Technique Tuesday; Wake Up Your Sense Of Balance. {How's Your Posture? A Post That Made Me Really Think About Mine}.

Wake up your sense of balance.

Below is an exercise I do during the beginning portion of every Balletone class that I teach;

Stand barefoot in parallel (toes forward), feet hip width apart. Ladies, think about where the actual hip bones (anterior superior iliac spine) align over the feet and not where current hormone fluctuations are telling you where your hips are. Am I the only one who has to be reminded of this during PMS?

Now focus on how the weight is displaced through each foot. Strive for a triad through each foot;
padding under the big toe, padding under the fourth toe and pinkie toe and the heel.

Once you feel the triad, next focus on lifting the insteps of each foot. I always find that when I place focus on my insteps while in this stance I automatically feel my core engage, my inner thighs engage as well as my glutes firming up. I find it a pleasant and well balanced feeling.

Now for some balance stimulation. Gently shift your weight to the front, or ball of your foot. Now shift weight towards your heels. Alternate for 10-20 seconds, finding a natural rhythm in your body. Each time you shift your weight forward to the balls of the feet focus on the toes spreading and "catching" your weight as opposed to curling under and gripping.

Re-center over your triads.

Now shift side to side on your feet, without letting the insteps collapse. 10-20 seconds.

Re-center.

Let's combine the two directions. Start by making a sort of square. Shift the weight forward, to the right, towards the heels, to the left. Try a few more squares.

From your "squares" start taking your shifting into little circles (I sometimes refer to this as the Zombie Stance). After a few rounds of circles, start to spiral the little circles inward until you are re-centered on the triads of the feet.

Do everything to the left (or opposite direction). Start with squares that evolve into little circles. Little circles that spiral back to your starting position.

One of the main benefits I find from this little exercise series is how it wakes up and energizes my core. Bringing together the focus of the mind and the body. Simple enough to do just about anytime of day. Just be barefoot and not in a situation that will freak out co-workers.

A post that gave me some enlightened thoughts about my posture.

I have always fancied myself as having very good posture, what with being a 30 + year veteran of dance and all. But alas, that doesn't make me immune to bad habits and room for improvements. Especially as I age and work through chronic trouble spots of pain and tightness.

I came across this post by Mama Sweat. In it there is a link to a simple test. Tried it. Quick and the dirty is that one factor of posture problems is the jutting out of the ribcage. Somewhere along my dancing youth journey I learned how to draw my ribs in and down (an earth-shattering realization since I had already spent almost a decade dancing with a "sway back"). So for about the last 20 years I have been fairly conscious of my ribcage placement, always with an eye for refinement. Seek and ye shall find. I did the simple back against the wall test. Oh yeah, what I expected. Nailed it. Good posture wins again. But wait! After taking a number of steps away from the wall...what the Hell was that? Did my ribcage just slip into a wee bit of a jut? Dammit, I believe it did! Up against the wall again. Ribs in place. Walk away from the wall, ribs in place. A few more steps and I could start to feel the urge to release that cartilage cage into a bit of a jutted out position.

So what's a little jut? It's not like I want to walk around like I have a stick up my ass all day. Well, it can be a big deal. And proper ribcage alignment does not necessarily result in the ramrod stance of a schoolmarm.  But ribcage alignment does effect the alignment of the entire body. Case in point, I noticed that when I was up against the wall I could feel a release of tension in my perpetually tight lower back. What signaled my wayward ribs was the feeling of tension returning when I walked away from the wall.

So this ribcage alignment of mine will definitely be getting a closer look.

Thanks for reading.

Enjoy the dance that is life!

~Erin

Technique Tuesday! Placement Of The Leg In Tendu Side. Plus, A Simple Scarf Trick!

Technique Tuesday!

I have a short tutorial about the placement of the leg for tendu side in a turned out position.

Once you find your turned-out ballet first position picture yourself in your own personal rectangle. Rather than stretching your leg and pointing your foot directly side, think of pointing the foot to the corresponding front corner (right foot, right front corner). In this way you can better maintain proper alignment of the pelvis over the standing leg without causing torque in the joints and causing the working hip to lift up.

Using a scarf or dish towel as an aide, you can practice finding the proper placement for balance and proper use of the muscle groups of the legs, hips and pelvis.

Thanks for watching!

Enjoy the dance that is life!

~Erin

Dance Concept; Don't Lose Your Marble.

 

 

 

So I've been teaching Balletone classes on a more regular basis. I'm pretty psyched about it. For the gym I teach at it's been kind of a "filler" class (covering for a regular instructor who teaches step aerobics. I don't do step. That would be more of a comedy/slapstick hour thing for me to do), I've been kinda doing a hybrid Zumba/Balletone sampler plate. People seem pretty enthusiastic about the Balletone format, so it's looking like Balletone will become a regular class at this particular gym. It's been fun doing the first half hour as a Zumba, sometimes even a little Zumba Toning, then kicking off the shoes and socks and getting into our Balletone zone. This morning it was fun and functional, if not down right necessary. The group ex. room was like a freaking penguin den!

 

Regardless of the room temp at any given time, the demands for balance, agility and mind body connection in the movements of Balletone, or dance related movements often gets my brain spinning for the best ways to explain a movement concept. Also, many an interesting conversation about challenges in movement have come up. I love it! I could probably talk for days on end about it, as some unlucky souls I'm sure have found out the hard way.

 

I'm going to talk about only one right here.

 

Maintaining proper hip and pelvic alignment through a series of moves, or for a singular pose, can be challenging.

 

Think of a marble on a tabletop. If you keep the tabletop level, the marble will stay centered.

 

 

A brief tutorial...

Hope this little tip helps. I know it helps me when trying to connect my mind to my body.

Thanks for hanging out!

Enjoy the dance that is life!

Dance Step Tutorial.

So I got a new laptop. Yeah! For the most part I'm all but clueless. But since I'm clueless about many things I'm well within my comfort zone.

One of the bells and whistles on my new toy is a webcam (I'm sure its pretty standard on most laptops these days. Just guessing, 'cause remember, I don't know sh*t from Shinola when it comes to techy stuff).

I wanted to do a tutorial on this fun dance step, so it gave me the perfect opportunity to play with my new webcam.

It was definitely a process. I think I had to download a couple of things and at one point a high pitched air raid siren started going off. I was ready to abandon the whole task and grabbed my 15 yrear old's Flip camera. Couldn't find any of my mini tripods and the batteries crapped out mid filming. Erg!

But success was finally mine...depending on how you measure it :)

 

 

I love this step. Whenever I am choreographing a ballet piece that has any hint of Latin flavor I will usually do some variation of it.

 

Its not just fun, but a pretty good workout step as well.

 

The action of the leg works both hip abduction (when the leg lifts up and out to the side) and adduction (when the leg crosses in front of the other leg).

 

The jump, while small, offers some lower intensity plyometric movement, as well as a balance challenge in that the leg is held for a moment in the air before it comes down and crosses.

 

An important function of the obliques is to stabilize the torso and maintain proper placement of the pelvic area and spine through movements (a good article on the subject). The actions of the upper body and arms in conjunction with the lower body's movements through this step do just that.

 

In addition, there is a syncopated timing in the step. Its not all even. This is great brain food at any age! As well as the cross lateral movements of the limbs, which cause the two hemispheres of the brain to "converse".

 

If you know the exact name of this step, used in this context, don't be shy. Let me know!

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Enjoy the dance that is life!