Tips from the pirouette mini-workshop!

Hello beautiful dancers!

I'm so impressed with the group of dancers who attended the mini-workshop I held on Zoom this past weekend. Practicing pirouettes at home is not easy and these students were all-in. If you missed it, here are a few takeaways that you can try to apply on your own.

1. In every workshop I teach, I always try to give students a new way of approaching pirouettes en dehors. The fact is, every dancer responds to different images, concepts, and techniques. If the one I give you in a class doesn't click for you, maybe a different one will. That's why I tell students to never give up on turns. Saying, "I can't turn!" is not real. It's something you tell yourself or in some cases, something someone else might have told you.

I was told by a teacher I would never do more than a double turn. That stuck in my head for years!

The concept I introduced on Saturday was using the knee to guide the turn: an image of drawing a circle in the air with your knee, kind of like a compass (does anyone use compasses to draw perfect circles anymore?). This will prevent you from losing your rotation as you turn and also keeps you level. Once you are up in your releve, you let the head snap you around and let the knee guide you.

Compass drawing

2. The second thing I try to do in each workshop is to emphasize the rhythm of a turn, from preparation to landing. Every turn, inside or outside, attitude or arabesque, etc. has a rhythm to it. You need to keep that rhythm in your head - in your muscle memory - so you always do the same thing. But what is in your head is not necessarily in someone else's head.

On Saturday, I gave my dancers the rhythm of --

Reach

Reach the arms out

 

Look

Look at something

 

Land

Land the turn

If you can keep in your head a rhythm of Reach/Look/Land, you will have a rhythm for every single turn. My dancers reached their arms in front of them, saw what they were going to spot, and then landed the turn. Reach/Look/Land. Reach/Look/Land.

Honestly, it doesn't even matter what those three words are. They could be --

Prep/Spot/Land  

or Bend/Stretch/Bend  

or Start/Rise/End 

or Arms/Head/Knees

I prefer single syllable words because they pack a punch and are easy to recall. You just want to have a word in your brain that means - for you - what the start of the turn is, what word reminds you to focus on during the turn itself and a word that reminds you about finishing the turn.

Hope these 2 tips help you the next time you take a class or spend some time working on pirouettes. Especially now while you are home without a mirror, it's important to develop proper muscle memory. When you do get back to the studio, you will find turning even easier!

Happy dancing~

Pirouette technique tip: Don't settle!

We should never "settle" for anything, whether it's a bad seat at the theater, a lukewarm cup of coffee, or a partner who lets us down (oh wow, way to lift our spirits, Leigh!).

When it comes to turning, we especially shouldn't settle:
- don't sit in your demi-plie
- don't sit back on your heels
- don't sink in your hips
- don't let your arms relax

If you settle yourself into your demi-plie, you lose the springiness, a feeling that should be like a coiled Slinky or one of those snake-in-a-can practical jokes.





If you sit back on your heels, you have a tremendous amount of weight to shift from two feet to one. Instead, feel as if you have just lowered yourself down from a releve, rolling through your demi-pointe - toe-ball-barely-heel - of each foot.

If you sink in your hips, especially into the back hip, you are throwing yourself off-balance before you have even begun the turn. Try to feel your ribcage lifting out of your pelvis, and be sure the torso is more over the front foot than the back foot.

 

If you let your arms relax and "settle" into a third position without any energy, they become decorative parts of your body rather than active participants in the turn. Always feel the energy flowing from the back through the arms into the hands and be sure to initiate the turn from the center of your back/shoulders.

By not settling into a position and instead being active in the demi-plie, you will feel lighter and you also won't have a moment of, "OhmygodnowImgoingtoturn!"

Anxiety, as we know, is a momentum killer.

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!

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~

Don't turn with your butt!

How's that for a headline? Grabs your attention, eh?

