Blog 32

A week off at Bayadère, the children enjoy a vacation. This amounts to three weeks without ballet lessons. I’m glad things start up again next week.

It’s autumn in the Netherlands. Leaves, once green, turn trees into majestic colored symbols of the circle of life. Poetic, isn’t it? This magnificent climax of life, preparing for hibernation and a new start in spring. The colored leaves fall from the trees as the wind blows, they color the ground, leaving trees barren. Trees are monuments of an undefeated will to live, deeply rooted in the earth, touching (kissing) the blue sky. And in doing so, they transcend their struggle for existence in intrinsic beauty and embody fullness of life.

This expression of Mother Nature brings me to the poetry of dance and ballet in particular.

My ultimate goal and I am prepared to spend years of training to achieve this, is to be able to use my body as an expressive instrument. As an expression of my soul!

I’m struggling to master the movements and techniques to make sure that my body does not prevent my soul from expressing itself. And that’s the journey you read about in my blog. Some times romantic, most of the time realistic, and now and then pessimistic.

People marvel at the beauty of a classically trained dancer, so do I. But it’s not the technique that moves me, it’s the embodiment of that whisper of the soul that I seek.

I’ll finish this time with a short piece of poetry from D. H. Lawrence, a famous writer.

When the white feet of dancers beat across the stage

the sound is like the wings of birds at dawn, fluttering,

and when the feathery light bodies rise en pointe, spinning

like the wind across a lake, the sight is romance, uttering.

Blog 31

A short blog this time. I was still sick this week. Coughing and coughing, yes, how nasty this flu is.

I decided to put my focus on recovery and not to bother my fellow students with my flu. So, I skipped the lessons. 

I practice stretches and core exercises to maintain my flexibility and strength. But mind you, if you have problems with your back, don’t do these kinds of exercises without professional coaching.

One of them is the roll-up. The roll-up strengthens the abdominal muscles. 

To begin, you lie on your back with your arms folded across your chest. The hips and knees are bent at 90 degrees angle. Slowly lift your torso while maintaining the elongation of the upper back and neck, to approximately 45 degrees, hold this position for 8 counts, and then slowly roll down. Then repeat this exercise 1 time with a slight twist to the left and repeat with a slight twist to the right. Try to breathe comfortably during this workout. After this first set, repeat 3 to 6 sets. After doing this, you are probably tired!

A few weeks ago, Lyda taught us a back-extension exercise to strengthen the low back muscles. These muscles aid in supporting the torso during dance movements like the arabesque. This exercise balances the effect of the roll-up.

The exercise starts with you lying on your belly, prone, hands beneath the shoulders and the legs in a slight second position. Push off, gently raise your torso, arms loose from the floor, stretch them in front of you and hold this position, as high as your torso can get, 8 counts and then release slowly. Do this 3 to six times. 

You can add a second part to this exercise: while staying with your torso on the floor, gradually raise your legs, hold for 8 counts and slowly release. And third, you can slowly lift both the torso and legs for 8 counts and lower slowly. 

The combination of the roll-up and the back extension is a powerful exercise to strengthen your core.

But now I’ve got the flu, even 3 sets are impossible. Where did my strength and stamina go?

Blog 30

Last Sunday, I became sick. Turned out that I got a cold, a severe cold. My throat started to become sore, runny nose, and a headache. I felt awful.

The only right place to be was in my bed. No ballet class this week. 

This is the first time in the 2 years that I couldn’t go to ballet class because of illness.

One of the side effects of being sick is that I have a lot of dreams, and often I have memory flashbacks of things I really have forgotten. One of the flashbacks is of a remark my osteopath once made.

A few years ago, my osteopath told me that ballet isn’t healthy because of the unnatural body movements/postures, like pointé and turn out. 

So after that flashback, I involuntarily thought about the turn out this week. 

Turn out is a typical aspect of ballet training. It’s adopted from fencing positions. The outward positioning of the feet, accompanied by the femoral rotation, provides more stability and allows more mobility when the legs are raised. 

You don’t use the buttocks muscles to rotate the legs outward, but the hip rotator muscles. You have to master the ability to use these specific muscles independently. And yet in the turn out position, you use your buttocks, to stabilize the body for the sake of the turn out itself. You should feel the tightening of your buttocks at the top of the back of your legs, just underneath the buttocks. 

The force for turn out of the legs must come from the hip down.

My natural turn out, especially when I started, is limited. In one of my earlier blogs, I mentioned that the force for the turn out should not come from the floor up. I remember learning that lesson well in the first year. 

