My journey to jetes: from zero to grand in 7 months!

Beautiful dancers, like everyone during the pandemic, I was stuck at home in a small space with a slippery wood floor that had no give. Over the course of a couple of months, I brought in a portable barre, marley flooring, and some springy dance floor squares (which I liked so much I bought a second set to make the area bigger!). 

Also like you, no matter how I was able to modify my former dining area, I couldn't do anything big - no grand allegro at all and very limited petit allegro. I focused on maintaining strength in my quads and hamstrings as well as building core strength through sit-ups, pushups and planks. I also ended every class I taught over Zoom and YouTube with releves to keep calf and ankle strength up for all of us, including me!

Returning to my classes as a teacher (first outdoors on concrete last winter and then in-studio in the spring), I was cautious doing jumps. I didn't want to injure myself or my students! We began with very small jumps like sautes in first position, gentle glissades into jetes and assembles but no beats. For grand allegro, we did temps leves in passe and arabesque, some grand jetes and pas de chats and worked up to tour jete and sauts de chats.

I loved watching my students find their jumps again but for myself? Up until about a month ago, my progress followed my students except for sauts de chats. I wasn't quite at the point where I felt confident to really push myself off the floor and attempt a big jump. I worried that I would never be able to do grand allegro again, which was always something I enjoyed.

So how to get my jump back? Gradually and carefully, like all things. Here are some things that I did that might help you:

1. I added beats to my petit allegro which forced me to really push my body off the ground - something very important for big jumps, obviously.

2. I did lots of grands battements to work my quads and get my leg off the ground quickly.

3. I worked on my splits for hamstring flexibility.

4. I focused on developpe during adagio at the barre, especially en avant and holding fully extended for as long as possible.

5. I continued my planks every day to keep my core engaged so I could get extra lift on the jump.

No matter what you want to tackle, take it slowly, beautiful dancers. You don't want to injure yourself (believe me, hamstring injuries take forever to heal!). Enjoy the journey! Happy dancing!

 

Photo CC license

Will this be me in next week's classes? Hmmm....

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~

Be bold...be big...be the bear

Beautiful dancers, if you go camping or hiking or if you live in the foothills of a mountain like my students in La Canada Flintridge, you've probably heard the advice about what to do if you are confronted by a bear.

Make yourself big.

You won't ever be bigger than a bear, unless it's a baby in which case your instinct will probably be to hug it because it will be so cute. When that adult bear rears back on its hind legs and roars at you, it will take every ounce of courage you have not to run away.

cc lic Magnus Johansson

Instead, you stand your ground, rise up on your toes and flail your arms. You rawr! back at it and show it you're not scared. (Good luck with that, btw...)

By forcing yourself to be big and tall and wide, you are defying your own anxiety about being in a frightening situation.

Which brings me to ballet. 

For many dancers, coming off the security of a barre where you might be standing behind someone who knows the combinations better than you, where you are clutching something for support, where at least one foot is on the ground all the time, is frightening.

It's scary to move and turn and jump in the center and when we feel that anxiety, we tend to make ourselves smaller. Our legs don't extend as far as they might be able to; our arms collapse over our chest and waist; our heels barely leave the floor when we jump. Our fear makes us small. The result is pirouettes that spin rather than float, terre a terre jumps, and overall weak lines in an adagio.

In a classroom, we might get away with this by telling ourselves we're just tired or we don't know the combination well enough to do it properly, or in some cases, we might say the room is too crowded and there isn't enough space to be big.

Hmmm...I call BS on that last excuse. There's always room to make yourself bigger in a crowded class: stand in the back, angle yourself in a corner, move more conscientiously of your fellow dancers.

And for the other excuses? Defy your fear. Fight your instinct.

Make yourself big.

1. When you are feeling anxious about your jumps, push yourself higher off the ground (assuming you are properly warmed-up and working through your feet). Use your center to get off the ground and propel yourself up rather than out. By jumping higher, you will give yourself more time to roll through your feet on the landing, time to straighten your knees in the air, and time to execute the steps.

2. When you are anxious about your pirouette, push to a higher releve, hold your arms higher and farther away from your body, widen your back and open your lungs. By making yourself bigger and wider and rounder in a turn, you will float more and longer and you won't spin.

3. When you fear the slow extensions of an adagio, think about starting your developpe from the top of your thigh and unfolding outward. Use your arms to lengthen your body in the space. Pull your knees up and engage your "under-buns" to stabilize yourself during a pose or promenade.

