Finding your balance

Every dancer, especially ballerinas, have struggled with being able to balance on their toes . The ability to balance can be useful in plain balances on demi-pointe or to increase the amount of turns one can do. The key to balancing well is to find your 'center'. Your center is where your body is able to balance for many counts without shaking or falling. When practicing balances at the barre it is important to figure out the adjustments you need to make to be on your center so that when you turn, your muscles immediately remember the position that is your center.

(Please forgive my strained facial expression. Us dancers all have that one face we make when trying really hard to hold a position.)

To get on your center, your weight must be on the 'ball' of your foot meaning your ankles should be pulled up and it should not look like you are falling back on your ankles.
Next, depending on which position you are in, lean your body slightly forward or backward as a counterweight if your leg is lifted. However, if you are in arabesque or in a position where your leg is extended behind you, do not lean so far forward that you look like an ironing board.
Be sure your arms are solid, no wet noodle arms as my teacher tells us. If you are at the barre, some say it helps them a lot to slightly extend the arm closest to the barre a little farther out than their other arm if their arms are in first. Personally, this seems to help me more with the psychological aspect of balancing rather than the physical part of it.
One of my personal tips is to focus on something that is still and to eliminate the moving things from your periphery vision because that can throw you off your center s well. I also find it helpful to squeeze my butt and tighten my core because it makes me less wobbly.
I hope that these tips were helpful!

New Year's Resolutions

     With the start of the new year, many people have decided to make New Year resolutions. As a dancer, mine is to actively apply all the corrections my teacher gives me. Personally, after the teachers gives me a correction, I practice the move again, applying the correction, but I soon forget to apply it by the end of class. As a result of this, my technique will not improve as much as I would like it to. Another way to make sure you consistently apply corrections is to pay attention to each of the corrections the techers gives you and at the end of class, write them down. Before your next dance class, read the corrections again, envisioning how it felt and what it should look like to get the most out of every correction. Here's an example of some improvement in my arabesque since my spring show in 2014 to the winter show in 2014.

Spring:

Winter:

Sorry about the weird face on the last one, all dancers make their own unique (and sometimes strange) faces while they fight fatigue to continue dancing.  Since the spring, my arabesque has gotten closer to a 90 degree angle, my arch has improved, my legs became straighter, and my feet point more. I hope this post provided insight to some New years resolutions you cn do as a dancer. Happy New Year!

Holiday Performances

In honor of the holiday season, I decided to blog about my most recent ballet show called 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Here is the link to a video of me rehearsing a modern/ballet dance called Wind (it is not the dance pictured above). I loved performing this dance because I really felt the music flow through my veins and my body react to the flowing music notes. My emotions became entwined with the movement of my body and as the stage lights beamed down upon me, a sense of peace and belonging filled my heart, for there is no place I would rather be than performing on stage. I can only hope that I conveyed my passion and emotion to the audeince well enough so that they felt they were part of the equation that gave me such a rush for those few minutes. However, most dances in holiday perdormances are lighter and they are a great way for the whole family to get into the holiday spirit by supporting the fine arts. All Christmas dance shows, from the San Francisco Ballet Company's the Nutcracker to a production from any local company, are a great experience to both dancers and regular families. I hope that this season you have the opportunity to attend such performance with your family. Happy Holidays!

How To 'Glue' Your Pointe Shoes

Hi everyone, this video is a tutorial on how to 'glue' your pointe shoes.  For those of you who are new to pointe, this is a technique you definitely want to know to save you time and money.  After some time, your pointe shoes will begin to soften because the sweat from your feet breaks down the glue inside your pointe shoes that keeps them hard.  One way to make your pointe shoes last longer is to use a special glue to harden them.  You should only do this after you have broken in your new pointe shoes so they are molded perfectly to your feet when you harden them, but do not wait until your pointe shoes are almost dead to glue them.  I hope this video is helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzRAsq0XqGg

Tips for your 'attitude'

     Hello everyone, my name is Paloma Velasquez and I would like to welcome you to my blog! On this blog I will be posting tips, how to's, and other information having to do with ballet.  Some of this can be applied to other types of dance and other sports that involve flexibility and coordination.  Today I will be posting some tips for a dancer's attitude; in this case it is a position in dance, not an outlook on something.
   To begin with, all dancers know an attitude is a difficult and sometimes, awkward position to hold.  I have received many helpful tips on this position from various dance teachers so I will begin at the basics. 

  The proper shape of an attitude begins in coupe. The picture above shows the position of a proper coupe which should maintain its shape when it arrives in attitude.  To start making the muscle memory so you can achieve the perfect shaped attitude coming from any position, slowly rise your leg from coupe upwards until it reaches attitude height, keeping the same shape the whole time.

     Once your legs has reached proper height, you can begin adjusting some of the smaller details of the attitude.  Your foot should be at a slight upwards angle, or slightly 'winged'.  Also, it is important to keep your torso upright with your chest open, not hunching forward.  One of my ballet teachers who was a professional dancer advised my ballet class to hold our attitudes with out butts, not our backs.  By this, she meant we should start engaging more of the muscles in our butts and reduce the strain on our backs.  I found this to be extremely helpful, especially since my back tends to hurt a lot.
  I hope these tips were helpful!