2019 is The Year of the Derriere!

Happy New Year!

So much ahead for 2019: new company members, new show, new choreography and music and theaters and classes and outreach and--

Hold onto your derrieres, people! Don't get ahead of yourself - get behind yourself!

(Ha! See what I did there?)

That's right, I want to talk about behinds, butts, derrieres. That fleshy part on your backside that is ever-important for ballet is also called your gluteus maximus. Above it and off to the side is your gluteus minimus and on top, closer to the spine is your gluteus medius. The maximus is the one we use most often and we casually call it (them because there are two of them) your glutes. Along with your hamstrings (those long ropy muscles at the back your thighs) and your quadriceps (the big-bellied muscles at the front of your thighs), your glutes are responsible for all kinds of things in ballet, the most important of which is stability.

Häggström, Mikael (2014). "Medical gallery of Mikael Häggström 2014". WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.008. ISSN 2002-4436. Public Domain. or By Mikael Häggström, used with permission. - Image:Gray434.png

When you engage the muscles of your glutes, hamstrings and quads, you become an incredibly stable force, whether that stability is being used for adagio balances, multiple turns, or general pointe/releve work.

In the average everyday world, we use our quads a lot: when we walk down the street, climb the stairs, drive a car. We are most often engaging those muscles, which makes a lot of sense. They're big and they're in front. They take control. But when we do that, we don't develop our hamstrings as well as they could be developed so in exercises that require equal engagement, we find ourselves weak in the back of the thighs. That weakness translates into poor stability.

Are you weak in the hamstrings? Try this:
Stand on two feet in parallel.
Lift one foot off the ground.
Can you balance?

Want to challenge yourself further? Try this:
Stand on a pillow on two feet in parallel.
Lift one foot off the pillow.
Can you balance?

Now let's look further back, into our glutes. Those muscles are big but they might not be as strong as they could be because you are engaging your hip flexors too much (those are the muscles at the front of the hip that crease our legs at the hip joint). We use those a lot when we walk and when we drive and frankly, when we sit at our computers for hours at a time. The muscles underneath don't get used as much so when we need them to engage and be strong, they are weak and wobbly.

Are you weak in the glutes? Try this:
Stand in first position turned out.
Bring one leg up to retire and hold it.
Are you wobbling? How long can you hold that position without wobbling?

Want to challenge yourself further? Try this:
Stand in fifth position.
Releve to passe and close the leg to the back; repeat and bring it to the front.
How many times can you do this without collapsing?

Hey, I'm as guilty of this weakness as anyone else! I have to tell my brain to activate my glutes just about every time I go for a releve. It's a hard muscle to use consistently. But when I do, oh boy, can I balance!

There are loads of exercises for strengthening your glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps. Some of you may choose to go to the gym and use machines there. Some of you might cross train with yoga, Pilates or Gyrotonics. If you don't want to do anything like that, just be mindful of those muscles when you are at the barre. You can engage them as soon as you hit your warmup stretch and plies.

Whatever you do, just be sure to incorporate some exercises for those muscles or they won't be there when you need them.

Happy dancing~

Stackables!

It sounds like a new snack, doesn't it?

Have some Stackables with your Lunchables!

Actually, I'm talking about creating a stackable alignment in your body as a way to "get over your leg."

When I talk to my beginner students, especially, about pique and releve, I often tell them they need to get over their legs. In other words, they need to get their torso over their hips and pull up so they can fully point their legs and feet and arrive at the highest releve possible. We never want to sink back into our knees or try to turn or balance on a low releve.

But for many dancers, it's hard to imagine how they get to that place. They end up leaving their hips and derrieres behind them and they never get the highest peak possible.

So add one more "stacking" item as you push yourself to arrive on your leg: your knee.

Think about getting your knee over the center part of your foot and your hips over your knee, stacking one on top of the other.

Courtesy Dance.Net

The above is en pointe, but the same holds true for working in demi-pointe. You will add one more item to the stack: your heel.