Today's Pirouette Tip comes courtesy of a number of my students of all skill levels. I noticed a tendency among them to initiate their en dehors pirouettes with their derrieres which results in:

--a sinking in the center of the body like a fallen souffle
--drooped arms and a collapsing of the pirouette's integrity
--a lowered heel so the turn becomes more like a spin
--"kneeing" the turn so the knee is in front of the body during the rotation instead of turned out to the side

There are 2 main reasons for this occurrence:

1. Pirouette anxiety which prevents you from taking the "leap of faith" required to fully stack your head, shoulders, torso, hips, etc. all the way over your leg.
2. Lack of strength in your glutes and core to hold the external rotation and press the floor up and away from you rather than in a circular motion.

Are you doing this? How do you know if you are?

Q. Are you falling out of your turn?
Q. Are you unable to complete more than one turn?
Q. Does your support knee bend during the turn?
Q. Is your passe knee in front of you instead of the side?
Q. Do you sink instead of float?

Honestly, a well-aligned pirouette is the best feeling in the world! You float, you're lifted, you feel...well, you just feel right. That's not very technical but for anyone who has completed even a single pirouette correctly, you know you have done it right.

So how do we stop doing this? A few tips:

1. Strengthen your core and glutes so they will keep you lifted during the entire turn. Exercises are found all over the web but they can include planks, sit-ups and push-ups, squats, etc.
2. Push the floor away with your entire foot when you start the turn.
3. Use the external rotation at the tops of your thighs in your 4th position to work like a screw going straight up.
4. DO NOT initiate the turn with your butt.
5. Leave the passe knee behind as you turn; feel it rotate as you press it back in opposition to the opposing shoulder, e.g. right knee & left shoulder.
6. RELAX...don't hold your breath before you start the turn. Exhale instead. Create a rhythm in your pirouette from plie to releve to plie.

Technique talk! Three tips...plus one more!

Hello beautiful dancers!

I say a LOT of things in class, especially when I'm searching for just the right image to help a student grasp a concept that is elusive or otherwise challenging. Sometimes they're helpful, sometimes not. One visual image might help one student while it does nothing for another.

Here are a few that I think could be helpful to students but each didn't warrant an entire blog post.

1. Grab the floor with the pads of your toes
The image here is to help you with balance en releve. We think so much about pulling up in our quads and hamstrings, engaging our core muscles, and lifting our backs when we go up on demi-pointe, but we often neglect the toes themselves. You should be aiming to touch all ten of them on the floor (even if the baby toes don't make it all the way) and gripping the floor with the little pads under them. This will help keep you connected to the floor all the way through your feet in one long line.

2. Think of your 5th position like a pair of scissors
We sometimes forget the fifth position (or any position) begins not in our feet but at the tops of our legs. If you think of your legs like scissors, the sharpest point is not at the ends but where the blades connect near the handle, right? Right! That's what you're cutting with: the tops of your legs. Each time you recover from a demi-plie or perform a step like glissade, imagine that the inner thighs - the sharpest blades- are slicing the air.

3. Point your foot beyond your toes
How many times have you heard your teacher say, "Point your toes!" I can't believe how many times I have yelled it out, at no one in particular, "Point!" But really, what happens when someone screams that at you? Your toes probably curl up in your shoes or you sickle your foot. Instead, if you think about pointing beyond your foot, into the space past your foot, you will actually be stretching the entire leg/calf/ankle/arch/foot/toes, not just pointing your toes.

4.  Spot with your fingertips on pirouettes
This applies to pirouettes en dehors or en dedans that are performed with arms held in first position, either crossed or rounded. So many times we start a turn with our arms held properly but as we begin to move, we leave them behind or they crumple into a weak position at our waist or open up, etc. While I instruct students to "bring your arms with you" as they turn, I think another helpful approach is to imagine your fingertips are spotting as well. This will naturally bring the closed first position around as you turn.

Hope these tips help you! Try them and let me know! Happy dancing~

A Trio of Tips for Thursday!

Not one but 3! No matter what level you are, I have a helpful dance tip for you!

