Hey fans! My name is Danielle and this is my 4th season with the Orlando Magic Dancers! I have taken the behind-the-scenes diary over from Cherie and this installment will give you an idea of what we endure as we prepare intensely to start the year!

Before every season starts the Magic Dancers have an annual weekend training camp, which we just completed. The training camp is important in several different ways. We learn new routines which we perform at the games and promotions; we have consultations and training with Magic personnel, promotional appearance training, sessions with a nutritionist and a sports specific trainer, and we do a lot of team-building activities. This year the training camp was especially important because 12 out of our 16 Dancers are rookies!

Day 1
We started our camp at noon on Saturday, September 18 with our sports specific trainer, Jeff, who took all of our body fat percentages. I have to admit getting pinched with a clamp-like tool on my arm, stomach, and thigh was not the most fun part of camp! We usually have our body fat percentages taken every other month though to ensure that all the Dancers are staying within an athletic range! After we got pinched, Jeff did some extensive and exhausting training with us. We did several squat and lunge exercises with and without resist-a-bands. Then we ran sprints, did crunches, and finished with push ups. After that we were all exhausted and we hadn’t even danced yet!

We had a little break after our training session with Jeff and then we met Leslie, our guest choreographer for the day. Leslie runs a college/NBA preparatory dance program in Boca Raton, and she is a former Magic Dancer that was on the team with our Coach Jeanine! She started off with a warm-up, which was much needed after all the squats, lunges, and sprints! Then she taught us a sexy jazz dance to ‘Lady Marmalade,’ which will go perfectly for the debut of our new costumes this season followed by a thrashy jazz dance to ‘Satisfaction.’ This one was a little more intricate than the first routine so it took us longer to learn but once we all got it, it turned out really great.

After four hours of dancing we were all beat but we had a full afternoon and evening ahead of us! We started with the much anticipated pairing with our Magic Sister! I started this program my second year on the team where every Dancer is matched up with another Dancer as her Magic Sister for the year. We do different activities with our Magic Sis throughout the season such as dancing a duet together at the game where the new team is previewed, leading specific routines or teaching assignments in rehearsal, helping each other reach goals specific to being a Magic Dancer, and partnering for some of the team building competition activities. Our coach Jeanine matches us up so nobody knows and it’s a surprise. My Magic Sis is Veronica so look forward to us dancing together on intro night as well as all the other pairs of Magic Sisters!

After we got our Magic Sisters it was time for another surprise group activity…a game of sand volleyball! We changed into shorts and t-shirts and headed out to the courts. Needless to say it was pretty embarrassing to watch us. We are all definitely not pro volleyball players, but we all had a blast.

After sand volleyball we had two hours to finally relax and unwind by sitting in the steam room, whirlpool, and getting ready for our team dinner. We got to do a lot of “getting to know you” and catching up during this time because that is something we really don’t have time for when we are in the studio working. It’s always an adventure when a large group of girls is getting ready to go somewhere…from clothing options, to hair straightening, to make-up advice…but it’s a lot of fun! When we were all ready we headed down to Planet Hollywood for our team dinner!

We got to Planet Hollywood around 9pm and started snapping pictures, which is pretty common for us to do when we are all dressed up or in costume! After our amateur photo shoot, a Planet Hollywood hostess escorted us right up to our table which was so nice because there was an incredible wait that night and we were starving! They had a long table already set up for us with presents on each one of our chairs! It was very unexpected and generous of them. When we were all seated our waiter came up and said he was bringing the appetizers right out followed by our entrées and finally dessert. They definitely took exceptional care of us! After Planet Hollywood the Dancers that had some extra energy left in them (which were very few) went to Pleasure Island to end the night with some more dancing. I could not seem to muster up the energy to join them because I was way too exhausted! I got home around 11pm that night and went straight to bed!

Day 2
The next morning I woke up around 9am and I was ready to go but my body sure wasn’t! I was extremely achy and sore, so much that I started to wonder how I was ever going to dance that day. I tried to relax a little by going to the pool then I got my stuff together and headed off to training camp.

We started at 11:30am with Shawn, Game Operations Manager from the Magic Marketing department. Most of us on the team were a little unfamiliar with all our new players and the rookies were somewhat unfamiliar with the Magic organization as a whole so Shawn went over all of that with us.

After our briefing with Shawn it was time for Debby, a nutritionist at RDV Sportsplex, to provide us with nutritional guidance for athletes. Debby went around the room and let us tell her what our struggles were as far as nutrition, foods, and weight. She answered all of our questions and gave us some very good tips about fat free vs. low fat foods, timing of eating, carb/calorie counting and much more. She even gave us handouts of good foods to eat for snacks, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Debby was incredibly informative and helpful in many different ways and I was glad that I got the opportunity to listen and ask questions to someone so educated on the subject.

After our session with Debby it was finally time to dance and our guest choreographers for the day, Casper and Jai, had just arrived! We started out with a high energy fun routine to ‘Let’s Get It Started’. I love this song because it always gets me pumped up and excited! This routine had some floor work and some challenging hip-hop moves, but Casper and Jai broke it down so we all got it and had fun doing it. The second dance we learned was to a mix of Run DMC’s ‘It’s Like That' and 'It’s Tricky,’ which are a little more old school, but still very fun and recognizable. This routine had even more intricate parts to it and even more floor work so it took us longer to learn and break down. I could tell everyone, including myself, were absolutely drained by this point but they were all still working so hard to make sure they got the moves down. We got done dancing around 5pm and let me tell you I was absolutely beat, but we still had one more very important part of training camp. It was time for Coach Jeanine and the vets to do appearance training with the rookies.

The Magic Dancers do hundreds of charitable, community, and tradeshow appearances every season, not to mention all the interaction we have with the fans at the games, so it is extremely important that we know how to handle all types of situations...and you wouldn’t believe some of the strange situations we encounter! With 12 new Dancers on the team this year it was more important than ever to make sure we hit all points of what may happen at appearances and the correct ways to handle. The vets started off doing a situational skit where we acted out a common appearance situation in the wrong way and the right way to handle the situation. Then we broke the rookies into small groups and gave them each a common game or appearance situation for them to act out in the wrong and right way. Let me tell you, we had a blast doing this exercise because the Dancers personalities really came out and they all did so well. We discussed every situation and the multiple ways they could be handled and by the time we were done, I know Coach Jeanine and the vets felt very comfortable with the rookies going to appearances by themselves and doing a great job.

At about 6:30pm we were done with our long fun filled, high energy, exhausting, and informative training camp weekend. The Magic Dancers are definitely ready for the season to start. We’re prepared in every way, excited, and ready to see all the fans at the games! Make sure you don’t miss our new routines, new Dancers, and some new game night surprises along the way! Until next time…