How to Create a Practise Plan this Summer…and Why it is Important for Irish Dancers

Summer is finally here and that tends to mean a bit of a change of schedule for Irish Dancers. There’s no school, dance classes change in frequency or times, we have holidays and there’s less Feises to attend. 

For some Irish Dancers, this is a welcome break from their strict and busy timetables, but for others this time away from a set schedule can mean they don’t work as hard, they find their mindset tougher to deal with and practising goes out of the window! 

That is why we encourage all Irish Dancers to create a Summer Schedule and a Practice Plan so that they can keep track of and continue to work towards their goals, whilst also getting the rest that they need. 

What you will need

All you need to create your summer practise plan is: 

• A pen (some dancers like to use colours to make theirs look pretty and decorative)
• Paper 
• Your parents (if you are a younger dancer) 

How to create your Summer Practise Plan

The first thing you need to do to create your summer schedule and practise plan is decide how much time you have to practise each week. This will most likely change each week as you have different plans but that’s okay. Each Sunday you can sit down and work this out. 

Key Point: Remember to be realistic! It is easy when you are feeling motivated and super pumped to see an empty day in your calendar and decide you’re going to do three hours of stamina work - but is that sensible? Is that the right decision? Is that sustainable? It is much more important to do things with consistency, rather than over planning and feeling like you’ve failed. 

Once you have decided how much time you have to practise each week, for example I am going to say seven hours, now you need to decide WHAT you want to work on. Ask yourself: 

• What corrections do my teachers give me a lot? 
• What dancers need the most attention?
• What do I find difficult to do? 

For example, when I was dancing my answers would have been: 

• Kicking my legs higher 
• My Reel 
• To keep my arms in

Now ask yourself WHY do you want to work on these things this summer? This is an important step because it helps you to stay consistent and motivated to work hard when you have those days when you feel like skipping your practise or workout or giving only 40% effort. 

Ask yourself: 

• Why do you want to work on this specific correction?
• How will you feel at the end of summer when it is better than it is now?
• How will this help you to reach your goals? 

Then finally, we need to figure out HOW are we going to improve these areas of our dancing? There should be a good mixture of practise sessions, drills, workouts and stretches to make sure you are working on your corrections through multiple avenues. 

Now, we create your plan. Here is an example of one but it is important that you create your own…

Monday

Spend 45 minutes working on my Reel lead-around, focusing on my carriage when I am moving 

Do a MWM Kick Height specific stretch class 

Take a before picture of my kicks 

Tuesday

Complete an Irish Barre Kick Height class in the Gold Club 

Overall body stretch  

Wednesday

Spend 45 minutes working on the first step of my Reel focusing on my carriage when I am moving 

Do an Upper Body Strength class 

Thursday

Complete Kick Height focused classes in Stretch and Strength 

Do an Upper Body Strength class 

Friday

Rest and hang out with my friends at the cinema

Saturday

Spend 45 minutes working on the last step of my Reel focusing on my carriage 

Sunday

Spend 30 minutes practising my Reel as a whole 

Complete a Kick Height focused Stretch class

Take my weekly ‘after’ picture of my kicks

Complete an Upper Body Stretch class 

Remember your practise schedule needs to include a rest day and it must be super specific! Annabelle used to like to stick hers on the fridge so that she could see it clearly and when she was finished she would tick it off which always gave her a little buzz of motivation and a sense of accomplishment. 

In our Gold Club we have a Summer Scheduling Masterclass with Meg that you can access via our supportive Online Community. If you are interested, you can find out more about our £35 per month Gold Club here.