My Mental Block
Hey happy Tuesday everyone!
Things have been a little crazy lately, I apologize for not posting much! We are officially on our semester break at the dance studio, and I'm looking forward to having some off time. We had 2 weeks off for Christmas, but this time I don't have to run all over the state or bake 500 cookies, just real downtime. I'm excited to give my knees a break to recover from all of the leaping we've been doing lately.
When class resumes next week we will get additional students in each class. I'm especially excited for this-- my Lyrical class only had 4 students first semester, starting next week we've got 13. Contemporary is going up from 5 to 11. More students means I'll be assisting more with classes and demonstrating combinations, and more people I can put in between my Chatty Cathy and myself! Win win win win win!
Other than that, my latest hurdle is trying to unlock the ability to do consistent multiple turns. My sense of balance is significantly better this year. I can find it in a second and hold for much longer than ever before. This has been extra helpful with turns, but I'm still struggling to unlock multiple rotations, in ballet especially.
It's weird-- in Contemporary & Lyrical I've been pulling off clean multiple rotations no problem. We've been doing a long almost jazzy combination in contemporary that has a few 1.5 rotation jazz pirouettes that I've extended into a fast 2.5 rotations. My spotting is on, it's fast balanced and I can land it the way the director is asking.
When I get to ballet class I can usually throw 1-2 good clean doubles, but they are SLOW. Like turning in sand-- easy leisurely turns up to 2x slower than the rest of my class. They'd be beautiful in a nice slow adagio number but it's definitely not what my teacher wants in this class.
When I try to speed up these pirouettes I always fall out of them. Always always. Then I start to get frustrated and worked up to the point where I can barely manage a clean single in either direction. My teacher says that I'm not spotting fast enough, and that if I just keep spotting and hold my balance and speed up and close my ribs and lock my arms, I'll pull more rotations. IF ONLY! LOL! Turns are so hard sometimes.
What kills me is that I can do a clean 2.5 rotation jazz pirouette with the desired landing and keep moving on through the combination, but I sometimes struggle with one traditional en dehor in ballet.
One difference I've noticed between both classes is my arm placement-- I have this bad habit in ballet where shortly after pushing off from the turn my arms close and meet, and then swiftly lower towards the floor. I don't know where I picked this up or why it is ingrained in my brain, but I'm sure this plays into why my traditional pirouettes are failing. Thinking back to the contemporary combination, it's very upbeat up to and right after the turns-- no real prep time to think about what I'm doing wrong, just hit the spot and throw a 1.5 or 2.5 rotation turn, move on to the next move. I'm positive my arms stay locked during those turns.
It's so frustrating! I need to break that lowering arms habit for my traditional turns. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting consistent multiple rotations? I'd love to hear!
I would kill to do some of the crazy turn combinations the girls on Dance Moms do-- these kids are teens and pre-teens, and they have definitely unlocked their multiple turns.... (I didn't make this video)
Happy Dancing,
L
Things have been a little crazy lately, I apologize for not posting much! We are officially on our semester break at the dance studio, and I'm looking forward to having some off time. We had 2 weeks off for Christmas, but this time I don't have to run all over the state or bake 500 cookies, just real downtime. I'm excited to give my knees a break to recover from all of the leaping we've been doing lately.
When class resumes next week we will get additional students in each class. I'm especially excited for this-- my Lyrical class only had 4 students first semester, starting next week we've got 13. Contemporary is going up from 5 to 11. More students means I'll be assisting more with classes and demonstrating combinations, and more people I can put in between my Chatty Cathy and myself! Win win win win win!
Other than that, my latest hurdle is trying to unlock the ability to do consistent multiple turns. My sense of balance is significantly better this year. I can find it in a second and hold for much longer than ever before. This has been extra helpful with turns, but I'm still struggling to unlock multiple rotations, in ballet especially.
It's weird-- in Contemporary & Lyrical I've been pulling off clean multiple rotations no problem. We've been doing a long almost jazzy combination in contemporary that has a few 1.5 rotation jazz pirouettes that I've extended into a fast 2.5 rotations. My spotting is on, it's fast balanced and I can land it the way the director is asking.
