Dance Step

Finding the perfect dance class for your child can be frustrating at times, especially if your child is very young.

Most children ages 3-5 have very short attention spans and are too immature for a one-subject class such as ballet or tap. When children are put into these serious subject classes where there are very strict techniques to learn, they often become bored, which leads to disruption in the class. These children often have bad experiences with dance class and unfortunately never return to any dance class ever again.

When observing a variety of dance classes for your young child to participate in, you should choose a class with a lot of variety. The kind of class you should look for is a one-hour class split up time-wise with various learning activities so your child is learning and doesn’t have time to get bored. For example, the dance class should be segmented into sections such as pre-ballet, tap, eurhythmics, some tumbling activities and creative work. The following are some examples:

1. Pre-ballet: This is fun and prepares the child for future more advanced techniques by learning very basic skills that will be carried through advancement. Children will learn how to make a circle and how to make the circle small and large. They will also learn how to keep the circle round while walking around in the circle. The next step will be to learn how to change the direction several times when the teacher calls. The same thing is done again. The only thing different is that the children are running gracefully on their tiptoes with their arms out. This is a great for warming up the children’s bodies and teaching them direction-change coordination.

There should be some stretching involved. Children should sit down and do some creative stretching. A good dance instructor will create some stretches while pretending to eat ice cream and do arm movements called Porte bras while pretending to be flowers, sun and moon, etc. Children also learn basic plies and tendus, but at this young age there is not great pressure to keep perfect posture.

Some other activities in pre-ballet that children enjoy are learning to skip forward, backward, in one big circle and with partners. They learn to jump facing front and back as well as jumping in a circle right and left, 4 counts to each side. They also learn to chase’ in counts of 8 changing directions from right to left.

2. Tap: Children usually stand in a straight line and learn very basic steps and sounds. Basic steps learned are toe step, heel step, hit step, side toe step, 3 toes step all alternated right and left. These steps are done in one place. The traveling step is toe-heel forward and backward. Slow shuffles, shuffle step, shuffle hop step and shuffle ball-change, in order of difficulty.

3. Eurhythmics: This is done with rhythm sticks. Children learn to count to 4 and 8 while hitting the sticks together. Counts 4 and 8 are dancers’ magic numbers. Children especially enjoy marching around the room while hitting their sticks together to the beat of the music. Further advancement includes learning waltz time.

4. Creative Movement: Examples of this would be pretending to be puppies where children would get down on their hands and feet like a puppy and walk around the room. Another example would be pretending to be a horse and have the music start at a slow pace and speed up into a fast gallop. The alligator move is a good move and also the most difficult where the children lie on the floor on their stomachs and use only their arms to drag their bodies across the floor. This is done to very slow music. All of these moves help to develop a child’s muscles and motor skills.

A dance studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a favorite they call the butterfly kit. As the teacher hands out hand-made antennas and wings, the class talks about how butterflies become butterflies. Then the teacher asks each child to tell the class the colors that are on his or her antenna. This process gives the children a time to rest, as well as giving them some constructive talk time. The children and teacher then stand at one end of the dance studio and as the music starts they do caterpillar walks until the music changes. The change of the music signals them to spin their cocoons. When the music gets slower, the class pretends to get tired and eventually they fall asleep on the floor. The final change in the music signals them to wake up, take their wings and they are now butterflies happily fluttering around in the sky.

5. Tumbling: The tumbling section is very basic starting with log rolls down the mats on each side. Once the children master the log roll, they move on to forward rolls and backward rolls. Children also love to walk on balance beams that are very close to the floor, which is great for establishing balancing skill and coordination.

All of the ideas mentioned here are only some of the activities children will learn in a class of this nature. Children will not get bored, have fun, learn and without realizing it, develop many motor and coordination skills. There is much more that a good creative teacher can include. The activities will be more difficult for 5 year olds than for 3 year olds. These are just the basics.

We’ve all had ballet corrections that do not seem to ever go away. We may understand perfectly how ballet positions and ballet movements should be. We understand how the body should mechanically do something, yet it can be frustrating when the body we’re in just does not get it right after much trying.

