#66: Nationals Mindset: How to Get the Most Out of Your Experience

What’s your mindset going into nationals? In this episode of Dance Colleges and Careers, I break down the difference between regionals and nationals — and how YOU (and your whole family!) can get the most out of the trip.

From being brave enough to take a masterclass solo to finding your people in the Top Stars program, we’ll talk about what really matters. Spoiler: it’s not just your scores.

If you’re heading to nationals, you don’t want to miss this reminder to think BIGGER, connect with your community, and embrace your exceptional self.

🎧 Let’s go beyond the quick tricks and into real growth.

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Transcript

 What's your mindset going into nationals and how can you and your entire family get the most out of your trip? Hi there. Welcome back to Dance Colleges and Careers. I'm your host, Brittany Noltimier, and this is the podcast where we talk about all things dance colleges and careers. What is your mindset going into nationals?

What are you hoping to get out of it? It should be different than what you get out of the regional competitions. Regionals is set up. You go maybe once or twice a month, right? You go once or twice a month. You get feedback and you work and work to fix that. The notes in that, and you do that all season long.

Then what do you change when you go to nationals? Well, these are some things I'm seeing lately, so. I was, when I was judging the pageant, I was there in a hotel and I see all these families who are there at nationals. And then now we are here at Nationals again. And this time I'm working from behind the scenes.

And then one other thing, when I was flying here, I was sitting next to a mom and a daughter, and I sat down. I know I kind of freaked them out a little bit at first because I sat down and I was like. I saw the bag, I saw the dance bag, and you don't always see that when you're in the airport, right? I saw the bag and I said, oh, are you guys here for competition?

And they're like, yes. I said, cheer or dance? They're like, dance, like, I'm sorry for freaking you out here. I just, it's just my people. It's my world. I, I know the bag, I know the logo, I know the glitter. I understand you and I understand every, like what you were just going through. And I was excited. I wanted to talk about it.

I guess I came on a little too strong. What are you gonna do? As we continue talking about the competition, I wanted to hear more stories from them. I wanted them to have bigger than life changes and experiences. Reasons for being there, and I could see that it was just mom and daughter. They, I could see they felt guilty.

They didn't bring the entire family along. I, I gotta let you know, parents remember it's okay to have one-on-one time with one child. So I just highly encourage you to. Get out a little bit as well while you're there to add more value to this trip. And I'm saying that as someone who works these competitions, I barely ever get out of the hotel.

I totally get it. But uh, especially when you are there with just your child or, um, you have these breaks in between routines or maybe you are still there. And even if you get out and do one excursion and just see something new of the city, I know that we get so tired and all we think about is the dance competition and that's all we focus on.

But just being able to step away for it from a second can kind of revive us, give us new life. To step back into the onto the stage, what is different about nationals and regionals? Well, it's all up to you, my friend. It's all up to you. They can be very similar, right? Most competitions are run very similarly.

They might have a bonus here and there. Um, usually there's a lot more like spirit things, you know, where you're supposed to wear the costumes, you're supposed to enter these other competitions. Then they have the add-on things where you can be a part of the opening number or, um, the masterclasses and.

Sometimes we're, if we're going to nationals, we can be really afraid. Maybe we've never been there before. It's our first time, and well, like none of our friends are gonna be taking that class. So why would we take that Class Nationals is your chance to, first of all, get extremely motivated to go back to the next year.

I work at Talent on Parade and they do this program called The Top Stars, and we are checking the kids in today. And they're nervous, nervous, nervous. That program is created. To bring all of the top dancers together from every studio. I, I can't even fathom what that would've meant for me as a child if I would've done that.

These kids hand were handpicked as like the top percent at their studio at that competition. So now if you walk into that room. Rather than being afraid, rather than being like so nervous, you don't wanna talk to anybody. You just like learn your dance steps and then your mom picks you up right away and you go home.

You are really missing the bar on how valuable being in that room is. So if you are in that room with the top kids at all these other studios, think about all that, all that you have in common with them. What, where do you struggle? At your own studio? Well, I'll tell you some things I struggled with is when the bullying comes in and you see the snarky faces in the mirror because you care, because you try really hard and they start teasing you and making fun of you because you take the corrections.

Because let's face it, it is not. It's not cool to be the smart one. It's not cool to be like super into something to be nerdy. That's why we call it nerdy. That's not the cool thing to do. It's cooler to be average. I say boo on average, a boo on that. You don't wanna be average, that's why we're here. You don't, you wanna be exceptional.

You wanna be more than average. So when you are put in that environment, being with the top, you can find your people. What happens when you go to college and you are with other people who have that interest as you? You can find that at nationals. Did you know that just by doing these other activities and not just by doing it fully participating, that means you have to choose to be brave.

It's my slogan these days. You gotta be brave if you're there and you're afraid and you don't wanna speak to somebody. Just put yourself in an environment that allows someone to speak to you, okay? If you pick the spot over their way in the corner and nobody, like, nobody's even gonna walk over there, why would somebody also trying to be brave?

Go all the way over to the corner just to try to sit by you if you put your stuff close to somebody else who you think you might wanna visit with. Then you can make a new friend just by like sitting next to each other. It's always easy. Hey, I like that top. Oh my gosh. We're like the same. We're wearing the same colored shorts.

