Brenna’s Day 1 Blog

7:00am - Rise and shine Nets Dancers, its Boot Camp time! We started off our day bright and early to make our way over to Nexxt Level Sports in Voorhees, NJ, which would become our home away from home for the next four days. After being welcomed by the staff and trainers, we were all ready to get our hearts pumping with a dynamic warm-up. Coach Ken and Katie led us through various rapid paced drills that challenged our coordination, agility, and speed. Even though many of us were unfamiliar with most of the moves, we caught on quickly and enjoyed the challenge. Besides, how could exercises with names like “the Spiderman,” “inchworm,” or “crazy legs” be anything but fun? But after about half hour of warm up, it was time to get down to business.

From the moment we arrived, we met various warnings regarding our first workout in what is called the Band Room. Now for most people, including myself, the name conjured up images of the room in your high school that housed musical instruments and chorus rehearsals. We quickly learned that this was definitely not the case! The band room consists of multiple stations that target all major muscle groups through the use of various resistance bands, weights, and other equipment to create a very challenging total body circuit-style workout. Upon first introduction it seemed pretty worthy of the warnings, but we didn’t let ourselves get intimidated and were up for the challenge. Our trainer Salim got the music pumping and we were good to go. It was no doubt a difficult workout, but the constant encouragement from our teammates and infectious energy in the room made something initially so daunting turn out to be a lot of fun! This completed our morning, but we still had a long day ahead. After lunch we had our first session in self defense training. Our instructor Maurice gave us some fundamentals in blocking and punching, as well as many tips and tricks to use in different attack situations.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon rehearsing for the evening’s main event – performing two half time routines at the Pro-Classic Championship featuring Vince Carter being held at the Nexxt Level Sports facility. Not only would this event be our first official Nets Dancer performance of the year, but for the rookies, it would mark our first Nets performance ever! I’ll have to admit there were some nerves before taking the court, but our dances to “Get Ready” and “Tambourine” went great, and the experience was a lot of fun for both us and the crowd. Performing with the team got me really excited for the upcoming season, and now I can’t wait to perform at for all of the Nets fans back home!

Christina’s Day 2 Blog

Our first day at Nexxt Level Boot Camp was intense and challenging, but of course, the Nets Dancers were ready and eager to take on Day 2! We began our day bright and early with a two mile run to our training facility. Everyone put their soreness and pain from the first day aside and completed the run! We then sat down for a lesson on nutrition from one of our Nexxt Level coaches. It is so important as a dancer and athlete to keep our body healthy and to learn the proper way to feed it, especially with the amount of physical training and exercise we do each day.

Even though we were away at Boot Camp, it was still important that we were rehearsing as a team. We had Nets Dancer rehearsal for two hours on Day 2. At rehearsal, we go through each routine several times, ensuring that each one is perfectly clean and ready to perform. We do the dance as many times as it takes until it looks court ready and each and every detail of the choreography is perfectly clean and synchronized. After a long and tiring, yet successful practice, our day still wasn’t over!

We then were ready for our next fitness activity, the Aqua Fit Workout. This workout included us exercising both in and out of water. It was amazing! Outside the water we were doing circuit-style repetitions of lunges, mountain climbers, push-ups, core work and intense cardio. After doing each station of the workout 5 times, we were ready to jump in the pool and cool off! But of course, we weren’t just cooling off; we had much more work in store for us. In the pool, we began with laps and did a variety of great leg exercises that worked with the resistance of the water to really intensify the workout. It felt great to soothe our muscles in the water even though they were being worked with the training we were doing.

This particular workout was actually really special because not only did we get a great fitness session, but we were welcomed into the home of one of our fans on her birthday! The birthday girl, Alexis, was really excited and surprised when the Nets Dancers came to wish her a happy birthday at her pool! We were very happy to be a part of her birthday celebration! Her family was very sweet and invited us to stay for dinner by the pool. We were so grateful and had a wonderful time.

At the end of our day, our bodies were exhausted from all the hard work that we put in. We were ready for a great night’s sleep so we could take on the next day’s challenge! I was so proud of all of us throughout the time we spent at boot camp. I have never met such a hard working group of ladies. Through every exercise, we were all behind one another, supporting and pushing each other to really take it to the next level. Each team member really gave every workout and challenge their all, and just when we thought we couldn’t push anymore, we found that little bit of energy inside ourselves to keep going and complete every task. It was such a fulfilling feeling to know we could all take our athleticism to the next level and complete the physical challenges. It was a phenomenal experience!