What is the most frequent correction you got last year? Why isn’t it fixed? There is a reason, relating to one of the following.

** Posture

** Flexibility

** Alignment

** Strength and reflexes

** Turnout

** Tension

For example, if you stand sideways to a mirror, legs parallel and straight, core area held a little, do your ankles/knees/hips/shoulders/ears stack up, with natural spinal curves kept? If not, is an area not stacked because it is too tight or too lose? Can the core muscles hold without strain showing in the neck or shoulders? Posture has a lot to do with tension, flexibility, strength, and understanding. Correct posture leads to correct alignment in many ballet positions. Fix if needed! Study, search for information.

Turnout involves strength, flexibility and tension. And understanding what true turnout is. Incorrect turnout affects posture, increases tension, reduces flexibility and distorts alignment. There is a book called Tune Up Your Turnout by Deborah Vogel that is a good myth-buster, and something every dancer can use. You can figure out a lot by yourself, with the right information. The trick is that you need to get your body to do something, from an ideal concept.

All of the above factors affect the rest, but which one underlies your never-ending correction?

Do you understand the mechanics behind the ballet position/movement/step you are trying to improve? If not, find out the details you need to know!

I believe that if you understand all the aspects of one basic thing in ballet (anatomy, mechanics, technique, style, physical requirements), something super-simple, (I didn’t say easy) like standing in fifth position, you will understand a great deal about many other things in ballet.

Another example of getting more anatomical, mechanical and technical details of one factor in ballet technique is, strengthening the sole of the foot. Understanding the foot, and how to strengthen exclusively the foot muscles, not only leads to superior strength in dancing in pointe shoes, but will refine allegro, balance, landing from jumps and releves on pointe, and lots more. All this is covered in The Perfect Pointe Book, just to name one of many professionally written dance manuals.

Try selecting one recurring correction, and make a new resolution to search understanding all possible aspects of it. I believe that will affect several technical roadblocks that you may have. I think you’ll gain an extra advantage and progress faster in the New Year.

Finding the perfect dance class for your child can be frustrating at times, especially if your child is very young.

Most children ages 3-5 have very short attention spans and are too immature for a one-subject class such as ballet or tap. When children are put into these serious subject classes where there are very strict techniques to learn, they often become bored, which leads to disruption in the class. These children often have bad experiences with dance class and unfortunately never return to any dance class ever again.

When observing a variety of dance classes for your young child to participate in, you should choose a class with a lot of variety. The kind of class you should look for is a one-hour class split up time-wise with various learning activities so your child is learning and doesn’t have time to get bored. For example, the dance class should be segmented into sections such as pre-ballet, tap, eurhythmics, some tumbling activities and creative work. The following are some examples:

1. Pre-ballet: This is fun and prepares the child for future more advanced techniques by learning very basic skills that will be carried through advancement. Children will learn how to make a circle and how to make the circle small and large. They will also learn how to keep the circle round while walking around in the circle. The next step will be to learn how to change the direction several times when the teacher calls. The same thing is done again. The only thing different is that the children are running gracefully on their tiptoes with their arms out. This is a great for warming up the children’s bodies and teaching them direction-change coordination.

There should be some stretching involved. Children should sit down and do some creative stretching. A good dance instructor will create some stretches while pretending to eat ice cream and do arm movements called Porte bras while pretending to be flowers, sun and moon, etc. Children also learn basic plies and tendus, but at this young age there is not great pressure to keep perfect posture.

Some other activities in pre-ballet that children enjoy are learning to skip forward, backward, in one big circle and with partners. They learn to jump facing front and back as well as jumping in a circle right and left, 4 counts to each side. They also learn to chase’ in counts of 8 changing directions from right to left.

2. Tap: Children usually stand in a straight line and learn very basic steps and sounds. Basic steps learned are toe step, heel step, hit step, side toe step, 3 toes step all alternated right and left. These steps are done in one place. The traveling step is toe-heel forward and backward. Slow shuffles, shuffle step, shuffle hop step and shuffle ball-change, in order of difficulty.

