extremely confusing and overwhelming depending on the kind of choreographer you are learning from. For example, there are different kinds of choreographers, you have those that teach everything in 10 minutes and want you to show it back to them immediately and you have others that teach each step more than once, then you have those that are in between.  Being the person that is learning the choreography, you don't always get to choose which type of choreographer you will be working with. Therefore, you have to be prepared to work with anyone and you have to be prepared to try what they give you. I personally understand how difficult it can be to try everything that's thrown at you because I've been where you might be. However, I can honestly say without a doubt, do not be afraid to try something new! It could become one of your favorite things to do and you will not know if you don't try.

Something I've personally thought and heard from friends and students of mine is, "I'm afraid I'm going to fail if I try to do that move" or "I'm afraid I'll get hurt if I try that, so can we just not do it?" The way I began thinking about it is, if you never try new moves you will not get better, nor will you know if you have the capabilities to do it. Another thing I have learned is, a choreographer will not give you a piece of choreography if they didn't believe in you and didn't believe you could do it.

Now that I've discussed a little bit about learning choreography, I'd like to discuss what it's like to be the choreographer. As a choreographer, a lot of the time you have the choice on who you work with, which can be a good or bad thing. In saying that, I consider the good things to be the students that are hungry to learn and ready to be taught. Not only do they want to be in practice learning, but they want harder choreography and completely trust you with their dance. Unfortunately, something I have experienced that I consider the "bad things" are when you have students that do not trust you and will not try to do the hard stuff that in the long run will only make them and their dance better! However, in these cases, most of the students that don't want to try what you give them often believe they need to change their dance without consulting you, the choreographer, first.

I've had some recent experience with students that have told me, "this dance is too hard, so we're changing it" or "I didn't think the moves looked right so my mom and I changed it and this is what I'm going to do at my performance." I am going to let you in on something that many people do not always grasp, when you change the choreography or tell the choreographer you're changing something, you are undermining they're professional opinion, as well as wasting their time. I urge you, please do not be a student that will not try, gives up, and changes the choreography without consulting the choreographer first. Not only is it disrespectful, it is time wasted that could've been spent with a student that truly wants to learn and try what you're going to give them.

A couple of years ago, while dancing during middle and high school, one of my teachers used to tell us an old Chinese Proverb, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." For a long time, I did not understand what that meant, however as I continued in my dance training and career, I've learned what it truly means. Some of my students have recently learned that as well, I don't want to tell you what it means, but I would like to tell you, be a student that practices like it's your last performance, because your choreographer is choreographing as if it's their last piece. Not only will you get better, but you will begin to understand what the Chinese Proverb means. Once you think you know what that means, please message me or comment below and let me know! I can't wait to read your success stories!