Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there.

Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Fall in love.

Dancers' Inner Counting Voice

An interesting observation from Rodrigo Ramalho via Jaime Aroxa: The way you count the music out loud is the way you dance! I've been fascinated by this idea recently in classes and have noticed it when teaching as well.

I'm bringing more conscious awareness of counting voice to all my dance classes. And my own internal counting voice when dancing.

If I count like those dance teacher memes it's great. If I am not thinking of the moves in my head and I am just counting pedantically the students can't even do the choreo. If I count as just noises it works pretty well.

It also works well for me for learning combos. Sometimes I need the numerical count as well, but a lot of times I can "feel" if the count comes to eight without any numbers. I guess there are some common patterns and accents.

It's like we are our own conductors, but instead of gestibulating with a stick we are using our internal voice.

It was very interesting taking 3 classes in a row last night from 3 different Ramalho siblings and seeing how yes indeed they each dance how they vocalize! Dancing with each of them, I tried using their voice to count in my head. So cool and fun to try and channel different people.

When we learn to dance with a partner on the same wavelength, dancing on the same vocal wavelength is an interesting parallel or "way in" to dancing on the same emotional/dramatic level. It's another level of depth for the dance/languge analogy, and perhaps an easier "way in" for speech communicators trying to understand how to relate to a partner, for those good at the practice of reading other people's affect through their voices from birth.

Val and Vanessa used this concept in the Canada teacher training with the "tigirigirigiri" hips.

It's what I find lacking in one of my ballet teachers. It's part of what I loved about some of my favorite ballet teachers.

I tend to watch a lot of dance videos with the sound off. Sometimes I make my own internal "song" for the dancers, and lots of times I am surprised by the voice the dancers chose to bring to that song.

Rambling and Revelations

This is a bit rambling so skip if you don't enjoy rambling.

The miracle of theory! My theory of body (specifically the core) underwent a paradigm shift since Tuesday and I have so much to show for it! Dance is a physical thing. A physical thing is a mechanical thing. But sometimes to get the mechanical things to work, we need imagination! We need concepts. We need theories. We need imagination to make the mechanisms go.

Thank you so much to Mia Morissette. I took a several-month break from (exertive) physical activities and I forgot how to do hold my core comprehensively. You don't know how big a deal this is or how impossibly hard it makes something as simple as brushing your foot from standing out to a point. I knew I was burning out the wrong muscles but I was spot correcting the places on my spine I knew were off. I was trying to keep my ribcage from jutting, and I was working hard on keeping my ears up so my head wouldn't jut forward.

I teach putting a fireball under and behind the belly button all the time but I had my fireball too high and working hard didn't feel right. The right things were engaging. My body wasn't a concert. Everything wasn't in unison. Anyway, I LOVE this idea of the skinny red thread of desire fountaining up through the tip of my head after travelling through my entire body.

Apparently the red thread is a martial arts thing, among other things. I use it to talk about our axis of gravity for balance and rotation a lot but never as a desire center or as a fountain! Right now I am seeing how Jeremy Halementioned this in relation to our base and how he may have gotten it from modern dancers who may have gotten it from Aikido, and how Ry'el Zenzouktalks about putting our thoughts about a foot above our heads to get to the stretch- tall-storky-air-lamba-body-posture and how Jaime Arôxa & Kiri Chapman talk about movement coming from verbalizing noises as emotions from our guts, and how it's all the same conceptualizaton but a little different.

From Mia (who got it from rolfing and pilates and ballet, perhaps?) I am thinking of everything concentrated to a point down in my pelvis cavity bowl, and the thread pulling up and me growing taller. It's not my imagination but more people are smiling at me on the street after catching my eye, and daring to look me in the face. (It could also be that I am wearing a dress).

I feel like there is so much I still don't understand and I look forward to the day when I am 200 and looking at my 30s like I was a toddler then who didn't undertand my body. I am looking at these twiggy adolescents in ballet class with me now that it's summer break and they have such great understandings of their bodies, more than I did at that age with that twigginess.

I feel like I'm getting so strong but it's kind of silly because it's been literally 2 days since I was feeling like I was working hard but working wrong and not able to hold my core. So I know it's a mental shift.

It's not even that I can do "more." Not more pirouettes or something. It's that I am doing everything better. More balance. More straight. Extensions feel stronger. My ankle isn't wobbling. Frappes are more turned out. Retire and coupe are more turned out while en eleve. I don't feel like I have to place my arms as much, I feel like they are naturally floating. I don't have to try to adjust and engage when I'm trying to balance--I'm already there. It's not even that my balance is suddenly everlasting on a dime. I'm where I was before, but I feel like this is the jumping off point to be better. I'm more confident beating my jumps. Yes I guess it is literally thinking of having a stick up your butt!

The body has a memory, especially for touch.

The body has a memory, especially for touch.

Thinking about how Mia Morissette stuck her gloved hand into the roof of my mouth and pulled up to get me to feel where the top of my spine could be and how it should feel. She did it for a few seconds two days ago but I don't have to think hard at all to remember the feeling and pull myself up by the roof of my mouth (where the bony palate meets the soft, if you're interested in doing this to yourself).

