The nerves always ruin our performances. How do we get rid of that nervous feeling before we perform? How are we going to stop thinking about forgetting the routine while we’re performing–or tripping, falling, doing the wrong move. We always worry about what can go wrong, and often, one thing does go wrong because we’re thinking about it so hard.

Tips:

Know the Routine
If you don’t know it–I won’t lie to you–you will mess up unless you’re lucky. Know it. You should have known it for months!

Breathe
Simple, but helpful. Take deep breaths. It really helps you calm down.

Have everything ready long before the performance
That means making sure everything is perfect. Your hair, uniform, makeup, tied shoelaces, intact nylons, etc. You need to triple check everything so that you won’t worry about it while you perform.

Eat
Competitions are long, and sometimes we might forget to eat. Can’t perform without energy! Eat at least 1.5 hours before the performance.

Get a good night’s sleep, but an early start
Don’t wake up at 1pm (not that competitions start that late anyways), but don’t stay up until 1am. I’d say to wake up when you normally wake up (whenever school starts, probably around 8). If you sleep in, you’ll be sluggish.

No team parties the night before
Unless you can manage to all go home and get enough sleep (not likely), you shouldn’t have a team party. It sounds motivational so that you can bond and talk about the next day, but usually it leads to late nights and everyone tired the day after. If you do have a party, I’d say that it must end before dark and no junk food.

Get hair done ASAP
Drill hair (if you use curlers) takes a long time. My team used to take from 1-3 hours per person. Of course, if you use fake hair or something else, it’s not too big of a deal. If you are using curlers, get it done before dark so that everyone can go home and sleep.

Don’t practice the day before
It’ll just stress you out. Naturally, you will probably forget some moves, then be extremely nervous the next day because of your bad practice. Of course, running through the routine once is okay. Don’t stay up until three practicing (or learning the routine).

Have confidence
No harm in being confident. Lots of people say, “well, if I think I’m going to get 10th place, then I won’t feel so bad afterwards . . . if I think I’ll get first place and I don’t get it, then I’ll feel horrible”. Bad thinking. Be confident. It shows in your face. You want to win. Go win it!

Listen
Listen to the music! Sometimes people don’t and are so focused on moves, moves, moves. When they turn their ears on again, they realize that they are way off and will be lost. Sometimes the music sounds different because of the different speakers in the performing area. Be prepared. If the music skips, you can’t do anything about it. Breathe, don’t look stupid, and smile bright and confident. One time, I watched a team that wasn’t even that great, but their music skipped. They remained still, and ended up placing. That shows your confidence.

Don’t talk about how nervous you are
If you talk about it, it will spread. Don’t make it evident that you’re nervous. Keep it to yourself. Think about other things.
If you’ve known the routine, you won’t forget it
I always go crazy when someone, right before the performance, says, “how does that part go again? I forgot!” This makes everyone nervous, as well as yourself. You won’t forget it. Stop thinking about it. You’ve never forgotten it at practice.

Don’t let the audience intimidate you
Your audience is just people. You see them everyday. What’s the big deal? You won’t mess up and to them, you’re probably just a little face off in the distance.

Perform
Just perform. Perform like you do at practice. No nerves there. You know that you look way better though, because you should be confident in yourself and, hey, you’re wearing your drill outfit! You didn’t buy it for nothing. You bought that expensive customized outfit to win. And that’s exactly what you’ll do.

And of course . . . Smile!

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Think every practice is for practicing formations? Wrong! If you get your formations right, then so what? Isn’t there this judging category called execution? Showmanship? Oh yeah…

When you’re planning practice, you have to leave room to practice everything–not just the formations part. And make sure you plan practices. Not five minutes before it starts, either. Plan ahead.

Planning is essential. At school, teachers have curriculums, and if you’ve noticed, the teachers that plan their year finish teaching whole curriculum and those not-so-great teachers will get to chapter two of your textbook. You want to finish the curriculum. This is the drill curriculum:

Formations:

These have to look as near to perfect as possible for maximum effect. Moves usually are influenced by formations; for instance, a kick formation likely has a line in it so people kick together. What if that line is more like a zigzag? Yuck… needs work.

Execution:

I would say this is one of the hardest things to do, especially when you’re tired. Those angles need to stay perfect, your toes have to stay pointed, and you have to trick your mind and make yourself not tired. But it’s not over yet. You have to keep going. Of course you can make a perfect T, but when you’re tired, that T looks more like a low V. Not good. Endurance is a part of execution also.

Showmanship:

You’re tired and you have to smile? That sucks. But it’s part of the art. Keeping that smile bright shows how happy you are and how much you love to dance. It shows the judges how dedicated you are, how much you love being on this team, and how badly you want to win. This is one way that you’re going to convince them that this team is best. Smile. It’s easy, isn’t it?

Entrance/Exit

So, in most states, you don’t get judged on this part of the routine. This means nothing. You get secretly judged and you should know this. These are the first and last impressions that you leave and they must be effective and energetic. Entering sloppily is an automatic impression that your team doesn’t want to win. Same with walking out sloppily. It shows how tired you are and incapable. Definitely not a good thing.

Posture:

Bad posture will make your judges wince. It’s hard to keep that back flat, but it’s only going to be for a few minutes. You need to have good posture to do well in competitions. It’s just part of the drill art.

This is currently the curriculum, which I may be adding to later.

Captains and coaches, this is your job. You’re teaching this team, and you want every student to complete the curriculum of your class. One of the hardest things about drill is the concept of teamwork–every individual member has to ace every part of this curriculum. These are all tests that they must pass. If one person doesn’t, the whole team suffers.

So, in order to successfully complete this curriculum, you need to be planning practices two weeks at a time. So for instance, on Monday from 2:30pm until 3:30 you will work on angles; then, you will have a short break and from 3:35 to 4 you will work on formations. Make these agendas specific, and stick with them. There is no use to making a schedule it you don’t use it. Make sure you plan practices and get things done. Incorporate every part of the drill curriculum to ensure that your performance goes well. Spend more time on areas that need improvement and less time on the areas that you’ve pretty much got down. Let team members know the agenda. They have a right to know everything. Leaders, don’t treat them like your minions. Just because you have a position means nothing about the level of your skills compared to theirs. I hated being treated like a “newbie”. Remember to not name your team members either. “First-year”, “new members”, “newbies”–these are all discouraging. It’s like a first-year member is automatically worse than a second-year one. Experience is important, but practice is more important. There are many “first-year” (I’m not a big fan of this term) members that are better than “third-years”. It’s all about how much each member practices.

Now it’s time to plan! Don’t wait. Do it now!

Comment and tell me how this works for you.

Remember to smile bright!

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