Gettin' crabby

Are you ready to start the new year with some "crab-itude"?

As an instructor, I'm always looking for a new way for my students to approach their technique. Students are so individualistic that an image that works for one might not work for another so it's a constant search to find unusual ways to express a technical correction or mental image.

I've noticed recently that many of my students lose their cores when they move without the barre. I call it having an "ooey gooey center." It's hard to control your torso, especially when you shift your weight from two feet to one.

A good visual image is that of a crab:

By © Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=518367

Picture yourself like this crab with a strong and inflexible center while your arms and legs move independently. Each time you shift your weight, hold fast to your center and extend the arms and legs as far away from you as you can.

Be the crab.

Happy new year and happy dancing~

Be Big!

My beautiful dancers, it's not easy looking in the mirror when you're in the studio. I mean, let's face it, when most people go to work out, they aren't surrounded by their reflections. Sure, they might catch a glimpse of themselves sweating behind a weight machine or in the locker room after a shower but if you go to yoga or out for a jog, you're not going to see your body reflected back a million times and from all angles.

I'm with you. Believe me. Fortunately I have perfected the art of looking in a mirror without actually seeing myself. I see you and I see movement but that's it. I focus on the ballet not the bodies.

Which is why it sometimes makes it hard to dance bigger. If we are feeling self-conscious for some reason (our hair looks bad, we forgot makeup, the shirt clings too much), we make ourselves physically smaller. We pull our arms in, often by the elbows, and our centers collapse. Chins droop to the chest, shoulders round forward and pretty soon there are no lines or shapes moving in the space but messy blobs.

It's actually harder to dance when you make yourself inconspicuous!

When you avoid the mirror, you also have a tendency to put your body in the wrong alignment for poses and turns, etc. By not looking at yourself (or that direction), you cut off the correct epaulement. You are not truly croise or efface; you skip ecarte and peer over with your eyes rather than your head. And when you turn, you don't spot because you are afraid to look.

The cumulative effect of dancing inside the box for yourself is that you never truly dance. You never fully move and express yourself. The lovely lines we work so hard at the barre are lost when you come to center and that's a shame. The center is the time to put all of that work to good use! Show it off!

"For whom?" you ask.

Well, me! Show it off to me!

And to yourselves. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there in a combination. You may not have a goal of performing on stage but that doesn't mean you can't perform in class.

My TL:DR advice?

1. Stand up straight; pull up through your spine and all the way to the top of your head and bottom of your feet.
2. When arms are en haut, make sure they are truly over your head and not merely in front of your eyes.
3. Look in the mirror at the audience, not yourself. If that's frightening, think of it as "downstage."
4. Take up more room. Don't worry, you won't hit anyone else. Be bold and as tall as you can.
5. Dance fully. When it's your turn, don't mark it or hobble off stage if you make a mistake. Own it.
6. Smile to yourself. Enjoy the music and the movement and know that you're creating art with every step you take. No one else can dance exactly the way you do.

Happy dancing!

First Year Pointe Student asks...#4

"Why is it so hard to stand flat en pointe?"

First of all, when a student asks me this question, she usually means that, when she comes to center and has no barre to hold onto, she starts to wobble on her leg, especially when she shifts from two feet to one, as in a developpe.

To be sure, pointe shoes are not slippers. They are not as pliable, not as supple, not as form-fitting. They do not cover your feet the way flat slippers do. There is a thin strip of leather against the floor and thick cardboard under your foot. It only makes sense that it's harder to balance on one leg when you are wearing them. If they are broken in a bit, they are somewhat softer and a little easier to wear and stand in.

But the bigger issue has nothing to do with the actual shoes. I recommend tackling wobbly legs in the following ways:

1. Start with your core. Hold your abdominal muscles and your back muscles, pulling them up on both sides of your spine, front and back. Do not hold your breath but be sure to stay lifted, as if you have a partner holding your ribcage up and out of your pelvis.

2. Engage your upper back muscles. Always consider your port de bras, the carriage of your arms.  By feeding energy from your spine out to your shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms and fingers, you will balance out the lower torso and feel more suspended.

3. Keep the pelvic bones tilted up. If your hip bones are the base of your tray of snacks, don't tip the snacks into someone's lap!

4. Engage both your quads and hamstrings. In much the same way as your core muscles are being used, pull up both sides of your femur, which will in turn keep your kneecap lifted and stable as well.

5. Lift your arches. There are 3 arches: medial (the inner arch and the biggest), the lateral (the outside of the foot) and the metatarsal (the top of the foot and what most people mean when they say you have "high" arches). When you are wearing pointe shoes, it's especially important to keep the medial arch lifted and the lateral arch pressed down against the floor in opposition. This will prevent pronation which is where the wobble ultimately comes from. You can strengthen this arch by using a Theraband or towel and pointing and flexing your foot against it. But always - always - concentrate on lifting your arches when you are at the barre so you can count on them being there for you in the center.

By starting from the top and working your way down to your feet, you can minimize that feeling of wobble and maximize your control when you are in the center. Happy dancing!