Hey Athenian J1s!

There’s just two days left to POP. In two days’ time, you guys will be dancing in the central plaza with the music blaring in your ears and coloured lights flashing all over. All the effort and time spent in practicing will pay off when you guys dance and cheer your hearts out on Monday, as we show the school WHAT ATHENA IS MADE OF! 😀 😀 😀

Just some tips for you guys to remember as POP draws near:

General pointers:
CHEER YOUR HEARTS OUT!
KEEP YOUR ARMS STRAIGHT AT ALL TIMES!
KEEP IN STRAIGHT LINES WHILE DANCING!
MAKE EVERYTHING SHARP! FOLLOW TIMINGS!

Some more specific things to take note:

1. When running in, align in your lines, and align your caps properly on the floor. This is important so you guys can use the caps as a gauge to align during the dance! You guys are really well-aligned when you run in, so good job! But when y’all slide out it gets a little messy! So just remember to step near the caps okay!

2. For the very first part of the first song, step out to your cap. Remember to bend low before and after the turn.
For the chorus of Get Up and Fly, just cheer the entire thing k! Including the entire “get up get up get up get up”! This part has a lot of jumping, so make sure after each jump you are already aligned to your friends around you. Try not to use more jumps to align because that will make everything look messier.

3. For the second song, just remember the timing for the “slide off to the side like a fader” part; remember, swing your arms 45 degrees at “slide off”!
For guys, take the sliding step to the right at “to the side”, and take the two steps to face your partner on “fa-der”.
For girls, crouch down at ‘to the side”, and step up again at the “der” from “fa-der”.

4. Remember to keep your hands outstretched during the part where the guy is behind the girl! And follow timings! As for the pose, pose, pose part, remember the new cheer, and just make sure the pose is sharp, just like how you guys did it today 😀

5. For the 4th song, the cap song, just remember to outstretch your hands during the wave!

6. It’s the final song already! Remember all the tips we told you guys today:

– the timing for the part after one-one-more,
– girls being confident to swing and outstretch your arms during the solo,
– guys coming out precisely on “HEY” during your solo,
– the jumping, stepping and final crunching movements! Remember to do everything according to the beat!

Okay guys, we know this is really a lot for you guys to absorb, but we really need you guys to KEEP THIS IN MIND so we really show off how good we are as a faculty on Monday evening! So please keep this in mind, and KEEP PRACTICING!

In any case, I’d just like to add that you guys are the best batch of J1s that we could have hoped for. Seeing you guys get up and dance while the fac comm were performing for campfire, something that no other faculty did, was just amazing to witness. Seeing you guys come so early for the morning practice today, though it was just campfire yesterday,  made our fac comm really proud of your batch. This year, so far, we can’t say we’ve won anything, but we can definitely say with pride and with our heads held high that we are the faculty with the most heart, most soul, and most spirit. There’s just two days left to POP, and let’s show Hwa Chong what espirito verde really means.

Long live Athena!
Love,
Tanyang
Rosanne