warming up

[minty]

hello everybody !

I've a problem ; we sometimes get a substitute teacher who is quite young, and doesn't know exactly how to give a class ; her exercices are much too short, and she tends to stop after each side to give a lengthy description of the movements and of what we have to do . Now she's pregnant, she's become even worse . She's a good dancer though (she's been in the Paris Opera Ballet) nand she's very nice ; I like her as a person, but as a teacher she's terrible ;

I would like to go on going to her classes, as their timle is convenient for me and because she's nearly a friend, but I never warm up enough during her barre, and as a result and up getting hurt during centre work (I have knee problems and need a lot of warm up )

do you knwo exercices who warm you up quickly I could do before class ?

THANK YOU

[Mel Johnson]

If you have the time and space for it, you can always run through a whole barre on your own before class! Or you can run through floor barre in the dressing room or waiting room if there's no studio space.

[minty]

unfortunately the owner of our studio is a bit strange, and we don't have access to the actual studio more than ten minutes before the lesson, and we're forbidden to stretch in the changing rooms...

[Mel Johnson]

That is a bit odd, but understandable if, perhaps, the place is a little small. Sadly, there is no way to speed up pre-class warmup. Physiology is physiology, and the rules don't change from place to place or time to time.

[dido]

What about a combination of 10 minutes fast walking before you get there (either to the studio or around the building) and then take those 10 minutes in the studio before class starts to do the beginning of a barre (plie, tendu, degage, as far as you have time for)?

 

As I understand it the real "warming up" part of warm up is getting your temperature up about a degree and pushing extra blood to your muscles; the walking would do that, and then the pre-barre barre could get you more ballet-warmed up.

 

This is what I do (even though my teacher is really great about warming us up) anyway.

[lampwick]

While she's presenting you with her lengthy discourse...why not keep moving? Stretch, do fast tendu, ronde de jambes. Maybe she'll get the message that you're trying to warm yourself up? You can still look like you're paying attention too.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Why not just ask the substitute teacher about it directly, but diplomatically?

Perhaps you could present it to her in a way similar to what you said in

your post... mention that you have had knee problems, and that you need

more warmup time than you are currently getting in her class, and ask her

for her advice/suggestions. That could be the beginning of a discussion where

she might realize that she needs to improve the beginning of class, but by

formulating it in a non-adversarial way "eg: I need help warming up more in

class" instead of "you're not giving us enough warmup" you may get the changes

you need in class, and keep your relationship with her warm and cordial too.

[Xena]

A really brilliant way I found to warm the body up quite quickly is a series of stomach crunches, nice and small movements, and perhaps even some pilates style crunches. They get you really warm.

[elise]

just an idea, usually when our instructor is giving instructions for the next excercise most dancers will just "go through the motions," why not follow along with the instructions as "full out" as you can do, thus giving you a bit extra at the barre than if you waited until the music began to do the excercises.