Shoulders forward & the importance of incidental activity

As we close out the year (good riddance, 2020!), I want to offer a final technique tip and an observation.

First the tip:

Keep your shoulders in front of your hips during pirouettes, penchees, promenades, jumps, and generally speaking, during pointe work.

What do I mean?

Grab a mirror and observe your alignment in profile when you stand up straight. Where are your shoulders in relation to your hips: behind your hips, centered over them, or in front of them? Most likely they are centered over them. If you have a tendency to slouch, your shoulders may be behind your hips.

When we rise onto demi-pointe or pointe, we often pull our shoulders back or allow them to droop; this includes turns and pushing off the floor for jumps. 

Now, still in profile, lift your ribcage up out of your waist and gently move your torso forward. Note that your hips are still over your heels and your pelvis is in a neutral position, nothing is tucked or gripped. This is where you want to be when you prepare for a pirouette or take an arabesque into a penchee or even when you push up off the ground for a jump.

What do I not mean?

Don't roll your shoulders or hike them up to your ears. Also, try not to hyperextend your lower back and avoid splaying the ribs.

(This image was made by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Please note the dancer's shoulder placement in the arabesque to the left.

(Ron Kroon / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Please note the placement of the shoulders in this grand jete to the right.

What will this do for you?

For one thing, it helps stabilize you, balancing your natural tendency to fall back as you go up. And for another it will help you engage your back muscles and keep you lifted and not sinking.

And now...an observation about the influence of the pandemic on our bodies (as if we didn't need to know about yet another negative effect!):

When incidental activity is diminished, our baseline of movement is affected. 

What do I mean by "incidental activity?" 

That's the walking from our cars to the grocery store, the running into the bank to deposit a check, the filling up of our gas tanks, the casual jostle walking among crowds at an event or in a school or a theater or on public transportation...all these things contribute to the baseline of our movement including balance. 

Remember before the pandemic when you used to walk around with a purse or shoulder bag or backpack? You would have to balance that on your shoulder and move it with you when you moved, from side to side or up and down. That's movement. That's balance. That's activity. When you're not doing that as frequently, you have far fewer chances to practice.

In your homes, it's a quick walk to the restroom or to get some water but at the dance studio, maybe it was down the hall. That's extra movement, extra walking you did.

In our Zoom environments, we sit to talk to people because if we stand, we are at waist level with our cameras; if we move around, our microphones won't pick up our voices and our auto focus gets blurry. But these are all things we used to do when we talked to people in real life.

What is the result? And how does that affect dancing?

One thing we lose is muscle tone: all that sitting doesn't give our quads and calves and hamstrings opportunities to strengthen, nor does our core engage as frequently. When we don't walk as much, we lose our stamina and get out of breath more quickly. And when we don't have to adjust around people, we don't have chances to find our balance.

For our dancing, this means we must take extra steps in class. Even if you were taking the same number of classes as you were before, likely you are not working as hard or have the ability to do things like jumps or allegro. Our balance might not be as good because we aren't calling upon it as often. 

What can we do?

In class, we can take the time to work on balance OFF the barre when we need to engage our cores and stabilize ourselves. We can build calf and ankle strength through extra exercises. We can also do small jumps in sneakers if we don't have the correct flooring.

Outside of class, we can walk a little bit more (an extra turn around the block with the dog), maybe carry something with us so we build some upper body strength and work on balance. Hiking or carefully navigating uneven surfaces can also help us balance.

Easy fix: Raise Your Gaze!

Ever have a problem in class, whether it's turning or a balance on one leg, and you find yourself wishing there was one simple way to fix it? Something that didn't require hours in the gym working on your core or quads?

Well, there is!

(cue the dramatic music)

Raise your gaze!

cc lic Clare Black "black eyes"

Sometimes it's as easy as that to get your balance, to stay lifted in your pirouettes and get more height in your jumps.