In all instances, making yourself "bigger" than you are - taller, wider, rounder, higher, longer - will help you. It will also give you more confidence when you're not feeling so secure.

cc lic State Library of Queensland

 Happy dancing~

Glissade tips

One of my very favorite steps is glissade.

It didn't used to be, though, especially when it was performed with petit allegro steps like jete or assemble. I would watch other dancers (usually more petite dancers than myself since conventional wisdom says taller dancers are less likely to be fast with their feet - a MYTH! - and older dancers are slower - another MYTH!) and be envious of their sharp glissade a la seconde.

In ballet, the term glissade is a "linking step," one that is performed between other steps, as in the aforementioned allegro.

(Did you know "glissade" also means to slide down an ice slope? Yes, this is true! But please don't go backpacking or ice-slope climbing if you're a dancer - too dangerous! Thank you from your teacher and artistic director.)

How do we perform a glissade?

When we do a glissade, we begin in a fifth position (typically), demi-plie, then degage the back foot to the side. We push up and off the floor with the front foot and straighten both knees at the same time. For a split-second we are airborne! Both legs are straight and off the ground and we look like a triangle in the air.

At this point, things get tricky.

To come down, we land on the first foot (toe, ball, heel and en fondue) and then pull the second foot into fifth position as if returning from a degage. The timing is important because we don't want to land on the first foot with the second foot sticking up in the air. Not only is that awkward but it is also incorrect. That would be more like a jete instead of a glissade.

We also need to land in demi-plie so it's a soft finish. Please don't straighten the first knee before finishing the jump in fifth position, either en avant or en arriere.

And finally, the most challenging part of all, the toe-ball-heel slide of the second foot. One of the things I give the most corrections on is the second foot. We forget about it. We leave it dangling. We don't push from it to a pointed foot. We don't drag it in smoothly. Instead we often place the foot into fifth position as if putting it down (like a normal non-dancer person would!) while we are walking. It's vitally important that you replace the foot as if you were returning from a battement degage. That can be a quick toe-ball-heel or a slow, gooey one but it must be a glide and cannot be a "placing down."

So that's glissade.

What are some tips and tricks to make this an easier step?

1. Think about the suspension in the air. Spring both feet off the floor to get that second position straight and sharp.
2. Use your "underbutt" muscles to keep you off the ground. A good practice for this is balancing in second position en releve. The muscles you need for this are the same for the glissade.
3. Practice sautes in second position. Again, these same muscles under your derriere are the ones you need to engage to keep you off the ground.
4. Focus on your inner thighs when you perform tendu and degage exercises at the barre. Strong adductor muscles will increase your speed.
5. Work the articulation of the your feet with Therabands or other exercises. Feet that are more pliable will have a more aesthetically pleasing appearance and also be easier to spring off the floor.
6. Practice. Seriously. Practice them as much as you can. Alternate front and back or all front or all back. Watch yourself in the mirror and be critical about the suspension in the air. Use your torso and core muscles to lift you off the ground. Easier glissades make all allegro easier.

Hope this helps! Happy dancing~

And Happy Thanksgiving!

The beautiful and talented Vera-Ellen!

Week's end roundup: Halloween pics, Nutcracker shirts and a Technique Tip!

'Tis the holiday season! First up, Halloween! 

If you didn't make it to class, I hope you spent it trick-or-treating with the kids or being a good neighbor and handing out treats. Here are a few photos of what you might have missed on Monday night:

First of all, chocolate cookies shaped like cats!

Thanks, Martha Stewart!

Students in both classes dressed in costume!

My musical playlist!

And me, as Rosie the Riveter!

And in one month, we'll be performing Nutcracker!

Here is Bill Reiss's awesome design for the shirt to commemorate our Dec 4th shows at the Norris Theater in Palos Verdes, with Classical Ballet Theatre:

Want one for yourself? You can order in black or white, men's, women's and youth sizes here.

And finally, a technique tip to end your week: Get dirty!

That's right - don't be afraid to get your tights dirty (or your socks or your legs) when you:

--hold your leg in retire. Be sure to press the toe right into the knee and lock it in there. If you keep your toe separate from your knee, and it sort of hovers next to the leg instead, you end up hiking the hip instead of maintaining the natural turnout.
--perform pique turns in passe. Again, press the toe into the back of the knee and hold it there for a split second longer than you think. Don't be in a rush to get the foot back down to the ground.
--practice battu at the barre. You want to return the foot to the ankle each and every time you do frappe, rather than let it hover an inch or two above it. And in petit battements, keep the working foot that is in coup de pied very close to the support leg. Try not to circle front to back but instead, form a V-shaped action in the air.
--do rond de jambe en l'air in center or at barre. Your toe will quickly dab at the inner knee when you do this correctly. If you don't actually touch the support knee, that means you are circling the knee improperly, more like a can-can dancer, and that is physically bad for your knee joint.

