When talking about all of our great dance groups I was terrible amiss in leaving out Hula Hoop Dancing. One of our younger clubs, hula hoop dancing, or “hooping” as it is known on the streets as a discipline can be traced to ancient times but the current version is merely a decade old. Hoopers and Hooping can be seen at international music events like burning man, Central PArk (right next to the roller skate dancers) and of course on UVMs campus.
The club led by Instructors Julia Helmes and Gary Johnson practice for fitness and fun as well as the opportunity to perform in several performances throughout the year! I jumped in and tried to keep up with the hoopers as they worked through their routine but the only thing I really accomplished was finding ways to hit myself in the head and other parts of the body not to be discussed in this forum. And I assure you, the hoops that hoopers used are significantly more heavy duty then those little plastic things from back on the day. Nonetheless, at the encouragment of the club, I preserved and learned some new tricks like the helicopter, around the world, and I even managed to get the hoop to go around my body a few times, further proof that it really is, “all in the hips.”
This is what I looked like trying to hoop it up:
Now check out what our UVM Hoop Dancers look like – this was taken at last spring’s Orchesis Dance Performance,very cool stuff:
This weekend I’m off to a Crew Race followed by another week of hijinx and adventures, see you there!
Amongst our many clubs are a slew of dance groups. One area that our Club Sports program is particularly proud of is our variety of options and our dance crews are a primary example of that. We currently have 5 recognized dance groups with a 6th currently seeking formal recognition from the Student Government.
The groups in no particular order are: Salsa and Swing Society, UVM Dance Team, Catamount Dance Crew, Orchesis Dance Company, and Urban Flava (to be talked about later), and the prospective organization is the Celtic Cats and Irish dance group.
Being a nerdy history major what fascinates me most is the origin of these groups and their disciplines. Salsa, has spanish roots and another portion of the club focuses on ballroom dancing, which has its roots traced as far back as 16th Century France. the UVM Dance team is a more modern creation that combines elements of cheerleading often seen at Athletic events like NFL and NBA games. The Catamount Dance Crew incorporates some of the entertainment aspects of the previous group but really strives to infuse elements of Hip-Hop and Jazz dance and emulates the styles of the show, “America’s Best Dance Crew”. Orchesis Dance Company spawned from an academically sponsored dance program that once existed on campus and while there style would likely be described as modern, much of their membership has significant ballet backgrounds. Celtic Cats, likely to be an addition to the club sports world in the not so distant future, follows the discipline its name suggests, Irish.
And now to the group that I visited last night, URban Flava Step Team. To learn more about this discipline I went straight to the most reliable (and by reliable I mean easy) source, Wikipedia (seriously, what did people do before it). Here is what I found:
“Stepping or step-dancing is a form of percussive dance in which the participant’s entire body is used as an instrument to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken word, and hand claps. Though stepping may be performed by an individual, it is generally performed by groups of three or more, often in arrangements that resemble military formations.
Stepping may also draw from elements of gymnastics, tap dance, march, or African and Caribbean dance, or include semi-dangerous stunts as a part of individual routines. Some forms of stepping include the use of props, such as canes, rhythm sticks and/or fire and blindfolds.” In the US step dancing has much of its roots in the African-American community.
The Step Team was really cool to watch as they required little music for their rehearsal, although some was incorporated and they stepped, stomped, and clapped the beats and steps (pun intended) in unison. I had the opportunity to learn a couple steps (pun again intended) and it went step right, clap the right hip, clap the left hip, step left, repeat! It was hard but I got the hang of it! I got great video of the rehearsal and have some of me practicing my moves but an having technical difficulties so those come soon! In the meantime here is a much more theatrical video of stepping!
Check back later for the ladies on our Urban Flava Step Team’s stepping and my own feeble attempt. In the meantime, stay classy San Diego.
Last Thursday was another gorgeous day in Vermont! Cold, rain, mist, all of the good things you expect this time of year in Vermont. But that was no detterent to the Women’s Club Soccer team as President avery Hurst led the bundled up team through practice with a focus on corner kicks. Not as bundled up as I should have been, I wandered over to RedStone campus to observe. I had the pleasure of meetings Avery’s dad who in town visiting his daughter, was braving the elements to watch practice. Avery’s dad was quick to point out how great of expereince his daughter was having with the club and how excited he was that she was meeting so many people and gaining valuable leadership skills. A well traveled man, he was alsoi poinitng out a couple other great opportunites Avery has had while at UVM including the opportunites to travel to Toronto and Costa Rica as part of school sponsored programs. After watching the scene below, and a quality chat with a proud parent, I decided it was time to head in for the day.
