How to Motivate Your Dance Team

Team sports build character, friendships and lifelong memories. In addition to the fun you’ll have on a team, such as a dance team, you will also learn the value of hard work, dedication and team spirit. Working together motivates your team, though on occasion you’ll find that your entire team lacks focus and drive, perhaps due to an unsuccessful practice or competition. When this happens, you need to boost morale by motivating your team to shape up, work harder and put the enjoyment back into your sport.

Instructions

    • 1

      Crank up the music while your dance team warms up. Playing upbeat music creates an upbeat atmosphere. Play the latest hits, classic hits or nostalgic tunes that remind your dance team of unforgettable times you shared in the past to motivate your team to get into the practice spirit.

    • 2

      Create and encourage outside bonding. Dancers that practice together and compete together work better together when they create a bond outside of dance. Organize team activities such as dinners, game nights or sleepovers to promote friendships outside of just the dance team. Your team members are more motivated to work harder when their actions and attitude affect their friendships.

    • 3

      Break up cliques within the dance team. Some girls are naturally better friends with some rather than others, but forming team cliques is a fast way to hamper motivation in girls not involved in these cliques. Explain to your team that their friendships are vitally important but that at practice and at competitions there will be no cliques; everyone is an equal and everyone will be treated as such.

    • 4

      Encourage fun within your team. When the team starts to lose motivation, stop practice and play a game. Play dancing musical chairs. Start the music and make your girls dance around a group of chairs the same way they’d play musical chairs at a birthday party. Provide a special treat for the winner, such as being captain for the day or allowing her to have a solo dance move during your next competition.