1. Beginner:

Promenade - one of the biggest errors I see in students attempting promenade (which is a series of small heel lifts to turn in place and can be executed in arabesque, attitude, retire, etc.) is that they begin the movement with their hips, knees or shoulders. 

The very first thing you do to begin a promenade is to lift the heel. There should be no weight at the back of the foot during promenade or else you will find yourself rocking back and forth and eventually falling off your leg. Unless otherwise choreographed, you should keep a very straight support leg with knees pulled up by your quads and hamstrings. As you turn in place, do not allow the support leg to bend or the knee to go soft. Maintain the position you are turning in by lifting and lowering the heel by about 1/4" or 1/2" but not usually more than that.

2. Intermediate:

Pirouette arms - in my ongoing quest to dissect and diagnose pirouettes and to offer guidance to students who struggle, I would have to say the #1 problem I see is the arms are not held in front of the body for the entire turn. Whatever position you are taught (a classic first position, a higher first position, a portrait style low first position, crossed arms, etc.) you must keep them in front of you until you finish the turn and roll down.

Pirouette anxiety, whether you are working flat or en pointe, usually causes us to pull back with our upper body. We fear falling which often makes us collapse in our centers. Our shoulders slump or roll and our arms droop or get left behind during the turn. Some of us fling our arms open to second long before the turn is completed.

Instead, try to bring the arms very quickly to your first position as you push up to releve and hold them there! Don't let them open or drop until you have completed the turn and can see yourself in the mirror in retire before you open the arms and roll down. I can virtually guarantee you that your turns will improve if you do this.

3: Advanced:

Finishing the lines - some of the most beautiful things in ballet are the lines that are created on stage. For example, an arabesque does not need to be higher than ninety degrees to be gorgeous but it does need to be finished. Same with arms: they may swirl and swish through the air but when they are posed, they must be finished with fingers extended and elbows lifted. How many times have you been in the audience and gasped at the stunning lines of professional ballerinas? They know how to get very last inch out of their legs and arms.

You can too! But you must focus on arching the top and bottom of your foot, reaching through your back to the palms and fingers of your hands, lengthening the back of your neck and holding a strong core. When you practice these things at the barre (rather than simply flinging your arms and feet away from you), you will have beautiful lines in the center. Your movements will be complete and you will avoid that weird strobe effect that you see on stage. If you are in the corps, you absolutely must finish your lines or you will look out of sync with the other dancers.

Hope these tips help you! Happy dancing~

Friday Favorites: Pirouette tips!

As many of you know, I love studying pirouettes and I'm fascinated by the science of turns.

The basics: Alignment, momentum, controlled landing.

The finer details: Spotting and arms.

The necessities: Strong ankles, strong core, strong back.

I was watching a group of my students turning this week and was surprised by the number of them that were hopping on their landing.

(NB: this is different from hopping during a turn. In that case, the most likely culprit is a bent knee or lack of spotting.)

Landing a pirouette is tricky stuff. I always tell my students not to wait until the last second to think about the finish. Many students do a single or double rotation and then suddenly slam on the brakes which, like traveling in a car or plane, usually results in a bumpy landing.

courtesy Chloe Smith, Creative Commons license

There are a couple of ways to approach the end of a pirouette:

1. Anticipate the finish by rolling down at the 3/4 mark, rather than waiting until a complete turn is made.

2. Complete the turn in the "up" position; that is, finish in retire on a high releve and then roll down to your fifth or fourth position.

In either case, it's crucial that you roll down through the foot and don't simply drop the weight.

From my observations, students hop down from pirouette because they lose their turnout which is typically a result of a change in their vertical alignment (that long straight pole from top of head through spine down to center of the support leg).

You change your vertical alignment when:

A. Your core collapses. Solution: hold your abdominals up and maintain a strong connection between ribs and hips.

B. Your pelvis tilts and doesn't recover. Solution: don't let your lower back hyperextend as you reach your passe leg to the floor. Stay pulled up the front of your body.

