Varsity dance team demands respect
by Michael Pollack

Maya Tuchman (’04) has come back to her alma mater to coach the varsity dance team that she co-captained in the team’s first year.

Tuchman, a University of Maryland undergraduate student, is very excited about returning to JDS and coaching some of her old teammates.

“I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it has been to make that transition—to come back and coach all of the girls—but it’s been pretty easy,” she said.

Sophomore Sari Stahler, one of four current members of the squad who were teammates of Tuchman, said that it has been fun being coached by Tuchman.

“It’s really fun because I get the opportunity to work with her on two different levels—as another team member and as a coach,” Stahler said.

Thanks to Tuchman and the current co-captains—senior Eliana Berry and sophomore Becca Friedland—the Lady Lions adopted a rigorous off-season training regimen that included running one mile each day, as well as countless push-ups and sit-ups.

Tuchman also recommended to the squad that they should take extracurricular dance classes during the off-season to improve their technique and knowledge of the sport.
Berry credits Tuchman for bringing some much-needed organization to the dance team practices.

“Maya’s a really structured coach and now everyone takes dance team really seriously,” she said.

The team, under the Tuchman’s leadership, is making practices more rigorous and conditioning mandatory in order to be the best they can be this year. Team practices consist of non-stop conditioning and taking only a few breaks between routines.

Stahler attributes much of the dance team’s success to the grueling training.

“All of the conditioning pays off in the end when our technique, flexibility and performances have all greatly improved,” she said.

According to Berry, one of the reasons for the off-season workouts is because “people used to think that dance team was this joke and we weren’t really respected that much. It wasn’t as well established at JDS as soccer or basketball is.”

Stahler said, “People are under the false impression that because we don’t perform against other schools, except in competition, we don’t do anything, when in fact we do.”

The team won high silver—second place—at the University of Maryland dance competition.

The Lady Lions have very strong feelings about the lack of respect they feel they receive from the student body.

Stahler, in between sets of pushups, also said, “We deserve the recognition as a real sport because we work as hard if not harder than many other JDS teams.”