Workshop Tips

We asked our Facebook followers what special tricks and tips they have for surviving summer intensives. This is what the seasoned pros recommend.

• Prepare your food and snacks for the week in advance.
• Drink more water than you think you need.
• Take time alone to think.
• Have a stocked first-aid kit.
• Take time to ice, massage or roll out muscles every night.
• Try to get enough sleep.
• Have fun socializing with your friends (old and new) and don’t spend 100 percent of your focus and energy on just the dancing.
• Eat multiple protein sources at each meal.
• Magnesium!
• Let yourself be open to everything you can drink in.
• Laugh and stretch and sleep.
• Focus 100 percent of your energy on classes when you are there.
• Electrolyte powder and snacks.
• Take a bath every night with Epsom salts.
• Bring Elastoplast tape for your feet.
• Allow down time to really be down time. 
• Take time to contextualize all the information you’re learning as it relates (or not) to your own practice.
• Little tweaks can change your perspective and your process. A different side of the room from where you always stand. Go in front if you stand in the back usually, or vice versa. Wear a different outfit to class.

Bonus for Out-of-Town Intensives 

• If you are travelling somewhere you have never been, take some time to soak in the local culture.
• If you are going to be away, bring healthy snacks. (You may not have access to the best food.)

With thanks to Amanda Acorn, Stephanie Bergeron, Justine A. Chambers, Tanya Crowder, Amelia Ehrhardt, Jasmyn Fyffe, Ana Claudette Groppler, Nicole Marello, Candice Pike, Natasha Poon Woo, Elke Schroeder, Michelle Silagy and Kate Stashko for their contributions.