So, in the beginning, I forced an extra turn out from my feet upwards to my knees.

And knew almost instantaneously this was a bad practice. You’ll get injured in your knee. The knee is a hinge, not a rotary joint. And when you try a plié in that awkward position, you know exactly what I mean.

So all the week, I visualized doing the turn out. And as I do that virtual turn out, I feel that pulling out sensation in my hip joint. My knees feel safe. Ok, and then I doze off again.

And yet I don't know whether my osteopath is right or wrong. But that doesn't matter too much to me this week.

Well, I don’t want to complain, but I’m still coughing and sneezing. And I hope that I’ll recover soon. But I don’t know yet if I am already up to the Monday lesson.

Blog 29

Usually, I write about the exercises at the barre or in the center. But the last part of the lesson is interesting too and generally very energetic.

This week we had a multitude of exercises on the diagonal, like the polonaise, waltz, chassé, pas de chat, pas de bourrée, glissade, and chainés. We even practiced a pas de cheval, can you imagine?

I like chainés. It’s a series of turns in the same direction on the diagonal. I start with my feet in the first position on demi-pointe. We start tapping our feet consecutively 4 times, left right left right, then making 1 revolution. The weight shifts from 1 foot to another with each half revolution, arms held in the first position. And tapping the feet 4 times again and so on. Some days I can perform the chainés without getting too dizzy, and then on other days, even one revolution is one too much. Essential is the way I turn my head. You can turn your head 180 degrees, from left to right. The trick is to choose a focal point and look at that point as long as possible. Then when your body is making a half revolution, quickly turn your head and look at the same point in the room. 

We performed the glissade at the diagonal. A glissade is a slide with the legs, in which one leg opens to a pointe tendue, the other leg on demi plié, then the weight is transferred to the first leg, the other pointing to pointe tendue, the movement ends by the second leg sliding into the 5th position. We practiced the en avant type of the glissade, where the front leg opens to the front, the other leg on demi plié, weight transferring onto the front leg which does a demi plié, the back leg extending pointe tendue. The back leg closes in the 5th in the back.

This was an exercise that I can grow fond of.

Another, the pas de bourrée, really causes me some trouble. That’s an exercise that I need to practice more often, I’m the master of disaster so to speak. I have to build it in my system, it’s not a reflex yet, I seem to miss an adequate neuro-muscular response to this one.  The pas de bourrée has several variations and can be done in all possible directions; it is a step in three counts, during the lesson, we exercised the basic form with a change of the feet. If you start with the right foot in front, you will end with the left foot in front. When I read the technical information on this exercise, I kind of get lost. Was it the au dessus, or was it the au dessous version we practiced? I simply forgot about it. 

I have discovered that in ballet, there are always two important considerations for the movements: the esthetic and the physical. They have to blend together, so to speak, to produce that lyrical effect while performing the movement. Think about the head position while you perform a glissade. The placement of your head helps to keep your body in equilibrium. In the meantime, you maintain expression on your face while you look in the direction of an audience. This transfers a message to your audience, hopefully lyrical. That also applies to the chainés.

Have a nice week!

Blog 28 The week to bring along a friend

Pupils could bring their friend along for a ballet lesson this week, again one of the many customs at Bayadère. A few of the younger dance students brought a girl or boyfriend with them. Literally, the guests were beginners in ballet, and that was an interesting scene to see. 

We at once realized that though we think we are beginners, actually we are no beginner anymore. We have learned a few things! I had a few looks at the faces of our guests when we did our regular exercises at the barre. Their puzzled faces were sheer amusing.

I remember feeling awkward when 2 years ago, I came in for my first lesson and did my first plié at the barre. A new and uncommon world, with other customs and precise ways of moving. 

A nice lesson!

This week I had to skip my Thursday lesson. Work had to come first. I had a busy day at the office, all day managing to get things done. The downside is that I on such days, I have little to no attention for my physical and mental needs.

When I drove home that evening, I thought that one of the benefits of ballet is the stretching. I carried stress in my muscles that evening, my body ached after this long and exhausting day. 

Before I go to class, I usually warm-up, and do some stretches. That provides a tension release of my muscles. Ballet taught me that stretching is also a way to release the tension of my mind. That’s the upside of attending class; the exercises can be very relaxing.

I remember reading somewhere that stretching is a very effective form of stress management. That’s a real discovery for me. It provides a mental break, making you feel calmer and peaceful. 

So when you feel stressed, you have to develop the discipline to stretch. 

