Episodes

If you are a dance educator long enough, you will go through some big life changes that will impact your career and your dancers. When you have something big happening in your life like a wedding, a medical issue, the …

Are you an assistant coach? Do you have an assistant in your program? Maybe you’re in the school setting and lucky enough to be an assistant coach. Or maybe you’re a head coach doing everything alone and wishing for some …

Last summer, I hosted an online conference called the Confident Dancer Summit, where 20 different dance educators came together to teach a short course on different aspects of confidence. It was a great weekend and I decided to share one …

Last summer, I hosted an online conference called the Confident Dancer Summit, where 20 different dance educators came together to teach a short course on different aspects of confidence. It was a great weekend and I decided to share one …

Do you have a teaching or coaching philosophy? Personally, it took me years to come up with my own personal teaching philosophy that was really specific to me and not just words you say on a job application. It took …

Today’s guest is Caroline Liviakis, she is the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of the Caroline Liviakis Dance Company (CLDC), choreographing and producing live performances and interactive experiences. In her most recent project, she brings...

This episode is a little heavier, but I’m learning to lean into the hard, so I hope you’ll join me. I’m grateful that there is a growing conversation around mental health, increasing awareness and hopefully supporting your dancers. However, I...

Today’s guest is Stephanie Westbrook, who is based in Sydney Australia, and currently coaches the University of New South Wales Warriors Premier Dance Teams. Over the years her teams have won multiple National Championships, multiple international...

If you’re a part of this community, I am pretty confident you are a lifelong learner and someone who cares about being the best version of yourself. Not every dance educator out there will spend time reading books, listening to …

It’s summer, which for me as a mental performance consultant means busy season! Lots of dance studios and coaches want to focus on mental skills training in the summer, which is great. It’s our “off-season” or as I like to …

Summer is often a time of vacations and relaxing, but also, intensives and summer camps, and usually whole love of planning! If you are someone like me who loves a good planner, color codes everything and enjoys mapping out your …

We know that being a dance coach with a positive impact is more than teaching dance skills and helping your dancers perform well and achieve competitive success. But how? What are the coaching strategies that actually help you teach your …

In this episode, I talk about the need for a little tough love in coaching. I’m not telling you to be mean and rude, but there is a time and place when it is our job to challenge our dancers. …

Today's episode features two special guests, who are both professionally accomplished and exceptional dance educators. As I say in the episode, sometimes you just click with people right away because you are grounded in the same philosophy and...

Coaching and teaching dance is hard, it’s really rewarding, but hard. It’s easy to feel beat down sometimes. When your dancers aren’t listening, when the parents are pushing every last button, when your hardworking dancers aren't seeing the...

This episode is a continuation of last week where I talked about 3 of the key qualities to look for in a captain. If you choose to have formal leaders, I believe choosing a captain is one of the first …

If you choose to have captains or formal leaders of any kind on your team, that choice can shape your entire season. And I believe the choice of who makes a good dance team leader has nothing to do with …

I feel like many of us are having a hard time lately. There’s a lot of burnout, overwhelm, and negativity. And I get it! There are so many reasons why our work is hard right now. But you aren’t alone. …

Have your dancers ever experienced success at competition, and then started to back off on the hard work that got them there and act like they can coast through the rest of the season? This phenomenon of slacking off after …

Positive team culture doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen without a lot of effort and intentional team building. But in today’s episode, I want to share the 4 step process of how to go from a group to a …

Have you ever thought about using your dance experience and education to do something other than teaching dance? Now, if you are a dance educator out there who loves what you do, I’m certainly not the one to tell you …

We all want dancers who are hard working. Dancers who show up and stay focused during class, Dancers who put in 100% effort even if the teacher isn’t looking. But how do you create an environment where classes and practices …

Today is the Passion for Dance Podcast’s birthday! One year ago, I started this journey, and because I launched the show on my actual birthday, it’s also my birthday! So, to celebrate one year and 50 episodes of the show, …

What if we were “Like a Boy?” Would you treat us differently if we were male athletes? The LSU Tiger Girls had a clear and powerful message in their recent hip hop routine, the choreography was top-notch, and the dancers …