Thinking about how Levar Burton climbed up a 1000 foot adventure pole and jumped to a trapeze 10 feet away from the top before breakfast. After breakfast one of the adventure park employees told him to do it blindfolded because his body had the memory and he could do it. He did the climb and the leap of faith and he caught the trapeze based on that one time before.

Thinking about traumas inflicted. Thinking about how a physical touch done long ago can wave out keep the pain flaying on its wavelength varietal years later. Thinking of how a repeated repeated repeated repeated friendly and positive touch on that wavelength is what's needed as the antitode. Thank you Mic Lee for your patience. It's a hard time coming.

Thinking about stretching and how stretching the muscles in isolation (like just letting them dangle from endpoint to endpoint in thin air) doesn't feel nearly as wholesome or helpful as when I stroke my hand down my leg trying to release the muscle. Thinking of Thai Massages in Bangkok when I was the most flexible I've ever been. Thinking of how circus physios say passive stretching is really not the way to go.

Thinking of how I fall in love with each person I social dance with at a congress from the first moment so my emotional core will be motivating my movement, and how this seems at odds with the stuck techniques I've been trying to stick my body into, and how disparate they feel right now, and how oh how can they ever meld together? I know it will suck a lot until it gets better. It's so easy to do what's already good...

How does all of the above relate to what I know about how to hold the core and how to operate my body from an emotional center? So said Ida Rolf as paraphrased by Mia Morisette: The peripheral body is the fascia and the mechanical event of the animal. The core is the emotional and energetic event. In zouk we connect these to each other. Everything moves from the red thread of desire. Jose the ballet teacher tells me I need to move my entire body together, and with power. I know this is what he is talking about. Every discipline I've done so far has said this same thing in different ways. All actions need to be taken with your soul. You know it's with your soul if it gives you a good feeling. Physical actions and decision actions. They are not really so different.

Maybe it will all come together some time.

The Core of Everyting! And, Fountain Head

I really like ballet in the summer. We have the June warm summer rains and my muscles aren't chilly. There are visitors and teenagers in class on their vacations.

And, I have hereby corrected my dissonance on my theory of arm technique (see my post from Tuesday). Tuesday Miss Aya told me my arms were too far back. Today they were forward and I was using Mia Morisette's posture visualizations and gosh darn if I wasn't on balance better than ever! Ok, so, here are some things. Arms should always be spoking energy out. Always lifting up from elbows. ALWAYS LIFTING ELBOWS ALWAYS AND ALWAYS FORWARD. And from the upper back. Even when en attitude derriere. Even when opening arms from high 5th into a V. Ok but the catch is, you can't lift your arms forward, your arms need to be separate from the body as far as the red thread of balance, otherwise it'll throw you off. So the arms are rooted in the back, float and giving forward and up and outward (esp tricky when floating down), and they are not affecting your balance. AND the arms are giving forward and not locking into your back and you are not drawing your upper back back to do things like get a higher arabesque. No no no. Arms and entire thread of core must be lifting and fountaining the ENTIRE time. Fountainhead. Not just when you are trying to do difficult things like balance one leg or with your leg raised or spinning. All the time! This sounds so stupidly simple and obvious but it's really hard work. Mentally and physically. I was tending to work really hard during things like plie but then let things slide a little during things like rond de jamb or tombe pas de bouree and then I would try to set myself during the pirouette but duh of course I wasn't THERE because I wasn't working hard enough to be long and tall and I wasn't lifting my elbows enough from my back.

Also, when balancing, remember that you are contained in a tiny box about the size of you. You must not put your energy and awareness out into the field. You must not allow your body to see that being outside of your box is a possibility! Try it. works so well for me.

Also really helpful for extensions: Grip with the toes of the standing leg. All that "push down" business doesn't help me as much as gripping with the toes!

I had saved this for myself to help me teach awhile ago. But I think the cyclone core with the red thread, the pelvic floor, the tubules stretching down the front of hips that you can slide up and down on, the roof of mouth, the tip of head fountain, is my favorite visualization eve
.

Stand holding a wall or a barre while doing the standard ballet first position. The posture is “built' from deep inside the lower core, which is always lightly drawn in-and-up so that the “outer body' (shoulders, legs, arms) can be free to move with fluidity and ease.
Hold the arm that is not holding the bar in porte de bras position—slightly curved, shoulder down, kind of like leaving a little bit of air in your armpit. Your weight should be distributed evenly across the feet with an awareness that the big toe mound, the pinky toe mound, and the heel equally contact the floor.
Tucking your tailbone slightly, and keeping your chin lifted, bend your legs only at the knees into a plié, and then lift onto the balls of your feet into a relevé while straightening your knees. The crown of the head should actively ascend in conjunction with—and as a reflection of—the work of the core. Feeling a gentle lift up the backs of the ears is helpful for aligning the head.
Repeat, moving your arms through the five positions of ballet, and then change sides. The position of the pelvis is crucial to facilitating posture and the work of the core. Tailbone should be neutral, releasing gently down between the heels (neither arching back nor tucked forward). The fronts of the hip bones should feel like they are wide and moving apart from one another. This will make space for the lower core to lightly draw in and up.

