Varsity Works with The Panyu Football Club and Middle School Kids

Recently, Varsity started a cooperation with the Football Club at Panyu Middle School. We have been working with 450-500 kids in years 7 and 8. These kids have been learning and practicing a routine and will compete with the hopes of winning first place!  

Varsity worked together to choreograph a new warm up, work-out, and stretch along with cleaning all sections of the routine in order for the club to be more synchronized and performance ready. Coaches Amy, Olivia, Ellen and Chris traveled to Panyu 1-2 times a week in the month of November to work with the club.

The routine is 30 minutes long and begins with the kids running and entering line by line, excited and ready to go! Once all kids are in their spots, the music changes and the routine begins with a fun and upbeat warm-up. This warm-up includes jumping jacks, toe taps on the ball, and some intricate footwork known as the shuffle and the karaoke! The warm-up then transitions into the workout. This workout is not easy and contains a ton of full body strengthening! This strengthening includes squats, push-ups, mountain climbers, and bicycle twists.

After a high intensity warm-up and workout; the routine has only just begun! Next comes the foot work, pass, and dribble. This begins with the kids doing individual footwork with their ball, and quickly transitions to passing the ball to the person behind or in front of them, and then diagonal from them. The kids then dribble their ball around each other. Next, the kids set up and get ready for ladder and dribble! This entails each kid doing fast runs through the ladders and then dribbling the ball through cones. After this comes clean up and set up for difficulty and keep away. This involves many different difficulty drills spread out on the field. These drills include forwards, backwards, and side dribbles, jumping over hurdles, and arm warmups. After difficulty, everyone cleans up and gets ready to run! Groups are spread out throughout the whole track, and begin with running in place. You then hear them all yell, “1, 2, 3, 4!!”, and that’s their cue to start running around the track. The goal is for everyone to be on the same foot the whole time. After completing 2 full laps, everyone runs back to their original lines and continue to run in place. The kids are then able to cool down with a nice ending stretch.       

The Panyu Football Club and the Panyu Middle School kids have come a long way with their routine since Varsity first started working with them, and we are very proud. We wish them the best of luck at their upcoming competition!!

The authors：

Olivia Rodrigues is a recent graduate from Dean College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in dance. At Dean she was a member of all three dance teams; jazz/contemporary, hip hop, and tap. Olivia is a third year UDA instructor, dance judge, and has choreographed for many high school and college dance teams.