Many of us tend to dance small in class, whether it's because we are focusing on learning or we're tired from a long day or we're anxious about something. That can often translate into a gaze that is cast downward or inward. Our shoulders might roll forward and our centers might collapse as well. All of this leads to a very heavy energy in your body which prevents you from feeling lifted in turns or supported in adagio or jumps.

But by simply --

lifting your gaze

opening your eyes a little wider

actually seeing something

--you can change your posture, alignment, and energy in one easy move - and you will see an immediate result.

I can nearly guarantee it.*

*Note: nearly. I mean, I'm 99% certain it will work for you but there's always a tiny chance it won't but really, what could it hurt to just try?

Happy dancing~

cc lic Ethereality Pictures "Generations of Perfection"

Why do we do grand plies? PLUS: Why Leigh gives super fast degages at the barre

You can always count on people who love ballet, dancers or teachers or simply avid balletomanes, to argue about the art form. Is that a tour jete or a grand jete en tournant? A pas de chat or saut de chat? Do you point or flex the foot in a frappe en releve?

Lately I have heard the argument against doing grand plie at the barre.
"They are too hard on your knees!"
"They are not used in the center!"
"They are really hard to do correctly and I don't feel like doing (or teaching) them!"

Those are all valid arguments. As a teacher of many levels of dancers, I can say unequivocally that grand plie is not easy to teach, to learn or to re-learn, which many of us do if we weren't taught correctly or if we skim through them without actually using the correct muscles. And let's face it, plies at the barre are often an exercise people do by rote. If it's the first or second exercise at the barre, you may not even be thinking about them! You're thinking about where you parked your car, what you might have left at the office, and if you need to stop at Trader Joe's on the way home. So plies are an afterthought.

However, I would argue there are two very valid reasons to do grand plie:
1. Jumps
2. Stability

The first is obvious: when we do deep knee bends, we are building our quads and our hamstrings, both of which we really need if we want to jump off the ground. Of course, we move through our demi-plie at the beginning and end of each jump, but the power has to come from somewhere!

The second is less-obvious: when we are in the center performing an adagio, we need to stabilize our center so we don't wobble and our knees don't buckle. When we talk about holding our core muscles (front, back and sides of our torso) we really want to engage the very deep muscles in our abdomen called the rectus abdominis, which are two long muscles running down the center front of your body, side by side, and the transverse abdominis, which are under our obliques and connect on the sides of the pelvis. These muscles are critical to holding us steady away from the barre. And what's a great way to engage them? Grand plie! How, you ask? When you perform a demi-plie at the barre, it's easy to correct the pelvic tilt but when you go just a bit deeper into a grand plie, it's that much more challenging to keep your pelvis aligned properly. To do it correctly requires that you engage the muscles very deep in your center.

Source: Wikipedia, CC lic

NB: correct pelvic posture is important to fully engage the deep abdominal muscles and strengthen them for center stabilization so be sure to either ask your teacher for guidance or take a quick peek at your profile in the mirror to see what's happening in your pelvic region. If you're tilting (i.e. spilling your cup of water!), engage the muscles and align them properly.

Source: Wikipedia, CC lic (NB, the darkest shade of red is the Transversus Abdominis)

Now, do you really need to do a super deep grand plie all the way to the floor? Absolutely not. And it's very difficult for many dancers to do that and maintain the turnout in their hips without forcing it. You should take your grand just to the point before you begin to turn in. You need to be able to lower yourself to this position and then recover from it without turning the knees in and allowing the hips to swing back behind the heels. Again, this may require a bit of guidance from your teacher, especially if you're not exactly sure what it should feel like. That's what we're here for! We want you properly aligned and building strength!

It's up to you and your knees (and your teacher!) as to whether you do a grand plie and there may be lots of good reasons for you personally to not attempt them but if there isn't and you find that you're wobbly in the center or you can't get off the ground in big jumps, consider working on your grand plie.

BONUS!

QUESTION from the class: "Leigh, why do you give such fast degage combinations at the barre? They're hard and confusing!"

Good question! No matter what level class you take with me, I will give you a fast degage combo at the barre. You might have trouble with it because of the speed but I want you to try it anyway. Why?

