One foot in front of the other

It was the best of times… it was the worst of times. It was a time like nothing I have ever experienced and I have been a coach in some capacity since my sophomore year of high school… so approximately 2004. Feeling like a year one coach at year 16 was a tough hurdle to jump. Coaching is in my heart, soul and a huge part of my identity so I wasn’t giving up. However, the rug was pulled out from under me during the 2020-2021 Season. I couldn’t be there, I couldn’t help them improve, I couldn’t do all the things my athletes (and myself) had become accustomed to. We met virtually, every day, as we would for a normal practice schedule and had a strong focus on emotional connections… but it was not enough. When my athletes had a crisis, if their parents were absent trying to survive working as essential workers (or in other cases out of work due to closures and scrambling to make ends meet), they were raising younger siblings and I was on the other side of a screen unable to provide anything accept a positive attitude and words of encouragement. There was no escape for them, I couldn’t offer them the opportunity to use dance as their emotional outlet or their physical escape. With siblings in the background, with no safe space to dance and in many cases sharing a space with other siblings also trying to attend school and practice… it wasn’t working. I felt myself losing them, they were losing interest, losing hope and needing this sport more than ever and there was nothing I could do.

Then we got THE CALL. IHSA Dance offered virtual competitions and we could practice IN PERSON. It was the light in the darkness we so desperately need. At first it didn’t matter that we had no idea how to navigate this new world, we had no idea what rules would feel different (alot), what it “looked like” virtually, that we had to stand 6ft apart, with masks on and with 45 minutes between each group to sanitize… we were in the room! IN THE ROOM. Some dancers were nervous to be back, some were excited, others were stressed trying to make their home life work so they could come and others couldn’t make it happen. We all did our best. It was an emotional moment to return to practice in person with so many layers and waves. I cried before, during and after practice in joy for seeing these athletes again and sadness knowing their childhood was ripped away from them. We built a new group mindset or one foot in front of the other and we made things work. Fast forward 5 days and its comp week!

We had our first competition virtually and we were so excited to have the competition Day vibes again. The energy on competition day is like nothing else. It’s a buzzing, nervous, excited and focused energy. Everyone wants to put their best foot forward and see what other teams will be bringing to the floor. We met in our zoom, had the chat rolling with our usual comments about how the season will be… and then the first team video played. There were mixed emotions. We were seeing how different this experience was going to look for different teams, proud of how much work everyone had put in – in such a short amount of time and how much of a community the IHSA dance world had created! There were new emotions that surfaced as well. It was hard to see some of the beautiful spaces, lighting and professional grade sound systems in comparison to others where the team couldn’t get gym space, their lights turned on or music played over speakers. Every team was doing the best they could with what they had. You cannot ask for more. As a coach it was an amazing day to see how much we all cared about dance, and our athletes, to make this happen. Big shout out to our host schools that made this happen as well (HUGE props to Minooka Community High School for hosting the first ever IHSA virtual dance competition and setting up our dancers and other host schools for a successful and meaningful season). As we watched the videos of other teams it was very clear some teams just had more than others. (This paralleled with was happening to students in virtual learning… but that’s another post and heartache for another day.) We showed up and we all did our best. This season we were very successful with a 3rd place sectional finish and a beautiful virtual state performance. Virtual competition caused a whole new level of doubt/nerves for teams. Usually the potential of teams having better spaces, budgets and outside support was brought up but coaches would encourage teams with “We control what we can control. Other teams work with what they have and so do we. That’s all we can do.” Now having all teams see what that might look like made the doubts creep back in for athletes that they wouldn’t be good enough strictly due to not having what they thought they needed. We needed this virtual opportunity more than we even knew but now we had to address more emotional topics than ever before. Moments were different… but we got them so that had to be enough for now. It was also a new layer as a coach to plan for. Virtually moments always fell short. Giving an end of season speech, being emotional and open with the team… To then have a chat pop in that says “Coach you’re on mute”. It made for a good laugh (that we really needed) but took away from the closure and rawness in that speech. We all have to keep on keeping on and that’s the best we can do. Proud to be a coach throughout this and proud of the faith my team had in me and more importantly each other. One foot in front of the other is all any of us can do so just keep moving!