After a yummy dinner of leftovers my mom had brought up for me (Thanks mom!) it was off to Swim practice. I will qualify my performance first and foremost that I am more of an ocean swimmer where its about keeping your head up, paddling, and navigating waves. The relatively stable conditions of the pool were not my element, nor were the butterfly or breast strokes. With about 35-40 swimmers on a Thursday night the team had members in all the lanes. I chose the 6th lane, the stroke development lane, where coach Becky taught us some basic skills as well as how to dive off the starting blocks (more on my perfrmance doing this in the video below). In the other lanes coach Zack put the swimmers through the paces as they prepare for three meets in the next 6 weeks or so! Swimming was one of the tougher disciplines as I much more accustomed to being a fish out of water as opposed to in it. However, as you can see below, the coaching and the encouragment of the other swimmers led to some swift improvement!
Me off of the starting blocks!
Me by the end of practice
For those of you unfamiliar with UVMs acaedemic calendar, it is the thick of mid-term season. With work , outside commitments, and the current world tour I was truly exhausted by the weekend and did very little (I know not much different than usual for me)! It is impressive to such such good turnouts at our club’s practices as students begin dealing with the busiest time of the young school year! Way to be student-athletes!
The Martial Arts were first on the docket for Wednesday evening. I made my way over to Trinity Campus in hopes of checking out Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and then TaeKwon Do. While I did get to watch some BJJ, unfortunately it was from the window as the doors to Mann Hall were locked. I was later informed that the doors are supposed to be on a timer, supposed to be, the key phrase in that sentence. From my perch at the window, there were about 35 ladies and gentleman grappling on the mats under the watchful eyes of the instructor, Vincent Guy. This was an excellent turnout, particularly during mid term season. BJJ is a growing sport and the club has done an amazing job of creating an opportunity to learn in a safe and well strucutred climate.
I did make it into the buidling in time for TKD where I received some private lessons from Master Hart and Master Schulte. I learned the basic kicks and had the opportunity to watch the students show off their skills in both kicking demos and sparring practice. There are some great videos of both of these on our youtube channel including a solid sparring session between club officers Derek Wheeler and Kay Gallagher:
There were two highlights for me at TKD. The first was watching the black belts interact with the white belts. In addition to being welcoming and good ambassadors of both the club and the discipline, they were also charged with helping the white belts. Seeing our students gaining these very transferable experience was great, and as MAster hart told me, that is one of the missions of the club!
The second highlight for me was learning, and to some extent performing, a scissor kick round kick. Now this is not me below, but I am pretty sure that it is exactly what I looked like when performing this challenging and awesome kick.
After that muscle stretching experience it was time to head over to the courts for some basketball and volleyball. On the drive over 95 triple-x had some solid tunes playing to get me psyched up for some more sports (…tonights gonna be a good good night…..yeah yeah)
Men’s basketball and Women’s Volleyball were on adjacent courts in the indoor track complex making it easy to watch both teams at the same time. It was an oppportune night as both teams were preparing for the first matches of the year. The Women’s Volleyball club has gained full membership to the New England Club Volleybal League and has the opportunity, with a young but experienced team, to perform very well in the stronger of the league’s two divisions led by their one and only senior, club president Jenny Dykhuizen. Men’s Basketball, is another team on the rise. The club begins its season at Junior College, New Hampshire Technology Institute, and is looking to fill its docket with games this year in preparation for the annual NIRSA regional tournament this spring in Boston. The Men’s club basketball was working on inbound plays and defence in preparation for their opener led by student coaches Brandon and Tate, another awesome example of the strong student leadership that we see in our organizations.
Check out the skill of the Volleyball team below:
Until next time sports fans…tonights gonna be a good good night….I’ve got a feeling…..
As you have likely come to recognize over the last several posts is that I really enjoy my job and yesterday was a particularly fun day. Having said that, today is the first day I am really sore! That is due largely in part to the efforts of the Women’s Rugby club and the Field Hockey players to hurt me with endless stops and starts. For those of you who don’t know it is easier to run three miles straight, then it is to stop and start for an hour, let alone two!