Easier said than done by the way. It takes focus and determination to break that circle of anxiety.

This morning at the gym, I practiced the sauté’s. Remarkable how a continuous dedication to an exercise can improve your performance. Just do it!

Blog 27 Back to the basics

Only a few students showed up last Monday. There were only four of us.  So we had a lot of personal attention in a relaxed atmosphere. Which led to a few corrective comments by our beloved teacher.

Like performing a correct stance. Lyda checked if the weight of my body was correctly centered over the feet, with the armpit and the hipbone vertically aligned, shoulders low, the ribs in and flat, thus controlling the lower back and stabilizing the vertical placement of the torso directly on top of my supporting legs. Lyda commented that my left shoulder is higher than my right shoulder.

And looking in the mirror, of course, I tried to correct myself. 

As we were practicing the cambré at the barre, Lyda noticed that I was placing my hand too far away from my body, though I held it correctly on top of the barre. I had to bring my elbow more close to me. And she reminded me that I had to keep my hand and arm on the barre side relaxed. The barre should help me to maintain my stability but at the same time is not meant to lean on or to grip firmly to compensate balance issues. 

And there was that other thing, a real eye-opener. When in tendu I seem to have my working leg a bit bent in de knee. It's hard work for me to stretch that knee. Until Lyda remarked that my working leg was not properly turned out. So when I focused on turning my leg more out, the bent knee simultaneously became a stretched knee. 

It is not yet part of my system that in ballet, all movements are performed with the legs turned out. The correct use of the turn out when performing the tendu was my Aha Erlebnis of the lesson! 

But I have to confess that turning out is the most difficult thing for me. I have to train a lot to increase my outward rotation. I remember that in de the first year I tried to compensate this by forcing it up from the floor to the knee. And that is fundamentally wrong. The force from the turn out of the legs has to come from the hip down and not from the floor up! So my first position now is about 45 degrees. When I started ballet, it was about 30 degrees. So I made a little progress. But I think 90 degrees is out of my reach.

For now, ballet training provides a way of developing healthy musculature, bones, and joints. I have to remember that ballet's practice focuses on the repetition of simple motions at the barre and basic jumps, and that's the way to establish pathways for all later movements. In that aspect, training is quite a subtle mental and physical process. 

And the beauty of it is that I build an aesthetic awareness so I can enhance my body image. I must say: I have never looked more often at my mirror image to study my posture and movements!

Blog 26

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway“ (Earl Nightingale).

After a tough working day, I arrived just in time at Bayadère last Thursday. My mind still immersed in my work, my body tight, cold and stiff. And I had no chance to do my regular warm-up. The barre exercises at the start of class are not suitable to replace a thorough 20 to 25 minutes warm-up, at the barre you prepare and train specific muscle movements.

So no flexibility at all! Not in my mind, not in my body. I could poorly focus on the instructions Lyda gave when class started.

Usually, at home, I prepare well for the class. 

Static stretching is not my favorite way to prepare myself. I often injured my muscles or joints when doing that. I paid my dues dearly and learned that I have to warm up my whole body. When you dance, you use all parts of our body, so it is essential to get everything moving in your warm-up, not just your legs and feet. 

I’m particularly fond of the advice Lisa Howell, head of Perfect Form Physiotherapy (PFP), a Physical Therapy Clinic in Australia, and specialized in dance. She promotes a warm-up that is more dynamic and focuses on mobilizing your muscles, joints, and most importantly, your fascia. 

Fasciae are connective tissue fibers, primarily collagenous, that form sheets or bands beneath the skin to attach, stabilize, enclose and separate muscles. They cover and run through all of your muscles. Fascial mobilizing exercises aimed at loosening the connections between layers of muscles are often far more effective than typical stretches.

I recommend that you download a PDF of the flyer she made about the warm-up: www.perfectformphysio.com.au/dance-warm-up.

It’s up to you to make your choice.

But as I already mentioned, no warm-up this time.

I slowly settled in during class, and after class, I felt a soothing kind of fatigue.

I went home, took a quick shower, and crashed into my bed.

I have to accept the “crawl, walk and run” rhythm. Like a child, I must crawl before I can walk and walk before I can run. The crawl stage is where I learn the fundamentals of ballet and acquire basic skills. I have to adopt the “slow is smooth” approach. My body and mind have to absorb the concepts and techniques of ballet. There are times when I think that I can accelerate my development just by working harder. But that’s not true. Instead of forcing myself, I have to facilitate myself.

And of course, being stressed by your work is not very helpful. But at times, inevitable.