Taylor’s Day 3 Blog

On Day 3 of the Nets Dancer Boot Camp, we were definitely feeling the burn! As we walked into the facility we prepared ourselves for yet another day of thrills, drills, and a bunch of Advils! The day started promptly at 8:00am with self defense training. We reviewed what we previously learned and moved onto some more advanced techniques. They included what to do if held at gun point and other quick fire methods to escape from an attacker. We can all say we have achieved greatness in Tama-Reye Nuwaubian Self-defense on behalf of the United Nations Martial Arts Federation, and have the certificates to prove it!

At 9:00am we had a power breakfast of the types of foods we needed to sustain our energy for the upcoming intense morning workout. At 10:00am, it was time to get serious. We lined up on the baseline and started our morning warm-up from “Crazy Legs” Ken. First a light jog, moving to a sprint, then a bob and weave, and the hardest few drills to come next. As we waited for direction for our next mad dash, we were already nearing exhaustion, and of course the exercises became more intense…lay down and sprint the full court, suicides, and 17’s. All of which were timed. Luckily, we all made it to the finish on-time, and were not punished with more sprinting.

We barely had any rest time before our Iron Woman Turbo workout began. This workout was circuit training that lasted for an hour and a half. We started out on the Matrix, which yes, should come right out of the movie. It is an apparatus with bands attached to it for resistance - enough for bear crawls, high knees, sprints, lunges, calf raises, air push-ups, and abs. After we went though all of these calisthenics, we moved right into an intense military style training circuit. This began with full court sprints holding a sand bag on your shoulder, then squats with an even larger sand bag which became heavier with every step. Next 20 pound kettle bell swings for 30 seconds and then a full court sprint with a 20 pound kettle bell in each hand. This part of the circuit was definitely the hardest for me. Next was the tire push; I envisioned the Worlds’ Strongest Man competition on ESPN as I pushed those tires as big as me over and over for thirty seconds. The last exercise for me was a rope pull with weight attached. We knew we all had to push till the end, and then we repeated the whole circuit one more time. With the encouragement of the staff at Nexxt Level Sports, we never faltered. We wanted to move above and beyond. After all, dancers are athletes in the strongest sense of the word. We definitely proved that we are some of the toughest ladies around!

After another healthy meal, we were off to yoga class. A room in the facility was transformed into a Zen space fully equipped with candles, incense, and Buddah. We had an intense yoga lesson from a great instructor named Sarah. She helped us to really stretch our tight muscles. Then came our favorite part of the day - we held the Shavasana pose for twenty minutes. Shavasana is a rest position after a tough yoga class, and it was our time to let our bodies relax. That short period of time helped us prepare for the rehearsal we had directly after.

Finally our last activity of the day…rehearsal. Our muscles were tired, and by then definitely sore, but we needed to get the job done. At the end of the hour we hit the routines solid, and the day finally came to a close. Although exceptionally tough, we pushed each other to the very end. We were all in pain, but as the saying goes – no pain, no gain!

Melody’s Day 4 Blog

This morning I woke up surprised - I could actually walk, unlike the pass few days due to all of the muscle soreness. We started off with breakfast at the hotel and headed straight to the workout. We started with a challenging dynamic basketball warm-up. Our warm-up was full of suicide sprints, basketball dribbling drills, and several conditioning skills. Shortly after starting our workout I began to feel like an 80 year old woman trapped in a 20 year old’s body! Basically I was having a tough time with the workout criteria. Luckily our trainer let us off easy with a couple of defence drills and cardio exercises, and then we took a break for lunch. After lunch we were informed that our team would be broken up into two groups and those groups would compete against each other in a series of athletic challenges.

Our two groups consisted of a black squad and gold squad, and I was part of the gold team. We battled in a game of basketball, relay races, tug of war, wall sits, and plank holds. With an impressive 3-2 victory match up, the gold team reigned supreme! We then were blasted with more then enough energy to do our victory dance.

All in all I would have to say the Nets Dancer Boot Camp at Nexxt Level Sports was one of the greatest experiences in my life. I pushed myself farther than I could ever imagine. Coming onto this team as a rookie, I didn’t realize how amazing the ladies on the team would be. The season hasn’t even started yet, and I feel like I have already made 15 new best friends. I look forward to a great season full of funny and exciting moments. Go Nets!