Rugby was a lot of fun. I got to jump in just in time for sprints and somehow found myself running with the backs, the quicker position players on the Rugby field. After this “brisk” warm up we worked on some passing drills and I learned to “spin” and “pop” the ball. I assure you it sounds more fun that it is but important skills if I ever want to play for the All Blacks! The girls were a pleasure and how could they not be with ncknames like Gator, and Raider, and Vader, and Hater and all the other ridiculous nicknames this fierce but linguisticly clever teams comes up with. Women’s Rugby (as well as Men’s Rugby) both host home playoff games this weekend and are looking good going towards the weekend. Check out this clip of my future team, the All Blacks, this cheer being called the “Haka”:
After a quick dinner, it was on to Field Hockey where I learned that some info reported in this blog the other day was wrong. We have another top ranked team in our midst as the ladies from Field hockey are currently 8th in the National rankings as far as Collegiate clubs are concerned and with a strong road trip this weekend will likely qualify for a trip to Nationals. Tuesdays are indoor nights and mostly focus on stick skills and small games and I quickly learned why Field hockey is such a popular international sport for both Men and Women. It is fun, challenging, and fast paced! As many of you who know me in ice hockey, I have a dirt backhand so only being able to use the front part of the stick, as is the rule in the filed version of the sport, was quite the challenge. However, I tried hard and have the video to prove it. Under the watchful eye of the team and with their expertise I picked up some good skills!
While unfortunately (or fortunately) I was not able to participate in the next couple of sporting activities they were a lot of fun to watch. The first was cheerleading where the largest team in years worked on fine tuning routines for this weekend’s events. Cheerleading is one of those sports you don’t appreciate until you see firsthand the athletic skills that it takes and the fearlessness to throw someone in the air or be the person thrown. Hopefully this video emphasizes the fact:
Last but not least was the Kayak club. Now I ask you, what is one of the things that you least expect to see in a pool? For me, it might be Champ the Lake Monster or goldfish. However, a bunch of overjoyed UVM students paddling around all over flipping and cavorting in brightly colored boats was pretty amusing too. The club had a fantastic turnout for their pool sessions where they teach newcomers the basics and let more experienced folks work out the kinks of certain skills before flying down a river! The club has seen massive growth in the past couple of years and when you see how much fun everyone is having it is quite apparent why.
Until tomorrow, work on your Haka and see you out there.
With hockey practice looming on the horizon a calm, relaxing day, was in store so I met up with the UVM Sailing team down on Lake Champlain! I got picked up in the coach boat and tossed on my life jacket and headed out it into the middle of what is becoming a very cold body of water. Decked out in full on winter gear about 25 UVM sailors in a dozen boats were working on their technique in one of the few sunny days in the past couple of weeks. Sailing is a sport of technique I learned, and the sailors were working to gyrate their bodies in the best possible way to avoid getting smoked by the mast, falling out of the boat, not crashing into other boats, and of course, going as fast as possible despite waves in the lake and erratic winds not making up their mind which way they wanted to go. Led by Coach Assad, the team continues to improve.
The team lines up for drills
It was great to see so many folks out on the water in the midst of mid-term season. It truly shows the commitment or our student-athletes to balancing academics while pursuing sport, one of the missions of Club Sports.
The Sailing team is currently ranked 14 in the country, the third ranked team at UVM behind Men’s Varsity Ice Hockey and the Cycling Team, 2 out of the 3 being Club Sports!
Apparently next time, the club is going to toss me into a boat and see how I do. Since the boats cost lots of money, I chose just to observe this time.
I did also take some of the coolest pictures I have ever taken (above) and some video of the team working out and deftly avoiding some rowers:
A crisp Vermont weekend and no shortness of fun events to attend in Club Sports land.
Saturday was a fun day with Quidditch, Women’s Ice Hockey, and Women’s Rugby on the line up. Quidditch, if you did not know, is one of the quicker growing Club Sports in the US and with the World Cup coming up has been featured in many news outlets including ESPN and CBS. Check out the video below for a complete “Muggles Guide”. UVM played three matches against Middlebury college much to the delight of over 100 or so fans on CBW green. The sport is nothing short of intense as evidence by the capes worn by the visiting team from Middlebury.
Women’s Hockey was next and my opportunity to shine! For any of you who were unaware, my previous work expereince includes a 6 year stint as a goalie coach. I was delighted that the practice accomodated my urge to do some of this. It was nothing short of great! The three young laides, Kirra, Kelsey, and Sophia all ahve great potential and were a delight to work with, even though I am upset that they beat me in the rebound game! The women on the other end of the ice were preparing for their exhibition game the next day against St. Lawrence and their hard work paid off with a 4-3 victory! Their home opener is this upcoming Sunday against brand new rival, Uconn!