1. Step out of your comfort zone! We all have a tempo at which we like to perform certain steps (for instance, I like slow grand battements so I can get my leg high which takes time) so if you push yourself a little bit, it will be that much easier the next time you try it. This goes for anything! Try for the triple turn when you want a double, etc.

2. Focus on speed for allegro. Fast small steps in the center require quick feet and fast reflexes. If we do a fast combo at the barre and constantly shift our weight from side to side, that's going to have a direct impact on our movements in the center later. We will be more likely to be able to shift our weight and our muscles will fire up faster.

3. Engage the inner thighs. Slow degages tend to use the quads more than the inner thighs, especially if the accent is on the degage extension rather than the close to the position. When we do a quicker action, we are accenting the close, which requires us to use the muscles that close the thighs together. Again, this has a direct application to our allegro combinations in the center.

Do I expect you to perform a super fast combination perfectly? It would be nice, sure, but it takes time to feel comfortable or at least allow yourself to not be perfect. You will flub it and feel like your feet and toes are made of concrete but the more frequently you do them, the more you will find the time to work the feet properly.

Happy dancing~

The Forgotten yet Powerful Middle Back

Do you have a sagging, unengaged back?

Some signs:

You sink into your hips when you shift from two feet to one in the center (e.g. during adagio)

Your arms get left behind when you turn

Your quads and calves get tired when you jump

Your big jumps feel labored and grounded

These are just a few tell-tale signs that you're not using the middle muscles of your back. Think of the muscles in the center as the T's: Trapezius, Teres major and Teres minor. Your Traps are a pair of triangular muscles that also wrap up across the upper back but we're interested in the lower portion of the triangle. Your Teres major and minor are under and to the side of the Trapezius. You can find them if you reach under your arm pit and walk your fingers toward your spine.

By Henry Vandyke Carter, derivative work: Rafael Di Marco Barros, Public Domain

Above from Wikipedia: Posterior view of muscles connecting the upper extremity to the vertebral column. A -Trapezius, B - Teres Major, C -Teres Minor, D - Latissimus Dorsi, E - Levator Scapulae, F- Rhomboid Major

The middle muscles, like the middle child and the middle manager but not the middle of an Oreo cookie, often get neglected on pirouettes, jumps and adagio in favor of the flashier muscle groups.  We think of our quads and hamstrings on jumps, our glutes on adagio, and a whole host of things during pirouettes.

But the one thing all of those actions have in common is the mid-back. If you can engage these muscles, you will find yourself far more lifted in adagio, more suspended during turns which will allow for multiples, and lighter during jumps.

Accessing the muscles is a matter of being mindful at barre.

--When you prepare through first to a second position arm, feel the fingertips reaching out from your center and to the side.
--When you cambre forward, try not to let your shoulder roll but lengthen the spine as you tilt forward and really try to think of your middle back returning you to your neutral position.
--When you bring your arm overhead in fifth, try to initiate the movement from the middle of your back rather then your elbow or biceps.

Think of these mid-back muscles as the complement to your torso. Just as you engage your torso (your core, your center, whatever you choose to call it), you need to work the muscles on the opposite side of your body.

As you start to become more aware of those muscles (and of course, you are also incorporating the Serratus muscles we talked about in this blog post), your muscle memory will kick in when you are off the barre and moving with nothing to hold onto. These powerful muscles will provide added stability in the center.

Happy dancing~

Questions from students: Plateaus and proprioception

Plateaus

"I can't seem to get any better with these jumps/turns/choreography. Is this the best I'm going to be?"

My snarky reply: If you think you're done, you're done.

My teacherly reply: No. You aren't done until I say you're done and you'll never be done as long as you work hard.

The realistic reply is somewhere in between the two. Let's be honest about dancing: it's hard. And ballet is well, it's really hard. Whether you started as a kid and have danced for fifty years (ahem, milestone achieved!) or you started as an adult and have been studying for less than five years; whether you are or have been a professional at some point, or if you've never performed on stage ever in your life...we all ask ourselves the question: Is this the best I will be?

dance by antonella morrone, cc license

We all plateau at some point, whether it's in our personal life or our dance technique. Sometimes we won't even realize we're stuck until we've been there for a while.