So in flat slippers, the stack is: HIPS over KNEE over HEEL over MIDDLE TOES.


When you feel the moment of arrival on the high releve, it feels like you're floating! You can balance forever (or at least it feels that way).

Hope this helps! Happy dancing~

The Attraction of Opposites

In movement studies, there are always opposing forces at work. Whether you're talking about ballet or baseball, the body needs to access different forces in order to propel itself in space or on the field, against another body or ball, one limb or the entire torso.

Today I want to talk about the opposing forces required for plie and releve.

Generally speaking, in plie, we go up to go down and in releve, we go down to go up. Confusing? Of course it is! It's ballet and everything is backward.

Plie:

From the very first moments at the barre when we do a demi-plie in first position, we need to visualize our spines and head rising, rather than sinking.

Most students are taught to bend their knees to initiate a plie, but that is the last place the plie takes hold. Instead, the plie begins at the top of the leg, just under the derriere, starting with the rotation (turnout). Regardless of the extent of your turnout, that is where you initiate the fondu or bend of the plie. From there, the rotation opens the hips and continues down into the knees, which must bend in order to accommodate the increased rotation of the legs.

When you tell your body to "bend the knees" in order to start the plie, you are merely dropping your weight to the ground. There is no control and there is no hip rotation. In other words, it's not an active force but a passive one - allowing gravity to do all the work. Usually the legs will turn in, especially in grand plie, and then recovery involves gripping your quads and derriere muscles to return to a standing position.

Next time you perform a demi-plie, concentrate on the spine and head lifting up toward the ceiling while you simultaneously rotate your legs from the back under your derriere. Then, rather than letting gravity take you to the ground, relax the derriere muscles and control the descent with your inner thigh muscles until just before the tops of your legs and knees turn in. To recover to standing, engage the derriere muscles to pull you back up and resist the urge to grip your quads.

This will result in a much smoother and ultimately more useful plie.

Releve:

Conversely, in releve, we want to visualize pressing the floor away from us with our feet and toes in order to lift ourselves higher.

Most students are taught to releve by lifting their heels, "go up on your toes!" But this is not the most stable position to maintain, especially when you want to do pirouettes or adagio. When told to do this, students will hop up to releve, rather than stretch themselves. They wobble all over the place!

A proper releve begins by pushing down. With your feet firmly on the floor, weight evenly distributed across the soles, start with your plie, then as you recover continue to push the floor away from you until your heels lift off the floor and your weight is now over all 10 of your toes.

Remember: a releve begins with a fondu (plie) while an eleve begins with straight legs and knees (think elevator).

If you think of your core initiating the releve rather than the feet lifting, you will find your releve much more stable. The entire body must lift, not just your feet. Core and calf strength, in addition to ankle strength, will help you maintain your balance while you are suspended off the ground. And if you can think about trying to keep all of your toes on the floor, including your tiny pinky toes, you will give yourself more surface area upon which to balance.

Hope these tips help you! Happy dancing~

Technique Tip: Raised eyebrow dancing!

Do a quick Google image search for "raised eyebrows." Now do one with the word "dancing" added.

See the difference?

I don't mean the sort of dancing that would raise eyebrows (like those images of pole dancing or sexy tango competitors). I mean dancing with your eyebrows raised, literally. Very literally.

Many times I see otherwise lovely and accomplished dancers turn or releve with their eyebrows lifted very high and their foreheads wrinkled.  This comes from a misplaced sense of "lift." They usually want to lift their shoulders but know enough not to do that so they end up lifting with their eyes.  Watch some fellow dancers the next time you're in class.  Inevitably this happens during pirouettes.

What's the solution? Exhale on the turn or the releve. You can't scrunch up your forehead if you're exhaling!  This serves double duty of allowing you to press down into the floor instead of feeling like you're hopping on top of it, all of which will aid you in a smooth press up (or spring up if you are en pointe) on a turn.

Happy dancing!