Friday, April 2, 2010
writing topic # 3 pg. 794
I’ve never really had the opportunity to ‘behave in an official capacity.’ I’m assuming that this means a professional position. I guess I would have to say that being a captain of JV Dance Team my senior year of high school would be considered this kind of position. By junior year, we acquired a real coach, one that gave us real choreography and direction. I was so excited to have her there, while everyone else thought that she was overly strict for a high school dance team. I loved every bit of her personality and the way she taught us. Sure, she was strict, but we were the best we had ever been because of her. Sadly, she left for my senior year to go open her own restaurant and needless to say, we were lost. The next year, we sort of scrambled all the same girls together, held try outs, and decided that there would be two teams because of conflicts with girls who had been on the team all four years. It was decided that myself and a friend would be captains of the JV Dance Team. At first, when we were deciding how we would reign these girls in and teach them while still being nice to them. I was so stuck on our old captain’s methods and I wanted to be just as strict with them. However, as the year progressed, the girls became our friends and we rarely criticized them. We didn’t just let them run wild and free, but we had more of a friendship than a professional relationship. We taught them well while still having a little pow wow circle to just talk before each practice. We had a lot of fun, and now I wish that we had just toughened up a little bit so we could have prepared them better for next year’s try outs. Some of the girls did make it through the try outs this year (2010) and I was so surprised when one of them actually texted me to thank me for teaching her so much and for being a friend to her. It actually made me cry a little bit because I thought I had been too lax with them. Looking back on it, I regret talking too much and dancing too little, but I don’t regret all the jokes we had and how much fun we had even during practice when we were teaching them. I suppose that all the girls liked the way things went, but I can’t help feeling that there are some of them who thought that we were bad instructors. I’ll admit, we were sometimes. Lol but we never told them that they were bad, we never made them feel bad about themselves, and I think that ultimately helped them become better dancers.
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Sweet! You seem to be a very down to earth kind of person. I like how you looked past your coach's strictness and saw that she was doing it to better you guys. This is definitely something that a lot of people always over look when they are faced with a strict person. They are too sensitive and think that they are doing it because they are mean and nasty people, but really they are doing it because they want to get down to business and produce results. I have had a lot of experience with this kind of thing because my mother has always been very strict. People would always bag on her for what she would do and say sometimes when I was growing up. Now that I look back on it, I'm doing better than every single one of those people. I have succeeded in more areas then they will ever succeed in and I am headed toward something much greater than anything they'll ever do. It is something that a lot of people think too much about. I think it has to do with how overly sensitive our society (or generation) is to things. Back in the day instructors and parents would hit their subjects/children as if it were normal. Now-a-days you can't even say retarded without being penalized to dirt. I admire you for looking past ignorance and working towards something bigger. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteIt's touching how you girls could all get along and to have a peer leading the group and no one died? Wow, good job. In high school if that had happened someone would have definitely landed in the hospital. I was a cheerleader all through high school and became Varsity Captain my senior year so I can relate. It sounds like your team was much better friends than most of mine, 40 ego's was just difficult to simmer down you know? I like that you appreciated your strict coach and recognized her contributions to you girls, it shows maturity. Our coach was a volunteer teacher who'd never so much as attended a football game much less danced so it was tough training everyone. With the help of three other Senior girls we were able to crack down and spent 99% of the practice really pushing our team. We didn't always get along but we were an amazing team when it came to performances and competitions. I always wondered if I was too hard on them or if I should have been more of a friend, reading your blog makes me think I should have lightened up a bit. I know I hated it when my coaches were hard on me in the beginning but somehow, we always came around to be better for it. Come to think of it, none of the friendships lasted past high school for anyone of us. Oops. It was great to see things from the other side of the fence.
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