Dancer Hack for Stinky Shoes

Dancer hack for stinky shoes: I dollop some peppermint oil inside my ballet shoes after every class and shove them back in their semi breathable dance bag (it came with my supadance ballroom heels). I used to have shoes so stinky my mother wouldn't allow them in the main cabin of the car, they had to ride in the trunk. Now I can stick my nose to my shoe and only smell mint, no funk. FYI my other pair of ballet shoes I keep in a fully breathable net mesh dance bag smell stinky even though I dab oil on them too, so you may need to keep them in a bag. Eucalyptus and Lavender oil seem to work, too.

Notes from HCB Summer Evening Class

Honolulu Classical Ballet started a summer evening open class and I checked it out--it was tall and ancient me plus five girls who haven’t hit puberty yet! (they are all really good). I loved that they all practiced every correction given to every person. I felt kind of awkward since I am like half a foot taller than all of them but wasn’t I just walking past the studio on 8th Ave wondering if I could join the teenager’s advanced classes? Bonus points for the teacher being my favorite sparkly man teacher. Imagine a jolly bald ballet professor with beautiful turnout splashing out synonyms and tugging the class along with anecdotes, jokes, idioms and all kinds of fun! I wish I could write down every correction and little speech he gives in between exercises. Here are some things I remember or need to do and things I loved about the class:

For Grande Allegro, he demonstrated a thing and said “rond de jamb.”  I was like, “So, is the feeling like a fan kick?” “Actually it is exactly like a fan kick!” OMG I always loved fan kicks in jazz and they are sooo not classical ballet but it was so fun to do paired with balance’ (perhaps my favorite ballet step), rotate, do it again! 

Hang your spine like a classroom skeleton. Stack all the bones. Everything else goes DOWN. But the hook in your head is hanging your bones like a model skeleton! (yesterday in rehearsal I told my dancers to hang themselves like Christmas Ornaments :)) 

Turn out working leg in coupe

As I always say, be ready already, so you don’t have to get ready when it’s too late! (for balancing).

You can do tendus on the music and be correct. Or you can use your punctuation! Is there anything between a period and an exclamation point? No? That’s silly. You either just end yoru sentence or you SHOUT!? This exercise is between a period and an exclamation mark. 

For a slow tendus and the plie sandwiched by them: The plie is looking chintzy. Do you know what chintzy is? Chintzy is when you pay $5 and they give you a sample scoop of ice cream. I want the whole luscious scoop of ice cream! Your plie should not be like a period. Your plie should be like a comma or an ellipsis. And luscious! Juicy! Generous! (I thought he was going to say lascivious but he didn’t) Delicious! Oops that’s a food word. Luscious! And begin. 

Every tendu and rond de jamb a tierre you want to dig a trench in the sand with your toe. 

4th Arabesque Elonge’ should be your faaaavorite favorite because you get to twist and show your back! 

For petite allegro, the feet should be like waves not like stiff static.

Grand port de bras needs to start down front! That is the best most laziest most easiest most dramatic part!

He assigns all these pretty and unusual arms that are almost contemporary. Like jugglers pulling tissues.  And these walking tendus in plie that were like Balanchine when we got to extend our hips to elongate our legs. And pirouettes in a la seconde. (oh wow I just googled “alicicon” and got no results before I realized I knew how to spell it..I am like an uneducated French ballet baby!)

#DanceTeacherGoals

Attitude & Communication During Partner Dance Practice

The approach will make the landing! What are your expectations? Think before you get into the space.
Do you talk about what you are noticing while you’re dancing, or talk about it afterwards? Both are good & lead to different results.

Go for neutral & constructive language 

Use exploratory & questioning language to talk to each other. You are here to support each other in your dance practice.

Sentences that work well

• What did you expect there? 
• That didn’t seem to quite work, what were you trying to do? 
• I felt x. What did you feel? 
• Is there something I could be doing differently? 
• Read: Not saying “what am I doing wrong?”
• Notice, Feel, Huh, What?, Different, Why?

Feedback “Trees” & “Seeds”

Trees are things that you are already really good at. Seeds are things that need a little nurturing and will eventually turn into trees. It sounds super cheesy, but it’s actually a pretty awesome way to talk to your friends.

Working on Trees. Find cool stuff.

• I like that! Let’s do that again. 
• Do the thing intentionally and with quality. Make it even better. 
• Diversify/find new things
• Find new ways of doing the same things. 
• Oo! What if we did this here? What if you went around instead of straight?
• Change a small thing and see what happens.

Working on Seeds. Making stuff better.

• I didn’t quite feel comfortable in that one part/it was surprising for me. Can you repeat that?Follow/lead it in several different ways. See what is interesting. Talk about it.
• That doesn’t seem to be working for me - why do you think that is? Do you notice something I could be doing differently?

Be Present

• Treat studio space & practice time as sacred - you don’t get to do this very often. 
• Stay present in the moment. 
• Try to keep discussions shorter and to the point. Nix tangents not related to what you’re working on.

I adapted these gems from a doc originally by Emilio Estevez & Flouer Evelyn At Recess Massive 2016.