The girls in the Grade 4 Imperial Ballet class have dramatically improved their once arched spines, lopsided hip placement and relaxed stomachs by following inventive instruction about posture during their lesson. They no longer display the casual posture of a teenage girl during their barré work within a ballet class but are gaining the control to perform the elongated and balanced posture required to present an accomplished technical dancers aiding the beautiful aesthetic line associated with ballet.
Each week a group of young teenage girls enter the spacious, rectangular hall of Power Academy of Dance, lining up at the barré ready to learn the discipline of classical ballet where they are taken on a journey of wondrous discovery of self and the marvel of the enchanting world of Classical Ballet. On Wednesday the 14th of October the young girls watched in confusion as their teacher slowly removed her inventive teaching tool from her bag, ready to introduce the students to the complex technical requirements of posture. Although at the time they were unaware of how the wooden ruler would help them comprehend what good posture means and what physical position the body had to adopt so that the ideal alignment of the body could be created. The initial response to the teaching tool was met with laughter however when the straight edge was placed down their backs one apprehensive girl at a time, it enabled the students to visualise and feel elongated position of the spine and the internal feeling of the weight placement going up and over. One at a time the teacher went along the barré giving each attentive student individual encouraging feedback by guiding their movements verbally and physically encouraging them to glue their spines to the ruler. Some were able to display a more elongated spine, secure hip placement and engaged abdominals while others struggled to maintain the position once their ruler was removed allowing their curved spine and relaxed posture to return.
Each week a group of young teenage girls enter the spacious, rectangular hall of Power Academy of Dance, lining up at the barré ready to learn the discipline of classical ballet where they are taken on a journey of wondrous discovery of self and the marvel of the enchanting world of Classical Ballet. On Wednesday the 14th of October the young girls watched in confusion as their teacher slowly removed her inventive teaching tool from her bag, ready to introduce the students to the complex technical requirements of posture. Although at the time they were unaware of how the wooden ruler would help them comprehend what good posture means and what physical position the body had to adopt so that the ideal alignment of the body could be created. The initial response to the teaching tool was met with laughter however when the straight edge was placed down their backs one apprehensive girl at a time, it enabled the students to visualise and feel elongated position of the spine and the internal feeling of the weight placement going up and over. One at a time the teacher went along the barré giving each attentive student individual encouraging feedback by guiding their movements verbally and physically encouraging them to glue their spines to the ruler. Some were able to display a more elongated spine, secure hip placement and engaged abdominals while others struggled to maintain the position once their ruler was removed allowing their curved spine and relaxed posture to return.
This new method of teaching introduced the technical concept of posture in a new and charismatic way, enabling the students to visualise what they are trying to achieve. From a young age children are taught technique through association, they are told to stand up tool and effective imagery is vocalised “stand like princess”, “make sure you don’t burn your bottom or your nose in the toaster” and “don’t let me see those banana backs” instead of using technical jargon
In each forth- coming lesson the girls were reminded at every opportunity to exert the same stance that they experienced in that first lesson and to concentrate on this in all of the exercises. Gentle prods of verbal encouragement were given when a student relaxed their posture and through this repetition of movement the student’s posture technique has vastly improved enabling the students to perform the set arrangements with grace, composure and confidence. The continuation of the development of this elongated extension of the spine, the equalised structure of the plane of the hip bones, the intense involvement of the abdominal muscles, the relaxation of the shoulders and the internal sensation of the weight dispersing up through the body and projecting over has given the students the basic tool to accomplish any of the divinely stunning ballet choreography.
In each forth- coming lesson the girls were reminded at every opportunity to exert the same stance that they experienced in that first lesson and to concentrate on this in all of the exercises. Gentle prods of verbal encouragement were given when a student relaxed their posture and through this repetition of movement the student’s posture technique has vastly improved enabling the students to perform the set arrangements with grace, composure and confidence. The continuation of the development of this elongated extension of the spine, the equalised structure of the plane of the hip bones, the intense involvement of the abdominal muscles, the relaxation of the shoulders and the internal sensation of the weight dispersing up through the body and projecting over has given the students the basic tool to accomplish any of the divinely stunning ballet choreography.
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