C. Your ankles roll. Solution: maintain a high releve and roll through your entire foot. Practice ankle strengthening exercises outside of class, including springing up and rolling down from a passe releve.

D. You don't bring your arms around with you in the turn. Solution: keep the shape of the arms throughout the entire turn and only open them when you want to finish the turn.

One last thing to consider: pirouettes, especially multiple pirouettes, are not rigid shapes rotating in space. Minor adjustments must be made during a turn, whether that means pulling in or opening the arms, pulling up the abdominals or engaging the knee and heel to stay in a high releve.

Happy turning, beautiful dancers~

Technique Tip: Stack your pirouette with boxes of kittens!

When we talk about alignment for pirouettes, we often use the visual image of a long pole representing the spine. We don't want the spine to bend in the middle - that's our strong core that we need to maintain the proper shape that allows us to turn smoothly and quickly.

(A food analogy: don't be the cooked linguine noodle; be the dried one fresh out of the box. Hmm, am I hungry this morning?)

Don't be mushy!

Do be firm!

But there is another way to visualize our bodies for pirouettes: stacked boxes.

Imagine your body as 3 boxes on top of each other (head, torso and hips). You want to keep the boxes balanced evenly. If one is off the edge (e.g. your chin is pulled back or jutted far forward, your rib cage is sticking out, your pelvis is behind your heels, and so on), it will threaten to collapse when you take it en releve.

Remember: releve is a precarious place for your body to be. To be stable and steady, everything needs to be aligned properly.

Next time you work on pirouette, try to visualize your body as 3 boxes filled with kittens (why kittens? because they love boxes and because they move around a lot which makes them hard to control, much like your body!).

Kittens! In a box!

If you can keep the boxes steady - and the kittens inside them quiet and still - you will have an easier time balancing them. This visual image will help remind you to push UP to releve rather than forward because you sure don't want to toss those kittens from side to side!

During the turn, hold your arms steady (maybe you even think about wrapping your arms around your kittens!), and maintain the shape of the 3 boxes.

On the finish, roll down smoothly and evenly, and don't disrupt the kittens in the boxes. You don't want to finish abruptly and throw one of the boxes off the center. Kittens everywhere!

Happy dancing~

See, Spot, Turn - Spotting Techniques for Pirouettes

HELLO, TURN TUESDAY!

 I confess to being a pirouette-aholic. I love to study pirouettes: how to make them better and stronger. I love watching good turners and examining the minute details of their alignment, momentum, and spotting. I do this "pirouette recon" so I can share the information with the students in my workshops. I want to give them more tools to fix their turns.

We all have good turn days and bad ones but instead of throwing up our hands and saying, "Oh well, the pirouette gods are not smiling upon me today," we should be asking ourselves the specifics of "Why?"

Why are we falling forward or back?

Why are we not completing a full rotation (or 2 or 10)?

Why are we getting dizzy?

In my most recent workshop, I tackled spotting, which is the bane of many dancers' existence, especially students who come to ballet later in life. Frankly it's easier to get dizzy when you're an adult, harder to just "go for it" and throw caution to the wind. Adults think about falling and are generally uncomfortable with being dizzy. Kids, on the other hand, have far less trouble with that! (See also, amusement park rides)

The 3 L's of Spotting: Loose, Look, Linger

1. Keep a LOOSE neck - in order to spot properly, your neck needs to be relaxed and not tense. Shoulder rolls and neck rolls definitely help to remind us that our heads do not sink directly into our shoulders. Try to keep your shoulders down and allow your neck to relax so it doesn't turn the head as one unit with the upper torso.

2. Actually LOOK at something - you need to truly see an object in order to spot it. Some dancers sort of glance in a direction without actually seeing something there which makes it harder to spot cleanly. This then throws off their turns as they lose their spots. Focus on a singular object (for some, it helps to spot close to them while for others, it helps to see something farther away) and don't lose sight of it.

