Two Majors in Two Weeks

The dress bag is still over the bannister on Monday morning.

The wig hasn't made it back upstairs. There's a competitor number in the door pocket of the car and half a bag of snacks nobody wants to look at.

Your dancer comes down for school moving like someone twice their age. Stairs one at a time. Calves gone solid overnight.

And they're back on stage in ten days.

CLRG All Scotland is done, Great Britains is a week on from this weekend, and a lot of houses are sat in the middle of the two wondering what to do with the days in between.

Ten days is an awkward gap. Long enough to feel like you should be doing something. Too short to build anything new. Here's how I'd use it...

Days one and two belong to their head

Whatever happened on stage, the result is still being processed, and nothing physical goes in properly until that's settled.

Day one is for feelings. Let them be flat, or quiet, or delighted, without steering it. If they want to talk about the dancing, follow them into it. If they don't, let it sit.

By day three or four they can usually hear facts. That's when the one useful conversation happens, and it's short. What felt good. What one thing they want to take into Great Britains. Nothing else.

The analysis conversation has a right time, and it's almost never the drive home.

Two very different dancers need the same thing here, for opposite reasons. The one who didn't get what they wanted will want to punish themselves with extra drills and work. The one who did will want to protect it and will go rigid trying not to lose it.

Both are better off back in an ordinary week.

Days one to three: recover properly

Key thing - do less than feels comfortable. A walk, a stretch, and sleep, more than usual.

Keep the usual classes if they're on, but be aware that there may be fewer fulls. Your teacher will know the week their dancers are in, and most will manage the load for them.

Sleep is the key to actual recovery here. Not a supplement, not a foam roller, not a clever new warm-up. Two early nights at the start of this will do more for the second weekend than anything else on this list.

Days four to seven: normal training, one focus

This is the only part of the ten days where real work happens, and it's a short window, so it needs pointing at one thing.

Pick one focus from this weekend. Arms. Timing through a particular section. The first eight bars being dynamic and sharp.

One thing they can think about under pressure beats nine things they'll forget the second the music starts.

If a big or new correction came up on stage, make a note of it and leave it where it is. It has a What, a Why and a How, and that's work for after Great Britains, when there's room to do it properly.

Days eight to ten: back off again

Volume comes down. Full runs get fewer, not more. Sleep goes back up.

The urge in the last few days is always to cram, and it's the thing that empties a dancer's legs before they've even got there.

And no re-dancing the round that went wrong. It's the strongest urge in the house right now and it costs the most, because it practises the scary memory along with the steps.

For the fortnight after

Once both weekends are done, that's when the real work starts for Oireachtas.

Whatever came up on stage, there's a reason sitting underneath it, and that's the thing worth their energy for the rest of the season.

My free quiz gives you your dancer's number one focus, so the work after Great Britain's goes somewhere useful rather than trying to fix everything at once.

Take my free Unlock Your Focus quiz