Efficient Training

I started studying ballet the week I graduated from high school. Four years and ten months later, I was dancing for The Joffrey. I was not gifted in any way. I worked hard, and I found the most efficient ways to train. I did not adhere to one style or syllabus or curriculum; I found flaws in all of them. I picked the stuff that made sense to me, and that worked.

There are a lot of teachers/dancers who believe that one syllabus or curriculum is right and will teach you everything you need to know.

No.

Most syllabi teach you how to do specific steps. That's wrong. There are so many steps, classes would have to be hours long, and you'd have to remember way too much. There are actually very few specific things you really have to learn. It is far more important to train the body to function as a classical dancer, than to learn a specific step.

For example, there are only two shapes for your arm in classical ballet. Two. That's it. We're talking strict classical ballet, here, not Romantic, not choreography, just ballet. You have the curved shape, and the "straight" shape. The curved shape is virtually the same for fifth en bas, first, second, fifth en haut, etc. The "straight" shape (very slight bend at the elbow) is the same for any arabesque or elongee.

That's it. Two shapes.

Another example is relevé. We used to train on quarter pointe, with the heel just off the floor for turns. That's disappeared. Now, your foot is either flat on the floor, or full relevé, or en pointe. Three positions. Done.

See what I'm getting at?

Stanley Williams gave the simplest classes. Frustratingly simple, before we realized he was a genius. We didn't have complex grand allegro, which really pissed us off. He told us, "Boys, just do these exercises and everything will work." We didn't believe him. We didn't realize that by training the body to be a classical dancer, you'd be able to do any step you wanted. Sure we did exercises in all the required positions, but we didn't learn every individual step. We trained our muscles to hold our turnout, to point our feet, to use our core. We still didn't believe him.

Until one day.

After class, we were milling about the studio, frustrated that we hadn't been working on the big bravura steps we all wanted to do. I went to do a double saut de basque. We hadn't even done singles in class.

It worked.

I stopped, turned and saw everyone in the room was looking at me. I pointed to a friend. "You try it." It worked for him, too. We went around the room. Everyone could do doubles.

We realized Stanley was a genius.

He hadn't taught us to do double saut de basque.

He had taught us to be dancers.

If the syllabus or curriculum is teaching you to do individual steps, and not teaching you to be a dancer, it's wrong.

Stanley never said, "This is the Royal Danish syllabus." He just taught us ballet.

That's the way I teach.

See you in class.

First Year on Pointe

There are basically two schools of thought for pointe shoe choice for first year pointe students. 1) They're young and still developing strength, so their shoes should be strong/hard to support them. 2) They're young and still developing strength, so their shoes shouldn't be too strong/hard, so they can work their feet and get stronger. 

Take a wild guess which one I believe in. If you've been reading this blog, you know.

A lot of girls are put on pointe waaaaaay before they should be. If they need strong/hard shoes to hold them up, they're not strong enough to be on pointe. Sure, pointe work will strengthen the feet and legs. Duh. However, you have to be strong first, otherwise you won't benefit from pointe work.

Holding a student back so they get stronger before putting them on pointe is a good idea. Period. Giving them shoes that are no more than crutches is not.

See you in pointe class... when you're ready.

Appropriate technique

At a performance the other night, one of the ballet dads (I love that we have "ballet dads" and "soccer moms") asked me if I could look at a dancer and know what type of training they had. I said, yes, usually. This is good and bad. It's good if they are using what I am going to call "appropriate technique". It's bad if the first thing I notice is their specific training.

Every ballet should be danced appropriately. If you're watching, say, "Sleeping Beauty", every dancer should be dancing with proper classical placement, style that looks like it should be there. If you're sitting there thinking, "That guy trained at the Royal, that girl is obviously from the Maryiinsky, etc." you are no longer watching the ballet or following the story. Those dancers are dancing the ballet wrong. Not that everyone should look the same, but there should be some kind of uniformity, especially from the corps.

If you're watching a Neo-classical piece, like "Four Temperaments", everyone should look like a Neo-classical dancer, otherwise they are dancing it wrong. To put it drastically, it would be like watching Fosse danced like Martha Graham.

Technique should be transparent. You really shouldn't be able to tell where someone has trained. Even though I trained in the Vaganova style and Neo-classic, I danced for The Joffrey, where we prided ourselves as having no specific style. We had a uniform appearance in placement, and one of our trademarks was being extremely well rehearsed, but we were just ballet dancers. We had to be able to adapt ourselves to everything from Tudor to Pilobolus, so if we were stuck in one style, that would not have been possible. You had to dance Tharp differently than DeMille and in some of those pieces, you couldn't even look like a ballet dancer. In "Rodeo" you couldn't even stand turned out!