3. Eurhythmics: This is done with rhythm sticks. Children learn to count to 4 and 8 while hitting the sticks together. Counts 4 and 8 are dancers’ magic numbers. Children especially enjoy marching around the room while hitting their sticks together to the beat of the music. Further advancement includes learning waltz time.

4. Creative Movement: Examples of this would be pretending to be puppies where children would get down on their hands and feet like a puppy and walk around the room. Another example would be pretending to be a horse and have the music start at a slow pace and speed up into a fast gallop. The alligator move is a good move and also the most difficult where the children lie on the floor on their stomachs and use only their arms to drag their bodies across the floor. This is done to very slow music. All of these moves help to develop a child’s muscles and motor skills.

A dance studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a favorite they call the butterfly kit. As the teacher hands out hand-made antennas and wings, the class talks about how butterflies become butterflies. Then the teacher asks each child to tell the class the colors that are on his or her antenna. This process gives the children a time to rest, as well as giving them some constructive talk time. The children and teacher then stand at one end of the dance studio and as the music starts they do caterpillar walks until the music changes. The change of the music signals them to spin their cocoons. When the music gets slower, the class pretends to get tired and eventually they fall asleep on the floor. The final change in the music signals them to wake up, take their wings and they are now butterflies happily fluttering around in the sky.

5. Tumbling: The tumbling section is very basic starting with log rolls down the mats on each side. Once the children master the log roll, they move on to forward rolls and backward rolls. Children also love to walk on balance beams that are very close to the floor, which is great for establishing balancing skill and coordination.

All of the ideas mentioned here are only some of the activities children will learn in a class of this nature. Children will not get bored, have fun, learn and without realizing it, develop many motor and coordination skills. There is much more that a good creative teacher can include. The activities will be more difficult for 5 year olds than for 3 year olds. These are just the basics.

Finding the perfect dance class for your child can be frustrating at times, especially if your child is very young.

Most children ages 3-5 have very short attention spans and are too immature for a one-subject class such as ballet or tap. When children are put into these serious subject classes where there are very strict techniques to learn, they often become bored, which leads to disruption in the class. These children often have bad experiences with dance class and unfortunately never return to any dance class ever again.

When observing a variety of dance classes for your young child to participate in, you should choose a class with a lot of variety. The kind of class you should look for is a one-hour class split up time-wise with various learning activities so your child is learning and doesn’t have time to get bored. For example, the dance class should be segmented into sections such as pre-ballet, tap, eurhythmics, some tumbling activities and creative work. The following are some examples:

1. Pre-ballet: This is fun and prepares the child for future more advanced techniques by learning very basic skills that will be carried through advancement. Children will learn how to make a circle and how to make the circle small and large. They will also learn how to keep the circle round while walking around in the circle. The next step will be to learn how to change the direction several times when the teacher calls. The same thing is done again. The only thing different is that the children are running gracefully on their tiptoes with their arms out. This is a great for warming up the children’s bodies and teaching them direction-change coordination.

There should be some stretching involved. Children should sit down and do some creative stretching. A good dance instructor will create some stretches while pretending to eat ice cream and do arm movements called Porte bras while pretending to be flowers, sun and moon, etc. Children also learn basic plies and tendus, but at this young age there is not great pressure to keep perfect posture.

Some other activities in pre-ballet that children enjoy are learning to skip forward, backward, in one big circle and with partners. They learn to jump facing front and back as well as jumping in a circle right and left, 4 counts to each side. They also learn to chase’ in counts of 8 changing directions from right to left.

2. Tap: Children usually stand in a straight line and learn very basic steps and sounds. Basic steps learned are toe step, heel step, hit step, side toe step, 3 toes step all alternated right and left. These steps are done in one place. The traveling step is toe-heel forward and backward. Slow shuffles, shuffle step, shuffle hop step and shuffle ball-change, in order of difficulty.

3. Eurhythmics: This is done with rhythm sticks. Children learn to count to 4 and 8 while hitting the sticks together. Counts 4 and 8 are dancers’ magic numbers. Children especially enjoy marching around the room while hitting their sticks together to the beat of the music. Further advancement includes learning waltz time.