When you do all of the above, you might end up with pink tights spotted with dirt from your shoes and that's okay. You might even end up with some light bruising if you're wearing pointe shoes or dance sneakers. That's less okay but not unusual! Just be sure to actually make contact when you're performing the above exercises or else you will be hiking your hip and engaging your quadriceps too much.

Happy dancing~

Technique Tip: Lengthening the Waist

I always know when a blog topic is brewing when I've been talking about a thing for a couple of weeks, especially when it's a correction I've used in several different levels of my classes.

The first time I told my beginner students to think about lengthening their waists was during a fast battement degage combination. I noticed that they had a tendency to lift the side of the hip when they performed fast degages in first position. When they did this, it resulted in a shortening of the waist on one side, sort of a side crunch. I asked them to look in the mirror and do the exercise so they could see for themselves if they were lifting the leg instead of brushing it against the floor.

"Ohhh!" they all said when they saw they were indeed shortening their waists. But when they concentrated on brushing the foot against the floor and visualizing l-e-n-g-t-h-e-n-i-n-g their waists, they began performing the degages properly.

I do love those moments of revelation.

Then I realized there were many other applications for the visualization of lengthening the waist. Here are a few of them with some handy tips!

For a helpful look, I include this photo. I have no idea where it originated but I found it on a blog called Bobby Pins and Lip Gloss:

(Cropped image from website)

1. Releve - whether you are rising en pointe or in flat slippers, on two feet or one, if you think about separating the ribs when you press down into the floor, you will find your balance easier to maintain.

2. Pirouettes - with the possible exception of turns in attitude, if you focus on keeping the shoulders down but lengthening and widening your waist, you will feel more lift in turn, as well as a more "floaty" feel.

3. Grand battements - each time you execute a big kick, especially devant and a la seconde, think about that strong core and how your sides are centered and long.

4. Adagio developpes - it's hard to hold yourself steady when you are moving slowly or when you don't have a barre to hold onto. Try to visualize your waist lengthening as you shift from two feet to one and bring the leg through passe and away from you to a full developpe. This will aid in balance.

5. Pas de chat - when we bring our legs up to meet in this jump, we often do the opposite: we bring the body down to the legs instead. If we concentrate on keeping the waist long and the ribs spaced evenly, it will be easier to stay aloft and allow for room under our hips to bring the legs up to passe.

Generally speaking, for jumps and turns, engaging your torso on the front, sides, and back will aid in ballon and suspension so if we keep the shoulders down but lengthen our waists and keep space between the ribs (no, of course you're not changing the position of the ribs in relation to each other because they are bones, but you are using this as a visualization), it will a lot easier to execute them.

Now get back to class and visualize! Maybe it will make you taller too! Happy dancing~

Impulsive Dancing

Tom Cruise gets impulsive in "Risky Business"

By "impulsive" I don't mean jumping up from your chair when your favorite song comes on the radio (although that certainly is a lot of fun!).  I mean finding the impulse within your body from which movement originates (whoa! how technical!).

A couple of students recently asked questions that were wholly unrelated but I answered in the same way. I told them both that they needed to identify the place within them - chest, abdomen, back, shoulder, etc. - that they could access to initiate movement, whether it was for a developpe a la seconde or improvisational dance. It's often not where you think it should be!

For example, when I perform a glissade a la seconde I don't start the movement in my feet.  I think first about opening and closing the tops of my legs like a pair of scissors cutting something.  That stretch and squeeze motion is what initiates the movement and then my feet spring off the floor for height and width.

For pirouette en dehors, I will initiate the turn with my foot pushing down into the floor for momentum and then follow it with the center of my back.  Others initiate it with the backs of their heads or their hands pulling back into a first position.  

If you are having trouble with a step - due to speed or timing - think twice about where the impulse for the movement starts in your body. And if you find yourself stuck, try initiating it elsewhere. If you normally jump using your feet and want more height or ballon, try using your hips or the tops of your legs.  If you are slow on petit allegro, consider accessing your deep rotators to get more turnout.  

Think - and dance! - outside the box!  Happy dancing~