That's when we need to make the extra push to get out of the rut. And a great way to do that is to consult your instructor or coach. But don't just come to them with a whiny complaint (oops, that was the snarky reply!), come armed with a specific issue so they can help you tackle it.

How to do that? Easy-peasy. With your phone's camera. Just set it up to record you doing something you're not happy with (it's not for public consumption and you can always delete it later) and make an appointment to talk to your instructor or coach. Show them the video of your turn or your jump or your port de bras and together you can figure out what is wrong.

Maybe you're not getting high enough in your releve and no matter how many times you try to apply a correction, you still aren't getting it.

Maybe you're not traveling far enough in your grand jete and you thinking you're using all the right muscles but you still barely move.

Maybe your arms look weak or stiff and you can't seem to find the fluidity in them.

There is always an answer. But you may not know what it is. You may have to, get ready for it, push harder.

Build more strength in your calves to hold your releve; build more core strength to jump higher; take more care and time in your port de bras.

You may need to add an extra class or two to push your technique or you might need a private session to tackle a very specific issue that can't be addressed in class. You might have to take a more challenging class - or conversely, a more basic class.

I don't believe you're done. I don't believe anyone is ever done. There is always a way around a problem if it can't be fixed head-on.

Proprioception

"Why is it so much harder to balance in the center but I can balance forever next to a barre?"

The phenomenon is called proprioception. (And don't bother to look up the Wikipedia definition; they call it a sixth sense when it's no such thing.)

Proprioception is the awareness of your body in space and in relation to other objects, fixed or moving. It is as important in dance class as it is when driving a car or walking down the sidewalk. Just as you find awareness of other people or objects without actually looking at them, so too do you "feel" other bodies in class. This awareness prevents us from crashing into other people (or cars!).

When you're in a ballet class, you are first aware of the presence of the barre next to you. You rarely look at it; you just feel it under your hand. You move your body forward and back, to and away from it; and you slide your hand down the barre as you work.

What you also do is find your balance. The barre is your invisible partner. This is why we try not to grab at the barre or grip it too tightly. You want to keep a nice loose grasp on it, as if you were holding onto another person for support. Think too about personal space with your barre: you don't want to crowd up against it or stand too far away from it.

Awareness of the barre beside you also gives you an object to balance against. Because it's not moving, it's easier to gauge your alignment to it, to maintain a parallel or perpendicular support. We feel it beside us and we can adjust accordingly.

Yay, balancing forever!

balance Yaletown Illuminate by m sew, cc license

But what happens when we get to center? We don't have the same stationary object to align ourselves against and thus it's harder to find our balance. We can still use our proprioceptors, though - we just need to find another object. That can be a mirror or another body (although be aware that they may be moving too) or, for the more advanced dancer, our own bodies. Find the center of your body and use your proprioception to notice the alignment of your arms and legs and head in relation to that center.

Generally speaking, we simply need to practice. When you're at the barre, close your eyes or take your hand off the barre. In the center, practice a balance on one foot flat before rising to demi-pointe.

Got a burning question? Shoot me an email. Happy dancing!

A million tendus

If you're an experienced dancer with years of classes behind you, you've likely done thousands of tendus, thousands more degages, and perhaps a million demi-plies. As a teacher I try to structure my combinations so you don't realize you're doing the same tendus you've seen a bajillion times but honestly, there are just so many ways to combine steps at the barre.

But there's a very good reason for this: muscle memory. Just as baseball players and golfers practice their swings over and over and over again, we dancers must practice the same steps over and over and over again until they are so much a part of our bodies that we don't think about them.

cc lic Paul L Dineen "Big Swing"

 If we had to think about every muscle and every bone that must move and coordinate in order to do a grand jete developpe, we would never get off the ground!