3. Allow your spot to LINGER - once you see something, grab onto it and don't let go. Your chin needs to remain level in order for your spot to stay on an object. If you tilt your chin up or down, it's harder to remain fixed on an object because your head does not swivel on your neck smoothly. It needs to compensate and then it often comes "unglued."

In my recent research, I read a comment from a teacher that spotting is intended to trick the body into thinking that it's not moving because when it realizes that it's moving, it wants to do other things - like stop turning! I think that's when people tend to simply drop their heels or their arms. They realize they are moving so they do the first thing that seems natural, which is to stop.

If you want smooth pirouettes, aim high: keep your gaze at releve level, see an object, hold it with your gaze, allow the body to float around, and then quickly find the object again.

And relax...happy turning~

Turn tip Tuesday!

Okay, okay, it's not Tuesday but I didn't want to wait til next week.

When I do workshops and teach in class, I talk a lot about arms: how to engage the back muscles, avoid lifting with the shoulders, keep a shape to them, etc.

But placement is critical. If they are too low (i.e. at your waist), they drag you down and make you collapse in on yourself. If they move and if you can't maintain their placement as you turn, you lose the aerodynamics that comes from the centrifugal force of your body moving around a pivot point.

Typically, an unsuccessful turn looks like this: a dancer does a lovely demi-plie in 4th position, arms are stretched out and to the sides, and then when she goes to releve, they drop down. In other words, as she rises, the arms lower.

No. Don't do that.

Instead, bring your body up to meet your arms.

1. Find the placement of the arms opposite the center of your breastbone (usually this is the ideal position but yours may vary slightly higher or lower) and hold them in a round 1st position or slightly crossed if you are doing Balanchine style turns.

2. Take your 4th position demi-plie or long lunge (again, if you are studying Balanchine or are doing an en dedans pirouette) and stretch your arms as usual.

3. When you go en releve, you bring your leg to its position (retire, attitude, etc.) and rise up to meet your arms. Do not drop the arms as you go up.

Easy-peasy, yes? Ha! Never. Turns are never easy but this small change in your arms will make a BIG difference in your turns. You will not collapse the abdomen or hips; you will not drag down your body, weighing it down so the turn won't be completed; and you will keep a long straight spine which aids tremendously in multiple turns.

Hope this helps! Happy dancing~

Pirouette Tip! Using the Spiral

We're always looking for new ways to approach our turns and believe me, I know there are a million tips I can offer my students. Each element of a turn (alignment, momentum, and spotting) has multiple ways to be broken down.

Today I offer The Spiral as a visual image for you.

What it is: a circular, centrifugal motion that pulls you around and up, rather than simply around.

How to find it:
A) When you are in your deep demi-plie (it works best from a fourth position plie but can also be effective from a long lunge ), widen the tops of your legs as much as possible and hold the plie with the muscles below your derriere and inner thighs.
B) In the mirror, watch the space between the tops of your legs in your plie and keep it as wide and open as you can for as long as you can when you start the turn. Don't squeeze the space as you releve!

How to use it: Imagine your body spinning upward from the center, beginning with your demi-plie, all the way up to the tops of your legs, through your spine, the back of your neck and out the top of your head.

If you do this properly, you will be accessing and engaging muscles you don't think to use, namely the small muscles under your derriere and top of the inner thighs. You want to initiate the turn with these muscles, rather than with the quads and hamstrings (which you will of course engage during the turn and to sustain your balance).

Happy dancing!

Pirouette workshops!!

My life is not ALL about zombies! In fact, I very much enjoy teaching and hanging around the living, especially those who love to learn.

Upcoming Pirouette Workshops!

It's been 3 years since I've done a workshop for pirouettes but I love them. This time I will be doing 2 workshops, one for Beginners and one for Advanced.

Beginner Pirouette Workshop: Thursday, April 30th, 8-9PM
In this workshop, students will learn how to start, maintain and complete a single en dehors turn. We will focus on spotting, holding arms and retire, momentum, and balance.