But, Jerry, you're talking about character pieces or jazzy stuff. Yes, but the differences between "Swan Lake" and "Don Quixote" really are as drastic as between "Rodeo" and "Deuce Coupe II". They have to be. Fouettés in "Nutcracker" are different from fouttés in "Flames of Paris".

Some teachers of specific styles think their style is appropriate for every ballet. Nope. This is one of the reasons I don't adhere to any one syllabus. If your "Giselle" instantly makes me think you trained at SAB, you're doing it wrong. If you're going to honor Mr. B., then you have to honor Marius Petipa, too.

See you in class.

Ballet Has Evolved

Yes, it has. Training methods have improved, shoes have improved, and the good old days weren't all that good.

Oh, sure, there were great dancers, but I know many women whose feet were destroyed by the limited variety and technology of pointe shoes. I remember using an X-Acto knife to cut out the soles of my soft shoes because they were too stiff. I remember Capezio tights that were so inflexible, you could pull a muscle putting them on, and good luck making a quick change with sweaty legs. And don't get me started on a makeup from Satan known as Texas Dirt.

Thank God and the Australian ballet for split-soled shoes that didn't need to be broken in. Thank Eliza Minden for the Gaynor-Minden pointe shoe. I don't know who to thank for finally realizing that a center seam in tights and unitards makes no sense for either sex, but bless you, whoever you are! Oh, and thanks for unitards, too! And new fabrics! And colors! Have you seen some of those gorgeous lace-accented leotards?

Training methods have changed. Thinking that everyone should be trained the way you were trained pretty much slaps George Balanchine right in the face. You do know that he developed a whole new style of ballet, yes? Well, that can happen again. Thinking that advancement of the art stopped with Mr. B. is an insult to him. I tell my students that I think the way I teach- which is constantly evolving- is good, but they might find an even better way.

The good old days are fine to learn from, but you can't be stuck there. You can't look at training methods that produce wonderful dancers, and pooh-pooh them because you don't understand them. Learn, for heaven's sake! I heard of a high school teacher who told his students, "You're born, you learn, then you die."

Think about that.

I'll see you in class.

Artistic Technique

Ballet technique has improved over the years. Lines are cleaner, legs are higher, more pirouettes, more technical jumps, etc. Many people say there is no artistry, anymore, that technique is too much the goal. This has been the argument for many years. Pavlova was told, "Leave the acrobatics to the others." If you watch films from that time, you wonder what they were talking about. There will always be people saying the old days were better, the dancers were better, blah, blah... blah. I'll be the first to say the old Russians had more passion than many dancers today, but I'll also be the first to say that the dancers today are technically better. Should we go back to the old days? Hell, no. A certain choreographer did a full length ballet for a certain major ballet company in the style of when it was first done, 1890, and it was a piece of garbage. The dancers were wasted. Ballet has evolved.

But, Jerry, don't we need artistry? Of course. I demand that from my students, but that artistry has to be part and parcel of the technique, not something separate. It's like gymnastics. I love watching gymnastics. I'm amazed at what those gymnasts can do. However, it almost makes me laugh, when they do their "dance elements" then go to the corner, drop all pretense at artistry, and do a tumbling pass. That's when technique and artistry are separate things.

In ballet, you have to make your pirouette artistic. You have to make your jump artistic. You have to make the technique artistic. That comes from telling a story. If you just do the mechanics of a step, to me that's boring. I call it "technique face". Dance, dance, dance, oh, I have to do a pirouette! It's the gymnast starting a tumbling run. There isn't a moment in ballet when you're not telling the story. There isn't a note of music that isn't part of the story. There isn't a single step that isn't part of the story.

And every story is different.

There are many ballerinas who are absolutely exquisite. Stunning legs and feet, superb technique. They do "Giselle" like "Don Q". No. In "Don Q" you can put your leg by your ear and it's fine. You do that in "Giselle" and you get a face full of tulle. That's when the technique is separate from the artistry. That's when the dancer is more concerned with her extension, than what it means. Sure the developés in "Giselle" today are higher than they were in the 19th century, but they're not so high that the costume covers your head, and they never will be, unless you're doing some avant garde version.

It's the teacher's job to make sure the student learns technique combined with artistry. When I work with a dancer on a variation, for example, the first thing I ask is, "Who is this person?" Then, "Why are they doing these steps, in this costume, to this music, at this point in the ballet?" They have to know why they are doing something, not just how.

What's really surprising, is that when a child starts ballet young, they are actually taught artistry first. You don't teach a three year old technique. You teach them to skip through fields. You teach them to pick flowers, or chase butterflies. That's art. Somewhere along the line, that's forgotten and lost. That's when the art disappears and the technique becomes the goal. 