Take a look at this breakdown of a baseball player's swing - and he's not even propelling his body into the air!

Baseball Swing Anatomy

Today I want to talk about the tiniest little things that have a BIG impact on your turns, your jumps and your lines.

Your toes.

cc lic melalouise Sous Sous

Ten tiny parts of you that really sell you as a polished dancer, no matter how many years you have been taking class. Your toes do so many things!

--they keep you on the floor
--they push you off the floor
--they start your pirouette
--they finish your lines
--they form the platform upon which you balance
--they are the basis of your pointe work
--they shape your foot and guide your leg through the air no matter what you do

cc lic Quinn Dombrowski, A Leg Out of Nowhere

 And they MUST be STRETCHED. This is an absolute MUST.

Teachers always tell you to point your toes but instead, think STRETCH, not point. We don't want to grip our toes or feet - we want to lengthen them. With the stretch/lengthen imagery, we will spring ourselves up to retire for a turn; we will spring to glissade and brush every jete.

Without exception, your toes must be stretched to a fully extended position EVERY TIME they come off the floor (unless the choreography calls for a flexed or soft foot) and they remain stretched until the foot returns to the floor. From the very first exercises at the barre (typically a plie combination), think about the toes adhering to the floor; think about them when you balance flat or en releve. Think about them as you articulate the foot during slow tendus. The more you engage the toes, the more you articulate them, the more muscle memory you're gaining. Soon it will feel weird for you to not point your feet.

Happy dancing~

Relax...your demi-plie!

Lately, I've been on a rant about two things with my students in all class levels:

Relax more in your demi-plie

Hold your turnout during jumps

They go hand-in-hand, actually!

Rant #1: Let's first tackle the relaxation of the demi-plie.

From the very first exercises at the barre, we are working our rotation but some of us, particularly during the plie combination, grip our glutes or tighten our calves.

Remember: you only want to engage your glutes and your calves on the recovery from a plie. On the descent, you are engaging your quads and stretching your Achilles tendons.

If your calves are activated during everything, they won't be there for you when you need them to jump. That is when we get tears in our muscles. The calves simply can't activate any further than they are activated but you're asking them to do more, and like a loving friend, they really really try to do what you want. But alas, they can't do anything extra so they break.

Friends don't let friends tear their calf muscles.

If you are a dancer with short Achilles tendons which don't allow you to get a deep demi-plie, then try to relax the muscles at the top of your thighs on the descent. Also try exploring a deeper plie by focusing on sending your kneecaps over the center part of your feet and feel the expanse of the bend there. In other words, don't just think your plie has to be in your Achilles.

And don't forget to exhale on the descent so your muscles are truly relaxed.

Courtesy Danza Ballet blog

Now when you take that plie to center for jumps, you will only be activating the calf muscles on the push off rather than on the preparation.

Rant #2: Holding your turnout during jumps.

When we leave the ground, either one leg or both, we inevitably lose the connection between the tops of our legs. What we don't want to lose is the rotation.

Do you do this? Try this exercise:
--stand facing the mirror in first position
--demi-plie and press up to releve with knees engaged
--check the tops of your thighs for turnout.
--repeat the plie-releve but this time take the toes off the floor for a jump
--check the tops of your thighs for turnout when you are in the air and when you land

More than likely, you are losing your turnout. Again, RELAX your muscles so you can engage them on the jump, hold the backs of your thighs and think about landing toe-ball-heel into your demi-plie. Your plie before a jump or turn should be as ooey and gooey as possible, like you're melting into a pile of marshmallow.

Mmmm, marshmallow

Remember: Relax!!! Happy dancing~

3 Technique Tips for Tuesday!

Last night I thought of 3 random tips I wanted to share with you. None of them warrants a full blog post but together they make 1! In no particular order:

1. Balance Tip: some of us live in earthquake country so we know what construction companies do to bolt down houses to their foundations to help make them resistant to the shaking of earthquakes. You know what also shakes? Your balance when you are en releve. If you find yourself unable to hold a balance, especially in first or second, you're probably not engaging your deep external rotator muscles (they are the very small muscles that rotate your thigh bone in its socket to create turnout from the top of the legs). They also might not be strong enough to hold your turnout which can also result in shaking or collapsing.

