500 Click Challenge!

I wast watching a Syracuse Basketball game a few days ago and was inspired from a comment by one of the announcers.  It was in the final minutes of the game and we needed every point we could get. One of our players with a very low percentage was fouled. As he stepped up to the line you could practically hear the crowd all crossing their fingers.  As he was stepping up to the line the announcer said that for the past few weeks Coach Boeheim kept this player after practice to work on his foul shots. He had to make 100 shots before Boeheim would let him leave the gym.The player calmly dribbled the ball a few times, focused on the hoop, and made both his shots- which in turn won us the game.  This really got me thinking about how setting goals like that not only increase an athlete's accuracy, but also boosts their confidence. In the case of this particular game, I think it was both that helped SU earn the winning points. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to use this coaching strategy to inspire our dancers at Dunleavy.

We are challenging our students this week over Spring  Break to put on their hard shoes and get 100 clicks for 5 consecutive days. Not only will this practice help increase their accuracy when they step out onto the stage, but it will also boost their confidence. Most of our hard shoe steps have only 4 or 5 clicks in them- once they've achieved the 500 Click Challenge this will seem like a piece of cake!