The creativity of children playing is very artistic. When they play, they create entire worlds. Never lose that. It is truly the essence of art. Of course, you must develop technique to be a dancer, but every bit of technique must have artistry in it. You don't just lift an arm into first arabesque, you reach out, point at something, look over your hand across the lake, or the ballroom. You don't just do a tendu, you are Cinderella polishing the floor, which must shine or your stepsisters will tell on you. You don't just jump, you are leaping because your joy lifts you from the floor. 

Artistry and technique must and can go hand in hand. We're not going to go backward to lower legs, fewer pirouettes, etc. We must imbue every step with meaning, with a story, with art. That's our job as dancers and artists.

See you in class.

Fouettés, yes, Virginia, there is a right way.

I know, I know, different syllabi teach fouettés different ways, but you know me, I think I'm right and some people are wrong.

I believe ballet is about beauty. One of these blogs is about that. I believe steps should  be done in the most beautiful way possible. For fouettés, and grande pirouettes, you should present the most beautiful position to the audience. For me, that's on pointe, or relevé, leg and arms a la seconde. That's a beautiful position. Stretched. Lifted. Feet pointed.

I love Russian training and style, but the traditional Russian fouetté, taking the leg directly to second in plié, en face, just isn't pretty to me. I teach spot-plié-relevé, where as soon as your spot comes around, you start to open the leg in front of you- to the corner- you open the trailing arm into second, then you swing the leg and leading arm to second as you relevé. (I'm assuming you're doing your fouettés en face. If you do them in any other direction, the process is still the same). Then you just bring your arms into first as the leg comes into retiré. This is the prettiest, to me.

It's also the most efficient. If you're on relevé in second, your movement into the pirouette position is simpler than if you have to relevé and bring your arms into first and bring the leg into retiré. Viengsay Valdez, the brilliant Cuban ballerina, has the most perfect fouetté technique I've seen. It's clean, efficient, seemingly effortless, but also powerful, athletic and beautiful.

Sure, I tell my students that they have to find the way that works for them and, if they're doing solid fouettés different than I like, I'm not going to change them. If what they're doing isn't working, however, I'll teach them my way.

Because it's beautiful.

See you in class.

Shin Splints

I have been very lucky. The only time I had really bad shin pain was when I took a student to the finals of the YAGP in New York and walked more in the first day than I had in months (nobody walks in LA). My anterior calf muscles were so sore, I couldn't sleep on my stomach because of the pressure on my shins, and I couldn't sleep on my back because the sheets hurt. Side sleeping wasn't much better.

Most dancers have had shin splints at some time. Mostly they're caused by hard landing from jumps, but it's not just the shock of a heavy or hard landing. Shin splints are inflammation of the connective muscle tissue surrounding the tibia. The major repetitive stress for dancers is jumping, but there is a more insidious cause that is part and parcel of jumping, but can aggravate the condition, even if you stop jumping.

If you roll in on your arches, it puts great stress on the same muscle tissue that bad landings affect. If you roll just taking barre, or center without jumping, your shin pain will stick around and could even get worse. I was always very careful about my placement; I never rolled in. I know, that sounds impossible, but I didn't get shin splints dancing, and in 18 years, I never had a knee injury.

Your landings should be soft and quiet, and well placed. For example, if in your garden variety grand jetés, your front leg isn't directly in front of you, when you land, not only will your heel hit the floor hard (your foot isn't really underneath the center of your body) but you'll roll in, compounding the felony. You'll be lucky if all you get are shin splints.

At the barre, you must be extremely diligent about not rolling in, for many reasons, not the least of which is to prevent shin splints and knee injuries. When jumping, you must maintain your placement/turnout in the air, just like at the barre, so that when you land, you won't roll in. If you are like many dancers, when you relevé, you lose a little turnout, mostly because you relax your glutes. Then when you put your heels down, you re-engage your glutes, but the damage is done, and you're twisting your feet back into position. This action is a lot worse if the same thing, or more, happens when you jump. In the air, you lose your turnout, then you try to fix it when you land, when you should be concentrating on going through your feet, and boom, shin splints and/or knee injuries. They are caused by twisting, tibial torsion if you want to get technical, as much as by hard landings.

So, maintain proper placement (which could be the answer to most problems), and you will have a far better chance of avoiding shin splints and other unpleasant things.

We'll get to treatment options, next time.

See you in class.

Yes, now available as an ebook!

The Competition is now available in ebook form! http://thebp.site/73879

Ebooks

Yes, I am working on an ebook version. Shipping costs around the world are quite high!

More self promotion

My ballet novel, "The Competition", about two rival dancers about to perform the same variation from a forgotten ballet at a prestigious competition, is on sale now, at thebookpatch.com

Here is a direct link, or you can use the "buy it now" button on the blog site.

http://thebp.site/73879