Helping Young Dancers Push Through Plateaus

Almost every young dancer has times when they feel like they are moving slowly. One week, they’re pumped to learn a new step, the next week it could feel as if nothing is getting any better. For many children, this may get tedious. They can learn to wonder why something that once felt thrilling suddenly feels hard. This is often referred to as a plateau, and it’s a perfectly natural phase in the mastering of any skill… even dance.

We see this happen to dancers of all ages.  Sometimes, a student who was quickly improving feels stuck entirely once more. A turn might seem weaker, or one of those combinations can be too hard to recall. To children, this can be confusing because they’re used to seeing change from week to week. But plateaus are not inherently a sign that something is wrong with a dancer. So often they’re a sign that they’re at a crucial stage of development. It takes time to learn new movement patterns. Behind the scenes, the body and brain of a dancer combine to enhance strength, coordination, balance, and musicality. In doing so, progress can feel slow for a while, and those skills settle down and become more solid. Then all of a sudden, things that had previously seemed impossible start to feel just natural.

Encouragement during this stage can be extremely impactful. Teachers are an important part of keeping dancers motivated. Teachers do this by breaking down steps, giving constructive feedback and praising effort, and thus showing students that improvement is happening, even if it feels subtle. Parents also can provide support for their dancers at home. The best thing to do is just remind a child that learning is a slow process. Encouraging, a few words, and perhaps calling out their effort, then a few words of praise, may turn their attention off and into improvement, away from their frustration and back toward their growth.

It is also useful for young dancers to remember that even experienced dancers have a difficult time, just like they did. No matter how advanced, every dancer experiences patches in which the next breakthrough seems to occur more slowly than each one’s progress started out as was.

In so many respects, understanding how to work through these plateaus is one of the most powerful lessons dance teaches. And they begin to develop patience, resilience, and good habits of mind, which are all useful not just in dance, but also in school and other activities as well.