What do you think about during plies?

This post was inspired by the class I taught this morning, an Intermediate Ballet class for adults.  It was a small class so I could interrupt their plies after the first side to discuss them.

What should we think about during the opening plie combination?

Most of the time, frankly, we're scouting the scene during plies.  It's usually the first combination we do, aside from a warm-up, and it's typically the same from class to class. As much as I believe in shaking things up at the barre and inverting and reversing combinations, I like to do at least 1 or 2 things the same all the time so people have a familiar guidepost for the class.  In most classes, like mine, that familiar guidepost is plies.

So...we don't think about anything.  We might be easing ourselves into class, making the transition from work to post-work, or from sleepiness to wakefulness.  We might be planning dinner or the rest of our days.  Some of us in larger classes might be looking around for friends, seeing who has a tan after her last vacation, whether that cute guy is there again. Who knows the thoughts that run through our heads?

But I can guarantee you it's not your inner thighs you're thinking about. It's not your rotation and it's not your abdominals or your upper back. And those are the 4 things you need to engage right away.  Get started during plies and you'll have them all warmed up and ready to go by the time you hit center, if not sooner.

1. Inner thighs - from the demi-plie, think about closing with the tops of the legs, not the buttocks.  Don't clench your large derriere muscles but use the smaller, longer, inner thigh muscles.

2. Rotation - not just the standing leg but both legs need to have their rotators engaged.  These are small muscles, the ones that move the thigh bone in the hip joint.  Get these warmed up right away when you recover from demi-plie.

3. Abdominals - concentrate on closing the rib cage every time you return from a cambre or a circular port de bras and you will automatically start to lift up the abdominal muscles and center your core.

4. Upper back - when you port de bras forward, be sure to keep the weight over the balls of the feet and not sunk back in your knees and heels. Keep the arm straight out to the side and move as a single unit to engage the back muscles instead of the shoulders.

It's easy to be lazy during plies - we do them all the time and in the same way - but it's also the easiest exercise of the class to start working.  Happy dancing!

New links of note and a quote!

First the links:

One of my wonderful - and wonderfully creative - students has a blog called The Spinning Dancer where she likes to write about dance.  Most of the time, she comments on ballroom dance, which is her specialty, but this post is about ballet class.  I think you will enjoy it!

And here is a blog that's new to me, Grown-ups at the Barre (what a great name for a blog!).  Thanks to Nichelle at Dance Advantage for sharing the link.  Lots of great resources and insight for the adult dancer.  Who knew there were so many aficionados out there?  I love it!

And now, the quote...from the illustrious Allegra Kent, on teaching (from Dance Teacher Magazine):

"I think everyone's teaching changes as time goes on. I was definitely a little wilder when I first started--very wild. I've calmed down a bit, but when I teach on Friday morning at 10 am, these students are exhausted, so I need to give them a lot of energy to wake them up. I've learned that pure movement and a lot of wit are the best ways to engage them.

Learning about my students outside of the classroom helps me understand them. I have them write me poems and through this, I've discovered wonderful things about them that I would have never known from just seeing them bend their knees."

Talking with one of my students recently has made me think about the relationship between a teacher and her students. I'm formulating a post on this...stay tuned for a bit of philosophy.  Happy dancing!

"Like" my Facebook page for more fun~

Hi everyone!

I usually post all kinds of dance stuff on my Facebook page - class info, performance dates, and workshops - but lately everything's gotten kind of crowded.  I want to separate out my dance things from my writerly things and from my regular Leigh things (lol, like funny cat pictures!) so I've created a LeighBalletLA - FitBallet page that you can "like."  This way I can post all kinds of things very quickly and get the info out fast, which is necessary sometimes when schedules change or I hear about some great opportunities I want to share.

And speaking of share...please share my page with anyone you think might get something out of ballet or dance.  I'll post giveaways and discounts too, so it won't all be practical!  Here's the link to the page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/LeighBalletLA-FitBallet/271494372934580

Thank you all and happy dancing~