From viewer to director of your own life

All children are on their devices, and ours are no exception. The difference lies elsewhere: ours gradually stop being the ones who mindlessly consume content and become the ones who create it. They run their own pages, invent dances, film vlogs about their dance life, competitions and trips. A child becomes the director of their own life rather than a passive viewer of everything that drops unfiltered into their feed.

A story about the back row

One of our breaking students used to be very shy: he sat on the back row and was afraid to put his hand up even when he knew the right answer. We only found out about it later, from his mother.

And then came the battles. Breaking has no conventional competition programme — there is a circle with children from different schools standing in it, and you have to step into the centre. The audience is not somewhere on a screen — they are right there, a step away. A stronger boy has just shown his move in front of you — and now it is your turn to beat the fear and step out.

Session by session, stepping into the centre of that circle became a habit. Today he has no problem putting his hand up in class, dancing during break or being the star of every school event. We never set out to "cure his shyness" — it is a side effect that dance throws in.

Geography, live

Our children learn about the world not from a textbook: they know cities by the stages they performed on and the places they came. Dublin, Barcelona, Montenegro — for them these are not dots on a map but stories of their own. Travelling to competitions is an experience no book can replace.

What a child takes away

Confidence that works everywhere: on stage, at the blackboard, in new company. The habit of seeing a thing through to a result. And a sense of authorship: my life is something I create myself.

The first step towards this is simpler than it sounds: a trial class at IDC — UAH 300. After that your child will show you where they want to grow.

Read also: "I compete only with myself" — where a seven-year-old champion's inner backbone comes from, a conversation with Liza Sahalai's mother.