Instead of just thinking about your feet holding you in place, visualize the ball-and-socket joint in your leg as if it were bolting your house (body) to its foundation (floor). Once you can grab onto that and engage those muscles, your legs will feel much more stable and you will feel the energy moving in all directions, not merely your feet and ankles.

2. Pirouette Tip: we can never have enough of these! If you are having trouble with getting over your leg on your turn, if you fall backward or can't seem to keep your arms in front of you as you turn, try thinking of someone tapping the back of your shoulder when you go up into your retire position.

From any preparation, let's say left foot front in 4th position so that you will be turning en dehors to your right, imagine your teacher is about to give you a gentle shove on the left shoulder to get you moving. She would be pushing you just above the scapula. This has the effect of getting you over your leg, giving you another source of momentum and preventing you from lifting your shoulder on the turn. And it works! I tested it on myself. Ha!

3. Jump Tip: one of my biggest pet peeves for allegro work is when students don't roll through their feet on their jump landing, whether for grand or petit. Sometimes they land flat footed which shudders my spine just thinking about it. Other times, even if they think about rolling through a pointed foot, they neglect the ball of the foot so it's not nearly as smooth or connective as it could be.

Think about a 3 point landing with every jump: toe, ball, heel. Always. Toe, ball, heel. Toe, ball, heel. This will make you fondu rather than simply plie and bend the knees. It will be easier to use the demi-plie as you move from one step to the next and it will also be safer for your knees and spine.

Hope these tips help! Happy dancing~

Open your eyes!

Abre los ojos!

It's one of my favorite Penelope Cruz movies and also one of my favorite corrections for students.

My dog Peaches shows how to open your eyes

Open your eyes!

Many times we dance in a box and we don't realize it. We keep our movements close to our bodies rather than stretching beyond. Whether it's an adagio or an allegro, we need to dance outwardly, dance bigger for our audience to see, even if it's just the teacher watching.

We start by opening our eyes and seeing something.

Adagio: Look beyond your reflection in the mirror; Look behind it to the back wall or imagine your audience up in the balcony.

Pirouettes: Lift your gaze slightly higher than you think so you rise up to meet it when you go en releve.

Big jumps: Keep your chin up on tour jetes and grands sauts; gaze out past your stretched arms or the direction you're traveling to.

I tease my female students that I can see they're wearing blue eye shadow because they're keeping their eyes shaded or lowered. The joke is that of course they're not wearing blue eye shadow (this isn't the 80s!) but their eyes are only half-open or they are looking down.

Simply by lifting our chins and opening our eyes, we are lifting our chests and not collapsing inward. That will help suspend us and lengthen our spines which will make it easier to turn and allow us to have more ballon on jumps.

Happy dancing~

2 more technique videos - Pique and Saute!

A few years ago I shot a number of technique videos, many of which you have probably seen since they were on the blog a while ago. But I still had two more that my ninja webmaster didn't edit: pique and saute.

In the first, I demonstrate a degage pique so students can see how the toes hit the floor and the knee stays very straight. This is something you can practice at home.

In the second, I break down a saute in first position, from demi-plie through releve and saute. You can also do this at home; it's a very good strengthening exercise for dancers working flat and en pointe.

These are the final videos in this series called Fit Ballet with Leigh. From now on, any videos I do will be under the name, Leigh Purtill Ballet. (Same Leigh Purtill, just a bit older I suppose!)

NB: For those of you interested in the pirouette workshops, the Beginner on 4/30 has sold out. If you missed this one, you have 2 options:
1. If you are very new to turns, you can contact me to be placed on a list for a possible second Beginner workshop in late May or June.
2. If you have some experience and know the basics of turning, you can take the Advanced workshop on 5/14 and work on single turns.

Happy dancing~