When I get to ballet class I can usually throw 1-2 good clean doubles, but they are SLOW. Like turning in sand-- easy leisurely turns up to 2x slower than the rest of my class. They'd be beautiful in a nice slow adagio number but it's definitely not what my teacher wants in this class.
When I try to speed up these pirouettes I always fall out of them. Always always. Then I start to get frustrated and worked up to the point where I can barely manage a clean single in either direction. My teacher says that I'm not spotting fast enough, and that if I just keep spotting and hold my balance and speed up and close my ribs and lock my arms, I'll pull more rotations. IF ONLY! LOL! Turns are so hard sometimes.
What kills me is that I can do a clean 2.5 rotation jazz pirouette with the desired landing and keep moving on through the combination, but I sometimes struggle with one traditional en dehor in ballet.
One difference I've noticed between both classes is my arm placement-- I have this bad habit in ballet where shortly after pushing off from the turn my arms close and meet, and then swiftly lower towards the floor. I don't know where I picked this up or why it is ingrained in my brain, but I'm sure this plays into why my traditional pirouettes are failing. Thinking back to the contemporary combination, it's very upbeat up to and right after the turns-- no real prep time to think about what I'm doing wrong, just hit the spot and throw a 1.5 or 2.5 rotation turn, move on to the next move. I'm positive my arms stay locked during those turns.
It's so frustrating! I need to break that lowering arms habit for my traditional turns. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting consistent multiple rotations? I'd love to hear!
I would kill to do some of the crazy turn combinations the girls on Dance Moms do-- these kids are teens and pre-teens, and they have definitely unlocked their multiple turns.... (I didn't make this video)
Happy Dancing,
L
I think you could be on to something there about the prep time. In modern moves flow and happen organically, whereas ballet has all the set-up, adjusting thinking time. In my own experience the more I think about getting something right the more I do something wrong. Good food for thought.
ReplyDeleteI think contemoporary turns are easier in general, because they usually aren´t as controlled as ballet pirouettes. Also, I´ve heard from many people and experienced myself that doing a single controlled pirouette en dehors is more difficult than doing a double or triple.
ReplyDeleteBut the following tips always helped me:
dont think about turning multiple times, think about the pirouette as a turning balance -> think up and try to stay on your leg as long as possible, even if you fall out of the turn (don´t drop the heel)
use a stronger relevé to get more force for multiple turns.
dont stay in 4th too long before you releve, and immediately find your position.
dont raise the hip of the working leg, and dont sit in the hip of the supporting leg.
and about the spotting, I found it again helpful to "think up" rather than to think "turn the head as fast as possible".
and last, when you come out of the turn (eg to land in 4th en fondu), lift the working leg a little bit higher out of passé and then behind the supporting leg to come down, this again helps maintaining the balance longer...
I hope you found some of this helpful, and let us know how you get on!
That is true, Nicola Lynde! I often get so engrossed in all of the little technical details of a movement (to fully understand it) that I forget to just relax and dance. That's my nature though, I enjoy picking things apart until it's in pieces so I can put it back together again. I suppose that's why I spent a whole year building a pointe shoe database on all shoes available in my area. Who does that? Crazy people like me, lol!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips Anonymous, you have reminded me of some things my teacher has told me in class. It seems each week I'm focusing on something different, trying to find the right combination of things to focus on that will finally make it click on a consistent basis. It's interesting hearing about the ways other people focus in practice!
I find my spotting isn't too big of an issue. Turning to the left my chin drifts up if I'm trying to spot myself in the mirror. If I look at something on a side wall I'm fine. I'm a slow turner though, and my teacher thinks I need to work on speeding up my turns and spotting faster so I'm not stuck hanging through these slow turns. I'm hoping that working on yoga will help strengthen my upper body so I can control my arms and torso better, especially in turns. I think I'm really sabotaging myself with my arms throwing me off.
Thanks again! I'll keep plugging along. This week class was great, so hopefully I can keep it up.