If you are looking for creative warmup ideas for dance teachers, look no further. Here are some of my favorite ways to warm up my dancers before class. Some of them are my own ideas and others are ideas that I have found over the years, either from other teachers, or on the internet, but there are so many fun things you can do.
As we all know we should always start our classes with a good warmup, as it sets the tone for the class, as well as get the heart rates up, the blood pumping and the muscles warm so that there is less risk of an injuries.
Always aim to get the heart rate up when doing a warmup rather than stretching, which should only be done once the body is already warm, like at the end of class.
Creative Warmup Ideas For Dance Teachers
The Macarena
This one is a great one for either a hip hop class where the dancers will be breaking or acro, as it involves warming up and strengthening the core, arms, shoulders and wrists.
Play the Macarena song and make the dancers go into a plank.
First touch the shoulders with one hand at a time.
Next go down onto elbows one at a time and up again.
Next lift one knee to chest and replace, then repeat with the other knee.
Now depending on the age of the dancers you could either run on the spot with your feet or turn around using your hands into a table top and back into a plank to repeat on the ‘aaaah Macarena part.’
Here is another version you can watch: https://www.tiktok.com/@dansgroep_biforce/video/7585250075178192160
Let’s Play Tag
I’ll be honest, This is the one that the children are always asking for.
I give each child thirty seconds to try and get everyone into an A-Line Stretch.
The children run away from the child who is ‘on’ because if she touches you you need to go into a pike stretch and stay there until one of their friends rescues them by crawling under them.
The child that is on is not allowed to touch someone who is crawling underneath another child until she stands up and starts running again.
This is very tiring but a lot of fun.
Freeze Game
With this one I let the dancers run/skip/dance around the room until I pause the music. I give them instructions on what to do when the music stops until the music plays again.
Here are some examples:
Freeze and balance on your right/left foot.
Put one finger on your nose and the other on your toes.
Do ten jumping jacks.
Make a picture with a partner.
Do a cartwheel.
Hop on one foot.
Balance on your toes.
The choices are endless.
Cha Cha Slide
Everybody knows the Cha Cha Slide song, but add a twist by making the dancers squat until they need to do the movements required by the song. Whenever they are not following instructions, they are in their deepest squats.
Burpies
Ok, so this one is not a fun one as nobody likes to do these, but they are a very good way to strengthen the entire body while getting the heart rate up.
Relay Races
Kids love a good relay race. I have many variations. You can divide your class into two or more teams, depending on the size of the class.
They can then get various activities to do that will warm them up and get them moving. Some examples include:
Walking on toes with a bean bag balanced on head.
Walking in a table top with fingers facing towards bottom with bean bag balanced on tummy.
Hopping on one leg there and the other on the way back.
Holding onto a friends ankles, lying on tummy behind them. They take two steps forward, left and right, thus making the Childs arms that is lying on the floor straight, and then the child lying on tummy uses arms to pull themselves to their friend bending their elbows.
Jumping over hoola hoops. There are many ways of jumping – frog jumps, jumping from one foot to the other, jumping with feet together, ect.
Jumping into a hoola hoop then bringing the hoop up over your head and throwing it in front of you to jump into again.
The possibilities are endless.
Up Game
Make your dancers stand in a circle and either gallop, run or skip around in a circle.
Call out actions for them to perform. Some examples include:
Freeze – use a strong body shape
Star – star jump
Bear – bear crawl
Frog – frog jumps
Table – table top position.
Cardio Time
This is one of my favorites, especially for an acro class, but I use it for other classes as well. It is really tiring, but the catchy song makes up for it.
It was design by the Acro Arts Society, and here are two videos. One for beginners and one for more advanced students.
So there you have it – some creative warmup ideas for dance teachers. Please comment below if you have any other fun ones to add.
