Dance Camp

In mid-December I awoke to the news that the Church was adjusting the youth progression timelines. Instead of youth advancing on their birthdays, effective January 1, they would advance with their entire birth-year class. 

In our family, this news most immediately effects Aubree. I woke her up yelling, "Aubree! You're going to be a Mia Maid in two weeks!" She was baffled for a moment, but as I explained the changes, she leapt out of bed in excitement. You seen, she's wanted to be 14 since she turned 12. She's been aching to go to dances, youth conferences, and EFY, and suddenly, she cut 10 months off her wait.

It hit me that instead of having 10 months in which to prepare her for dances, I was now down to a few weeks. As is my modas opperandi, I reached out to some talented friends, and we came up with a plan to solve this issue. We called the plan "Dance Camp."

We recruited 7 boys and 7 girls with little or no dance experience (we would have had more, but lots of kids were still on vacation since we held Dance Camp over Christmas Break), set up a time to meet for 90 minutes, and taught them a handful on line dances as well as slow-dance etiquette and technique.

I will be honest and admit that I did none of the teaching. My dancing skills are significantly subpar, but Tallie is a rock star with line dances and has a talent for making everything she touches fun!

Switching over from the line dance segment to the couples dancing segment can best be described as awkward. Many of the girls had fire engine red cheeks, and the boys were oh-so-nervous to have to touch the girls.

Enter Katie and Austen Jensen. They kicked off the couples dancing with a display of western swing, complete with flips and flying. The youth had bugged eyes and dropped jaws. The Jensens assured them they wouldn't be flipping at this camp, but taught them all they needed to know to make the awkwardness dissipate.

And sure enough, by the time they'd switched to their fourth or fifth partner, it had gotten much more comfortable. Hopefully, as these kids move to the Stake Dances, this Dance Camp prep will help them feel more confident, and doubly hopefully it will give them a group of friends with the same background to go to as a built in social group.

PS If it sounds like I forced this "Dance Camp" idea, rest assured that Aubree was my partner in crime. She did much of the kid recruiting.
PPS Bryce says we better do another dance camp when he's old enough to go to dances!