4. Creative Movement: Examples of this would be pretending to be puppies where children would get down on their hands and feet like a puppy and walk around the room. Another example would be pretending to be a horse and have the music start at a slow pace and speed up into a fast gallop. The alligator move is a good move and also the most difficult where the children lie on the floor on their stomachs and use only their arms to drag their bodies across the floor. This is done to very slow music. All of these moves help to develop a child’s muscles and motor skills.

A dance studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a favorite they call the butterfly kit. As the teacher hands out hand-made antennas and wings, the class talks about how butterflies become butterflies. Then the teacher asks each child to tell the class the colors that are on his or her antenna. This process gives the children a time to rest, as well as giving them some constructive talk time. The children and teacher then stand at one end of the dance studio and as the music starts they do caterpillar walks until the music changes. The change of the music signals them to spin their cocoons. When the music gets slower, the class pretends to get tired and eventually they fall asleep on the floor. The final change in the music signals them to wake up, take their wings and they are now butterflies happily fluttering around in the sky.

5. Tumbling: The tumbling section is very basic starting with log rolls down the mats on each side. Once the children master the log roll, they move on to forward rolls and backward rolls. Children also love to walk on balance beams that are very close to the floor, which is great for establishing balancing skill and coordination.

All of the ideas mentioned here are only some of the activities children will learn in a class of this nature. Children will not get bored, have fun, learn and without realizing it, develop many motor and coordination skills. There is much more that a good creative teacher can include. The activities will be more difficult for 5 year olds than for 3 year olds. These are just the basics.

Finding the perfect dance class for your child can be frustrating at times, especially if your child is very young.

Most children ages 3-5 have very short attention spans and are too immature for a one-subject class such as ballet or tap. When children are put into these serious subject classes where there are very strict techniques to learn, they often become bored, which leads to disruption in the class. These children often have bad experiences with dance class and unfortunately never return to any dance class ever again.

When observing a variety of dance classes for your young child to participate in, you should choose a class with a lot of variety. The kind of class you should look for is a one-hour class split up time-wise with various learning activities so your child is learning and doesn’t have time to get bored. For example, the dance class should be segmented into sections such as pre-ballet, tap, eurhythmics, some tumbling activities and creative work. The following are some examples:

1. Pre-ballet: This is fun and prepares the child for future more advanced techniques by learning very basic skills that will be carried through advancement. Children will learn how to make a circle and how to make the circle small and large. They will also learn how to keep the circle round while walking around in the circle. The next step will be to learn how to change the direction several times when the teacher calls. The same thing is done again. The only thing different is that the children are running gracefully on their tiptoes with their arms out. This is a great for warming up the children’s bodies and teaching them direction-change coordination.

There should be some stretching involved. Children should sit down and do some creative stretching. A good dance instructor will create some stretches while pretending to eat ice cream and do arm movements called Porte bras while pretending to be flowers, sun and moon, etc. Children also learn basic plies and tendus, but at this young age there is not great pressure to keep perfect posture.

Some other activities in pre-ballet that children enjoy are learning to skip forward, backward, in one big circle and with partners. They learn to jump facing front and back as well as jumping in a circle right and left, 4 counts to each side. They also learn to chase’ in counts of 8 changing directions from right to left.

2. Tap: Children usually stand in a straight line and learn very basic steps and sounds. Basic steps learned are toe step, heel step, hit step, side toe step, 3 toes step all alternated right and left. These steps are done in one place. The traveling step is toe-heel forward and backward. Slow shuffles, shuffle step, shuffle hop step and shuffle ball-change, in order of difficulty.

3. Eurhythmics: This is done with rhythm sticks. Children learn to count to 4 and 8 while hitting the sticks together. Counts 4 and 8 are dancers’ magic numbers. Children especially enjoy marching around the room while hitting their sticks together to the beat of the music. Further advancement includes learning waltz time.

4. Creative Movement: Examples of this would be pretending to be puppies where children would get down on their hands and feet like a puppy and walk around the room. Another example would be pretending to be a horse and have the music start at a slow pace and speed up into a fast gallop. The alligator move is a good move and also the most difficult where the children lie on the floor on their stomachs and use only their arms to drag their bodies across the floor. This is done to very slow music. All of these moves help to develop a child’s muscles and motor skills.