Advanced Pirouette Workshop: Thursday, May 14th, 8-9PM
In this workshop, students will work on multiple en dehors turns. This will be more of a diagnostic class where I get to look at individual students and address their problems.

Each class is $16 and each is limited to 10 students, with a minimum of 5 students. If you are interested, please go to my website and sign-up: www.LeighPurtillBallet.com. The link is at the top of the page, in the center. Click the level you want and then go to the PayPal link directly below that. If the minimum is not met, your money will be refunded.

The workshops will be held in Studio D at
Dance Arts Academy
731 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles 90036

Imagining yourself to multiple pirouettes

How can I do more than one turn? Tips please!

Years ago I had a friend who would dream of doing triple pirouettes and then in class the next day, she would perform them flawlessly! The trouble was, she couldn't ever control her dreams so her triples felt like they were simply good luck.

But that doesn't mean you can't create successful multiple pirouettes through imagery. In fact, that is one of the best ways.

Picture yourself in the proper alignment:
--long spine and neck
--arms in a held position
--knee in a perfect retire 
--hips lifted
--back wide

Imagine that picture turning very fluidly. Your head spots rhythmically, once, twice, or more. You're not flinging yourself around using your arms or your knee, right? Nope! Not in your perfect picture!

Then create the picture in the studio. Stand in retire and see what the image of yourself looks like. Place your hips and arms and head correctly; get over your leg on a releve.

On the turn, take that one step further: actually look for that picture in the mirror each and every time you hit en face. If you see your arms to the side (you are leaving them behind in the turn) or your leg is below the knee or turned in, then you will have a harder time doing more than one turn consistently. Stop, readjust and try it again.

NB: This is simply ONE tip for multiple turns. There are hundreds more. But the number one piece of advice I give students who want to turn more fluidly and consistently? Breathe!

Happy dancing~

Friday turn tips - embiggen yourself!

Happy Independence Day, beautiful dancers!

Here's a pirouette thought as you head into your holiday weekend (starting today! and by the way, I am teaching an Intermediate level ballet class this morning at Le Studio in Pasadena, 10-11:30AM):

MAKE YOURSELF BIGGER

As I often remind people, there are a zillion ways to approach turns and I am never going to tell you my way of turning is better than anyone else's but I will say this...I am fascinated by the mechanics of turns (and pointe work, but that's another subject) so I am always looking for tips and techniques I can pass on to my students because pirouettes can make people so anxious - I know because I am one of them.

So you may have been taught to fold your arms across your chest, a la Balanchine, or to carry them at your waist but no matter how you do it, you want to be as aerodynamic as possible.  I suggest you approach this by thinking BIG.

It feels counter-intuitive to be big, especially when you think about ballet dancers as delicate or dainty and when you want to go around many, many times. But watch an ice skater when she turns on her blades: she spins - she wants to spin - so she pulls herself in, arms tucked closely to her body, and she makes herself very small.  This is the opposite of a pirouette. A spin is not a turn.

How to be big:

--Keep your arms VERY wide, as wide and as round as you can and try to match your fingertips together at the center of your chest, at breastbone level, not waist.
--Feel your back expand, breathe through your whole ribcage.
--Open your leg in the retire position very flat and wide and press your knee back as far and as flat as it can but do not let it turn in or get tucked close to your standing leg.
--Keep your shoulders down but not rounded; think of them pressing back in opposition to your knees and hips.
--Imagine yourself taking up more space in the room, not less.

This is one of those times I can absolutely promise you that your turns will improve. I promise!  Get those arms up and round and think big and open, not tight and closed, and your pirouettes will much cleaner and more controllable.

Happy Fourth and happy dancing~

Friday turn tips: en dedans pirouettes

Most often, when students ask for help with their pirouettes, they are asking about en dehors or "outside" turns. But there are so many other types of turns to work on!  Like one of my favorites, the pirouette en dedans or "inside" turn.