Okay. We always, we can find something in common, but just by being around other people like you, I think one of the biggest things really is the bullying. Yeah. I know there were times when I felt so alone at my studio when. When you just, you can feel those judgment eyes, you can feel when it's not cool to care.

You know, who thinks it's cool, everybody else around you in that room, that changes your energy, that changes your ability to learn from being competition and competitive to. Being nurturing and competitive in an amazing way. Okay. I was gonna pause here because the air conditioning in my hotel room just came on, but I have to leave it on for a second because this is the reality of trying to do podcast episodes on the road, right?

Like the hideous background, the bed, the wind now in my hair trying to turn off the air and it doesn't turn off because like, what is this thing? So. I just hope you get a little laugh outta that. We're going to keep going through this windstorm because I've got a call time and we gotta get to competition, but mostly 'cause it's funny.

Anything for a bit. Right? Okay. I tried to tam it down a little bit, but being inspired by the, being competitive with those on the same level as you. We will just push you to be better rather than being competitive with someone who's trying to tear you down. I was on the Facebook page. I was on the Facebook group.

You know, all the moms asking questions and someone said specifically about this program, Hey, do you guys know anything about this? Is it worth it? It's worth it if you choose to let it be worth it. It's not about learning Another dam. That's when you're coming in with the wrong mindset. It's not about learning another dance.

It's not about learning new steps. You do that every day of your life. It's about meeting your community and finding your people, the people who you can really learn from, and then go out, watch and support, but at the same time feeling that competitiveness with them in the health in a healthy way, and then go oof.

That was really good. They were really on their A game. They were, they did face, they did technique. They had it all. Okay. When I do my solo, I usually do this and this, but I get shy with my, with my facial expressions. I have to step it up if I wanna be as good as this one. If I wanna like really compete in the league, in the big league.

Now this can pertain to any conference class, but, but we're still talking about nationals because masterclass is at nationals. Sometimes they're taught by the judges. Sometimes they're not. But you know what? Everybody on staff still knows each other, talks to each other and is getting to know you. So even if you're in the room and you don't have judges in there teaching you and you're like, Ugh, I'm tired.

I don't really wanna do this, I gotta do my solo. Later, you will be remembered. Not in the best way. Let's say the judges are teaching you, okay, listen. Use that time to listen. Make corrections. I know there have been times when I've been teaching kids. In the masterclasses, and then I judge them later going, I saw what you did.

I saw that you made this adjustment, made this correction in my class alone. In that little time we had together, but maybe now you heard it from the judge and you knew it was important, so you made it a priority because you knew that me, the judge would like that, would be proud of you for doing that.

And that's exactly right. I would be so proud of you for doing that. What about awards expectations at Nationals? The best way that you can walk away from nationals happy is by putting it all out there and doing your absolute best. I know it sounds cliche, it sounds so stupid, almost like, yeah, I'm gonna just try to do my best.

But if you can make that your priority, doing something a little better, making it the best time you've ever performed it, then no matter what happens with the scoring, you'll be happy. If you place, you'll be even happier. Obviously we wanna get recognized, but the attitude you have going into it shows on stage and we can tell, we can tell when, when you're over it.

We can tell when it's the end of the season and you like. Are phoning it in. And that's the difference between performing at nationals versus regionals. Rational regionals. You're still cleaning, you're still trying to get to that best performance nationals, you're there, you've, hi it, the feedback you're getting in your critiques is more, should be more applied to what you're gonna do moving forward in your next solo, but not for these exact steps, bigger picture items that you can take moving forward.

I think a lot of times we don't wanna listen to our critiques after nationals and that makes it hard as a judge because. It's a hard job to, you know, be talking all day trying to give you all of our best work. But after nationals you're like, Ugh, I'm done. I'm over. I don't wanna hear it anymore. But the mindset of the feedback you get from that routine needs to be about the big picture.

How can that apply to you fully as a dancer and how can you listen to it Maturely, not like, oh, it's only about this step right here. Oh, when I do the bot ma on stage left, I need to make sure I turn out my supporting leg. No, that is a technical element that you should always apply. If they say the timing right there, you need to make sure you're hitting the accent.

That doesn't just mean that's the only accent you're not hitting. It probably means that we just do need to start paying attention more to our musicality. So this is your opportunity. To think big. Think about your whole next year, the goals moving into your next year of dance rather than your goals for this weekend, and how to be better for next weekend.

Think about it if you are a dancer and then you all of a sudden get to teacher routine to your classmates, or you get too. Or you get to assist in a younger class and you start to see it from another point of view. It allows you to start to see it from the big picture, from the outside looking in, and it helps you get a grander perspective and it helps you get a grander perspective.

Understand why the teacher is telling you this thing, and then you get to choose to be brave and apply it. I would love to hear all about it. Share your wonderful experiences with us in our Facebook page. If you're not a part of it yet, you can go to Dance Colleges and Careers, and that's our Facebook page.

Go join and if you have any questions, that's where your people are. Go out there and be brave. Tell your story and own the stage.