3.1 Dance: warming up the body

Armstretch (triceps):

• Lift right arm straight up above your head.
• Bend arm at the elbow – arm behind your head.
• With left hand, slowly pull right arm at the elbow towards the left.
• Feel the stretch in your triceps.
• Hold stretch for 8 counts – release.
• Change arms.

Lower body stretch:

• Open legs wide – knee slightly bent.
• Turn to the right with your whole body.
• Bend knees at a 90-degree angle – keep upper body straight – place your hands on the front leg.
• Hold for eight counts.
• Straighten legs – bring body down to the front leg as far as you can go – place hands lower down on your leg.
• Hold for eight counts.
• Bend front leg and place hands on the floor.
• Bring whole body down towards the floor and straighten back leg out behind you – toe on the floor.
• Lift the front part of the foot of the front bent leg.
• Hold for eight counts.
• Keep hands on floor and take the front bent leg back to join the back leg.
• Keep your feet together and bend the right leg towards the floor.
• Hold stretch for eight counts.
• Bend the left leg – hold for eight counts.

• Put heels down and ‘’walk’’ hands towards your feet.
• If your hands do not touch the floor, hold onto your legs.
• Hold hamstring stretch for eight counts.

• Curl up slowly, head coming up last.
• Shake all moveable body parts.
• Bow to your educator to say ‘thank you’ for the class.

Assessment

Memorandum

Activity 1

• Warm up : Before any creative activity, the body must be warmed and loosened up in order for the learner to move comfortably. The warm-up also puts the learner at ease with the physical situation and is introductory to the activities that are to follow.
• To avoid any injuries during the class, it is important to warm up the muscles. Start all warm-up sessions with breathing (controlled inhaling and exhaling), in order for the muscles to have enough oxygen to execute the movements.
• As you guide the learners through this activity, make sure that the learners execute the exercises correctly and safely. Guidelines are given with each exercise to ensure proper execution.

Warm-up exercise

• These exercises can be done to music. Preferably modern pop music, as learners relate to them. Tempo must be approximately between 125 and 136 beats per minute, which is a mid-tempo beat. (Compared to a slow tempo of between 84 and 125 beats per minute and a fast tempo of between 139 and 160 beats per minute.)

• Refer to Activities for the Learner for the practical and physical demonstration.

• Hints / Suggestions

• Learners should breathe normally throughout the warm up.
• Make sure learners have full range of motion when executing each movement.
• Count audibly throughout the warm-up.
• Learners must be able to hear your instructions above the music.
• Take note of any learner not executing the exercise properly.
• Correct any learner not executing the exercises properly.
• Take note of any learner not knowing left from right.

Activity 2

• With this Activity, you are going to guide the learners in an exercise where they will explore movement in space with accompaniment. We shall be discovering African Dance eventually, and it is important for the learners to get to know the music and movements first before they can choreograph their own African Dance.
• As Heritage Day is coming up in September, it would be appropriate to explore African dance and then perform a dance on Heritage Day for the celebrations.