The following are simple practice drills. We will be doing a couple of these every practice. Please work with
your child to improve these skills at home.
Eventually, the goal for these is to do them while keeping the head straight ahead, and not looking at feet!
Walk the line. Your child will learn to walk the walk with a little bit of grace. Kick the leg forward with a
pointed toe, and then place the foot in front with the toe touching the floor right before the heel.
Step to the side, step together. Follow along the designated line, having toes and bodies constantly facing
straight ahead. This exercise begins at a slow pace, and gradually increases in speed into a sideways
gallop. Go both directions
Step to the side twice. Spin once. Your child will most likely need to find something on the wall to focus on
during the spin, otherwise they may over or underspin!
Hop to the side. Feet should stay close together, and toes and body should stay facing forward while hopping
to the side. Go both directions
Step to side, cross in front. Follow along the designated straight line, having toes and bodies constantly
facing straight ahead. Place one foot to the side, and cross the other foot in front. Repeat both directions.
Step to side, cross behind. See exercise #4, replace "in front" with "behind"
Grapevine. This is the simple line dance step. It also combines what was learned from Exercises 3 and 4.
Step to the side, place the other foot behind. Step to the side, and place the other foot together. Usually, it is
easier at first to do this as "side, front, side" first, and then try going behind.
Step kick. place one foot on the floor, kick the other one out, place it on the floor (where it was), and alternate
with out taking any breaks.
Basketball pivot step. Place one foot forward, pivot to face back. The trick on this one is that the feet have to
stay in place, so whichever foot goes forward, you have to turn the opposite direction.
Scissor step. Feet should stay on or near the line on this one. Jump and land with feet apart, then jump and
cross right over left. Jump out, then jump and cross left over right. Jump out, then jump together and clap.
do this with no breaks.
Jump out clap, jump together clap, jump forward, clap, jump back clap.
Heel step. Place one foot on the line, and the other with the toe point up (heel touching the floor) in front of
the line. Bring both feet into standing position. Put the other heel in front of the line, and then back to standing
position.
Charlie Brown. This is a more continuous version of Heel step. Start with feet close together on the line,
place one heel in front, do a slight hop to put the other heel out and return the first heel back to standing on
the line- alternate back and forth.
Toe step. Same as heel step, but place alternating toes behind the line. This will graduate into a sort of
inverted Charlie Brown.
Stand on one foot. This is the simple balance technique of finding one's center of gravity. To make this
effective, your child should NOT hop around. It helps to have the child focus on something straight ahead of
them. Try different feet.