A dance studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has a favorite they call the butterfly kit. As the teacher hands out hand-made antennas and wings, the class talks about how butterflies become butterflies. Then the teacher asks each child to tell the class the colors that are on his or her antenna. This process gives the children a time to rest, as well as giving them some constructive talk time. The children and teacher then stand at one end of the dance studio and as the music starts they do caterpillar walks until the music changes. The change of the music signals them to spin their cocoons. When the music gets slower, the class pretends to get tired and eventually they fall asleep on the floor. The final change in the music signals them to wake up, take their wings and they are now butterflies happily fluttering around in the sky.

5. Tumbling: The tumbling section is very basic starting with log rolls down the mats on each side. Once the children master the log roll, they move on to forward rolls and backward rolls. Children also love to walk on balance beams that are very close to the floor, which is great for establishing balancing skill and coordination.

All of the ideas mentioned here are only some of the activities children will learn in a class of this nature. Children will not get bored, have fun, learn and without realizing it, develop many motor and coordination skills. There is much more that a good creative teacher can include. The activities will be more difficult for 5 year olds than for 3 year olds. These are just the basics.

We’ve all had ballet corrections that do not seem to ever go away. We may understand perfectly how ballet positions and ballet movements should be. We understand how the body should mechanically do something, yet it can be frustrating when the body we’re in just does not get it right after much trying.

What is the most frequent correction you got last year? Why isn’t it fixed? There is a reason, relating to one of the following.

** Posture

** Flexibility

** Alignment

** Strength and reflexes

** Turnout

** Tension

For example, if you stand sideways to a mirror, legs parallel and straight, core area held a little, do your ankles/knees/hips/shoulders/ears stack up, with natural spinal curves kept? If not, is an area not stacked because it is too tight or too lose? Can the core muscles hold without strain showing in the neck or shoulders? Posture has a lot to do with tension, flexibility, strength, and understanding. Correct posture leads to correct alignment in many ballet positions. Fix if needed! Study, search for information.

Turnout involves strength, flexibility and tension. And understanding what true turnout is. Incorrect turnout affects posture, increases tension, reduces flexibility and distorts alignment. There is a book called Tune Up Your Turnout by Deborah Vogel that is a good myth-buster, and something every dancer can use. You can figure out a lot by yourself, with the right information. The trick is that you need to get your body to do something, from an ideal concept.

All of the above factors affect the rest, but which one underlies your never-ending correction?

Do you understand the mechanics behind the ballet position/movement/step you are trying to improve? If not, find out the details you need to know!

I believe that if you understand all the aspects of one basic thing in ballet (anatomy, mechanics, technique, style, physical requirements), something super-simple, (I didn’t say easy) like standing in fifth position, you will understand a great deal about many other things in ballet.

Another example of getting more anatomical, mechanical and technical details of one factor in ballet technique is, strengthening the sole of the foot. Understanding the foot, and how to strengthen exclusively the foot muscles, not only leads to superior strength in dancing in pointe shoes, but will refine allegro, balance, landing from jumps and releves on pointe, and lots more. All this is covered in The Perfect Pointe Book, just to name one of many professionally written dance manuals.

Try selecting one recurring correction, and make a new resolution to search understanding all possible aspects of it. I believe that will affect several technical roadblocks that you may have. I think you’ll gain an extra advantage and progress faster in the New Year.

We’ve all had ballet corrections that do not seem to ever go away. We may understand perfectly how ballet positions and ballet movements should be. We understand how the body should mechanically do something, yet it can be frustrating when the body we’re in just does not get it right after much trying.

What is the most frequent correction you got last year? Why isn’t it fixed? There is a reason, relating to one of the following.

** Posture

** Flexibility

** Alignment

** Strength and reflexes

** Turnout

** Tension

For example, if you stand sideways to a mirror, legs parallel and straight, core area held a little, do your ankles/knees/hips/shoulders/ears stack up, with natural spinal curves kept? If not, is an area not stacked because it is too tight or too lose? Can the core muscles hold without strain showing in the neck or shoulders? Posture has a lot to do with tension, flexibility, strength, and understanding. Correct posture leads to correct alignment in many ballet positions. Fix if needed! Study, search for information.