Women’s Rugby was my last stop on Saturday and unfrotunately, depite a passionate crowd, the team was suffering at the hands of Norwich. While any defeat is disappointing, Norwich is one of the strongest teams in the country and the UVM women played hard until the end. Luckily, for the seniors and fans, UVM gets another opportunity to play at home, as the strength of their regular season has led to a home match vs. Umaine in the first round of the playoffs! Come out and support the team.
Sunday was a clam day but the outset literally started with a bang! I shot my first ever gun! A shotgun to be exact, at little orange targets! I only hit about 3 out of 20 but it sure was cool watching the orange targets explode. I owe all the credit for this to instructor Mike Macduff the coach of the shooting sports club and the encouragement of their fearless leaders Beth and Cait who were working on their target skills fresh off of duck hunting! The club begins its journey towards nationals with a trip to George Mason next month. Check me out below as the girls captured me and I have finally accomplished a life long goal of making it on youtube!
Took it pretty easy the rest of Sunday with the exception of Men’s League hoceky game (was +3 and played Jay Bouwmeester-esque defence) and am getting geared up for another exciting week of visiting clubs and seeeing the excitement.
Last nights events were a contrast in styles and a good example of how vastly diverse in nature our program is. Women’s club basketball was first on the docket. The women’s practice on Thursday nights consists of scrimmaging. The action was very quick with the teams going up and down the court. There were no set plays but the play was very intelligent, with tons of creativity being shown on both sides and highly entertaining to watch. I did have the opportunity to play a little but assure you I was not as quick up and down the court. My stats for the day:
Shooting: 3-10
Assists: 2 or 3
Rebounds: 15
Clearly my stregnth was rebounding! This is likely due to the fact that I outweighed the average team member probably by 75 pounds not to mention the fact that I was dripping with sweat!
I wandered around the gym a bit after that and unfortunately did not quite catch up with a couple folks I wanted to, but never fear, Orchesis Dance was here! Orchesis dance was in stark contrast to the basketball game. In Orchesis, each semester different members of the club take turns choreographing different the numbers that go into the end of year. The girls involved in the number I watched took their time meticulously combing through each step so come 6 weeks from now the show will be perfect. While the dances were original and creative there was a very set script for the end product.
It was another great and fun evening. It was telling to see the different leadership styles in contrast. One of the areas of the program that we are most proud of is the development of our student leaders. Each is unique their style but effective (hopefully) in their own way. We are very proud of all of them and I really enjoy seeing them doing thier thing.
In many cases, last night being a prime example, our clubs resemble something of a lost animal in the sporting world and that is the attitufe of the playground! The playgorund attitude of getting together, being creative, and self leading has been dieing in recent years and the skills of today’s youth is apparent in that. However, here at UVM, in many of our clubs, student’s get a chance to return to the roots of sports…and of course have fun!
Day 3 was a calm day on the Club Sports end. This can be attributed to a big broomball match and coaching hockey, more to come on those later.
After work and trying a Brennans (very spicy) Buffalo chicken sandwich (not the smartest decision), I headed over to men’s volleyball. By the time I got there the team was fully into practice working particularly on setting up spikes and defending against spikes. The team has really become more of a cohesive unit since I arrived at UVM and it was very noticable in their play as it was much crisper than it was this time a couple years ago. Practice led by Andrew Oliver and with help from the rest of the team looked good, which is timely as the club embarks on its first trip and tournament of the year this upcoming weekend, one of 16 Club sports team’s on the road this weekend, our new record!
I did get a chance to learn a little about passing in Volleyball and the biggest tip I received was to use my legs in addition to arms. I guess as the legendary Chubs said in Happy Gilmore, “It’s all in the hips!”
Well rested for Broomball, I got there promplty and warmed up just in time for the other team to forfeit! I suppose they were scared of our team, the Flying Hellfish! this gave the opportunity to hone my shot! Never played or heard of broomball or want some inspiration?? Check out this clip from Sydney, Australia – home to one of the world’s biggest International Broomball Tournaments:
Still no competitive broomball team at UVM….one day
Injury report: The leg is a little sore today from a solid spill while coaching hockey, it was yard sale with the hat flying into the corner and everything. Fortunately for all of you, someone caught it in tape:
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