An en dedans pirouette refers to a turn in which the movement of the body is toward the standing leg, rather than away from it, as in an outside turn. As always, there are different schools of thought when it comes to turn preparation. Some instructors teach an inside turn with a fondu a la seconde before the snap to retire. Others, like me, teach a straight snap up to retire from the fourth position.

Here are my general guidelines when teaching en dedans pirouettes:

1. Start in a long lunged fourth position.  Most of the weight is on the front leg which is bent into a deep demi-plie. The back leg is very straight and the heel is pressed into the floor.

2. The arm preparation is "same arm same leg." In other words, if the left leg is in front in fondu, then the left arm is curled into 3rd position. The right arm is held to second position.

3. Some teachers ask students to open their front arm, to lead with it, but I prefer that you keep the arm curled in front of you and then snap the second-position arm in to meet it at the moment that you snap the leg into retire.

4. Take an extra deep demi on the front leg as you push off the floor with the back foot. Try to avoid hiking the hip in an effort to bring the leg under you. Remember: the deeper the demi, the more time you have to bring the back foot up to your knee.

5. Simultaneously snap the open arm in to the closed arm as you bring the back foot to the front of the knee of the standing leg and push up into releve. Toes at the front of the knee always. Always. It is very rare that you will bring the toe to the back of the knee, although it may be choreographed that way.

6. Most often your pirouette en dedans will be a 1.5 turn. In other words, you will likely be turning from one croise position to another croise rather than en face or efface. Keeping this in mind, be sure to spot 1.5 turns from where you start, not just one.

7. Try to keep the toe at the front of the knee and slide it down through sousous before finishing in 5th position. Very rarely you will finish in a 4th position although that is possible (see below).

Happy dancing and turning!

May the Force be with You (and your pirouettes!)

In my ongoing quest to rid the dance world of its Pirouette Anxiety (I like to think of myself as a Doctor of Turns), I am always on a search to find more ways to help dancers turn consistently and smoothly - and with as little angst as possible!

As is true in most things, my work is inspired by others, particularly my own students and the problems they present to me. Some of my dancers are quite analytical, some emotional, some visual, some verbal. They make me think about the many ways we use our bodies when we turn.

So today, I want to discuss yet another approach to turns: using the Force and the Energy. We need both to turn properly but people wrongly assume what each is and how to use it. Generally speaking, you need a lot of energy and very little force when you turn.

1. Think of your plie as Potential Energy, energy that is stored in your legs. The deeper your plie and the longer you can remain in your plie and don't finish it (i.e. don't straighten your support knee too quickly or before you begin the turn), the more suspension time you will have which means more time to complete multiple turns.

You want a LOT of this energy.

2. Think of your arms, head, and back as Force, an influence on an object (you), either a push or a pull.
- Your head snapping around will pull you.
- Your arms closing will pull you.
- Your back turning will push you.

You don't need a lot of this force. Why? Because there are 3 separate influences noted above (and if you want to get super technical, there are many others, such as the push off the floor from the back foot, the pull of the retire leg pressing back and turning out, the pull of the inner thigh muscles and deep rotators, and so on). Each of these forces is not simply added to the others but multiplied!

Many dancers wrongly assume they need a lot of force and when approaching multiple pirouettes they wind their arms back and twist at their waist. We all know what happens then: they spin rather than suspend. When they run out of juice, they sputter to a stop and jam their back foot into the floor to stop. But arms are just one element of force and by winding up too much, you override the other elements. Each of them needs to act equally.

Next time you take technique class, try this approach. Think of your plie as a spring that you are compressing in order to release it. Get as deep as you can and start your turn when the back leg hits retire but before your standing leg is entirely straight. Then use the center of the back of your head to spot, close the arms to a rounded first position and aim your back at the mirror. If you can, remember that each of those elements of force should be equal, with no one of them taking center stage.

Happy dancing~