Turnout involves strength, flexibility and tension. And understanding what true turnout is. Incorrect turnout affects posture, increases tension, reduces flexibility and distorts alignment. There is a book called Tune Up Your Turnout by Deborah Vogel that is a good myth-buster, and something every dancer can use. You can figure out a lot by yourself, with the right information. The trick is that you need to get your body to do something, from an ideal concept.

All of the above factors affect the rest, but which one underlies your never-ending correction?

Do you understand the mechanics behind the ballet position/movement/step you are trying to improve? If not, find out the details you need to know!

I believe that if you understand all the aspects of one basic thing in ballet (anatomy, mechanics, technique, style, physical requirements), something super-simple, (I didn’t say easy) like standing in fifth position, you will understand a great deal about many other things in ballet.

Another example of getting more anatomical, mechanical and technical details of one factor in ballet technique is, strengthening the sole of the foot. Understanding the foot, and how to strengthen exclusively the foot muscles, not only leads to superior strength in dancing in pointe shoes, but will refine allegro, balance, landing from jumps and releves on pointe, and lots more. All this is covered in The Perfect Pointe Book, just to name one of many professionally written dance manuals.

Try selecting one recurring correction, and make a new resolution to search understanding all possible aspects of it. I believe that will affect several technical roadblocks that you may have. I think you’ll gain an extra advantage and progress faster in the New Year.

We’ve all had ballet corrections that do not seem to ever go away. We may understand perfectly how ballet positions and ballet movements should be. We understand how the body should mechanically do something, yet it can be frustrating when the body we’re in just does not get it right after much trying.

What is the most frequent correction you got last year? Why isn’t it fixed? There is a reason, relating to one of the following.

** Posture

** Flexibility

** Alignment

** Strength and reflexes

** Turnout

** Tension

For example, if you stand sideways to a mirror, legs parallel and straight, core area held a little, do your ankles/knees/hips/shoulders/ears stack up, with natural spinal curves kept? If not, is an area not stacked because it is too tight or too lose? Can the core muscles hold without strain showing in the neck or shoulders? Posture has a lot to do with tension, flexibility, strength, and understanding. Correct posture leads to correct alignment in many ballet positions. Fix if needed! Study, search for information.

Turnout involves strength, flexibility and tension. And understanding what true turnout is. Incorrect turnout affects posture, increases tension, reduces flexibility and distorts alignment. There is a book called Tune Up Your Turnout by Deborah Vogel that is a good myth-buster, and something every dancer can use. You can figure out a lot by yourself, with the right information. The trick is that you need to get your body to do something, from an ideal concept.

All of the above factors affect the rest, but which one underlies your never-ending correction?

Do you understand the mechanics behind the ballet position/movement/step you are trying to improve? If not, find out the details you need to know!

I believe that if you understand all the aspects of one basic thing in ballet (anatomy, mechanics, technique, style, physical requirements), something super-simple, (I didn’t say easy) like standing in fifth position, you will understand a great deal about many other things in ballet.

Another example of getting more anatomical, mechanical and technical details of one factor in ballet technique is, strengthening the sole of the foot. Understanding the foot, and how to strengthen exclusively the foot muscles, not only leads to superior strength in dancing in pointe shoes, but will refine allegro, balance, landing from jumps and releves on pointe, and lots more. All this is covered in The Perfect Pointe Book, just to name one of many professionally written dance manuals.

Try selecting one recurring correction, and make a new resolution to search understanding all possible aspects of it. I believe that will affect several technical roadblocks that you may have. I think you’ll gain an extra advantage and progress faster in the New Year.

We’ve all had ballet corrections that do not seem to ever go away. We may understand perfectly how ballet positions and ballet movements should be. We understand how the body should mechanically do something, yet it can be frustrating when the body we’re in just does not get it right after much trying.

What is the most frequent correction you got last year? Why isn’t it fixed? There is a reason, relating to one of the following.

