I started a house dance training group in London aimed for house dancers who have are have at least 1 year of house dance experience. On a weekly basis, I coordinate a peer lead training session where we tune the mind, condition the body, refine our techniques, share our intentions, and express ourselves. A place to connect. A place to growth. Have no idea where all this is going to go and at the same time, I am enjoying the journey.
Session Recaps
May 13, 2025
Attendees: Alex, Aubrey, Elena, Jimmy, Elena
More to come
May 20, 2025
Attendees: Jimmy, Jake, Anayo, Matt (me)
Summary
Normally we train for 120 minutes and some of that time is spent sitting down together, stretching, chatting. However, the studio was only available for 90 minutes so we kept the entire session pretty tight.
Agenda
- Warm up (neck, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles)
- Foundation Ladder – Works transitions and timing: pas de bourree, side walk, Cross Step, Shuffle, Loose Legs, Tic Tac Toe (two eight counts, up and down)
- Variations – I start with a foundation and then we rotate with each person adding on their own variation (and we each mirror that person). Aim is to smoothly transition between the moves and avoid (if possible) abruptly stopping
- Circuit Training – hip flexor leg lifts, lunges, diamond push ups, pike push ups, squat jumps, Cossack squats
- Polyrhythm exercise – feet dance “on time” while arms go through a sequence of “on time”, half-time, quarter time, double time
- Rhythm game – “Guess that rhythm”. Each person takes a few minutes in their own corner and comes up with a rhythmic pattern and then dances in front of the group, every other person trying to guess what the rhythmic pattern is
- Self-exploration
- Cypher
Reflections
- Everyone doing the same exercise at the same time during the circuit training trumps (in my opinion) then each person doing their own individual exercise – moving forwards, I think we’ll all do the same exercise together because it others (including myself) shared that we feel more motivated when performing the same activity
- A comment I hear often and can relate to is “I’m running out of vocabulary”
- A shared desire for several of us is to take a single foundation and build up the entire round
- A common frustration is falling back on our default pattern of movement (comfort vs discomfort, competence vs incompetence)
Questions
How to find the Unit3 Studio
