Goals - Winter

My Goals for this Season

One of my goals for this season is to become more flexible. Being flexible to some degree is needed to be able to do the choreography the way that it was meant to be done. Right now and for the past few years, I can definitely consider myself more flexible than the average person, but compared to many on my team, I am not even close to as flexible as they are. As gaining flexibility takes lots of time and practice, (and ultimately, your body has to be able to grow more flexible on its own) my goal is to just gain any increased amount of flexibility. I can measure this by looking at videos of my dancing right now and watching future videos to see how my flexibility has changed when I am performing the choreography. I can also measure it through my stretching, as stretching often and well is what will improve my flexibility. I can reach my toes and can do very basic stretches to their full extent. Something I cannot do completely are the splits and I can definitely measure my goal progress in the future by seeing if my splits have improved.

Another goal of mine for this season is to outdo my previous performances and go even more full out with sharper and more complete movements each time. This takes practice by knowing the steps for dance and now that the season is well underway, I know the movements and now need to work on executing them. I can measure this goal also by looking at videos. I can determine if the quality of my performance has changed from our first showing of our dances to the final showing. I can go even further and evaluate myself after each competition or performance to look for improvement and to perform better for the next show. This will also help by giving me feedback for next year and next competition season and what I need to improve upon for then.

Performance Evaluation

As we are slightly over the halfway point for the dance season, I wanted to look at and evaluate how it has gone and if I have met or am still progressing towards the goals I set at the beginning of the season. For my flexibility goal, it is something that I am still working towards, but also something that I do think I have improved a little on since the start of the season. I have not been able to specifically measure my difference in flexibility, and I think for the remainder of the season, my goal will be to reach a noticeable difference. For my other goal, I know for sure that I am progressing for that one. We have had a few performances already this year and I can tell by watching the videos that I have improved with performing the movements sharper and better than the time before. My goal is to still of course improve it even more to become as good as possible.

For benefits of dance, I can definitely name a few. First of all, I get to spend multiple hours a week with some of my really close friends and dance also in this way adds another social aspect to my life. It also really helps when I need a break from doing homework because I get to go to dance for a few hours before returning to work. Lastly, it helps to keep me physically fit and healthy year round and is a good source of exercise.

For leadership roles, I volunteer as a teacher's assistant for a dance class for people with special needs. I work with them once each week and I help by leading warm ups and stretches and also helping teach a dance for them to learn throughout each semester that they will then perform at a recital. I have been helping out with this class for almost four years now, and it is a really great opportunity that I am glad I have had and I really enjoy working with them.