** Posture

** Flexibility

** Alignment

** Strength and reflexes

** Turnout

** Tension

For example, if you stand sideways to a mirror, legs parallel and straight, core area held a little, do your ankles/knees/hips/shoulders/ears stack up, with natural spinal curves kept? If not, is an area not stacked because it is too tight or too lose? Can the core muscles hold without strain showing in the neck or shoulders? Posture has a lot to do with tension, flexibility, strength, and understanding. Correct posture leads to correct alignment in many ballet positions. Fix if needed! Study, search for information.

Turnout involves strength, flexibility and tension. And understanding what true turnout is. Incorrect turnout affects posture, increases tension, reduces flexibility and distorts alignment. There is a book called Tune Up Your Turnout by Deborah Vogel that is a good myth-buster, and something every dancer can use. You can figure out a lot by yourself, with the right information. The trick is that you need to get your body to do something, from an ideal concept.

All of the above factors affect the rest, but which one underlies your never-ending correction?

Do you understand the mechanics behind the ballet position/movement/step you are trying to improve? If not, find out the details you need to know!

I believe that if you understand all the aspects of one basic thing in ballet (anatomy, mechanics, technique, style, physical requirements), something super-simple, (I didn’t say easy) like standing in fifth position, you will understand a great deal about many other things in ballet.

Another example of getting more anatomical, mechanical and technical details of one factor in ballet technique is, strengthening the sole of the foot. Understanding the foot, and how to strengthen exclusively the foot muscles, not only leads to superior strength in dancing in pointe shoes, but will refine allegro, balance, landing from jumps and releves on pointe, and lots more. All this is covered in The Perfect Pointe Book, just to name one of many professionally written dance manuals.

Try selecting one recurring correction, and make a new resolution to search understanding all possible aspects of it. I believe that will affect several technical roadblocks that you may have. I think you’ll gain an extra advantage and progress faster in the New Year.

We’ve all had ballet corrections that do not seem to ever go away. We may understand perfectly how ballet positions and ballet movements should be. We understand how the body should mechanically do something, yet it can be frustrating when the body we’re in just does not get it right after much trying.

What is the most frequent correction you got last year? Why isn’t it fixed? There is a reason, relating to one of the following.

** Posture

** Flexibility

** Alignment

** Strength and reflexes

** Turnout

** Tension

For example, if you stand sideways to a mirror, legs parallel and straight, core area held a little, do your ankles/knees/hips/shoulders/ears stack up, with natural spinal curves kept? If not, is an area not stacked because it is too tight or too lose? Can the core muscles hold without strain showing in the neck or shoulders? Posture has a lot to do with tension, flexibility, strength, and understanding. Correct posture leads to correct alignment in many ballet positions. Fix if needed! Study, search for information.

Turnout involves strength, flexibility and tension. And understanding what true turnout is. Incorrect turnout affects posture, increases tension, reduces flexibility and distorts alignment. There is a book called Tune Up Your Turnout by Deborah Vogel that is a good myth-buster, and something every dancer can use. You can figure out a lot by yourself, with the right information. The trick is that you need to get your body to do something, from an ideal concept.

All of the above factors affect the rest, but which one underlies your never-ending correction?

Do you understand the mechanics behind the ballet position/movement/step you are trying to improve? If not, find out the details you need to know!

I believe that if you understand all the aspects of one basic thing in ballet (anatomy, mechanics, technique, style, physical requirements), something super-simple, (I didn’t say easy) like standing in fifth position, you will understand a great deal about many other things in ballet.

Another example of getting more anatomical, mechanical and technical details of one factor in ballet technique is, strengthening the sole of the foot. Understanding the foot, and how to strengthen exclusively the foot muscles, not only leads to superior strength in dancing in pointe shoes, but will refine allegro, balance, landing from jumps and releves on pointe, and lots more. All this is covered in The Perfect Pointe Book, just to name one of many professionally written dance manuals.

Try selecting one recurring correction, and make a new resolution to search understanding all possible aspects of it. I believe that will affect several technical roadblocks that you may have. I think you’ll gain an extra advantage and progress faster in the New Year.