new dancer

[cymea]

I am sorry if this is in the wrong thread area.

I have just started ballet lessons and I was wondering if there are any helpful hints/tips to help me along the way thanks

Edited August 23, 2005 by cymea

[Victoria Leigh]

Hello cymea, and welcome to Ballet Talk for Dancers

 

I really would not know where to start with "hints" without being able to see you, especially since you are just beginning. For now, just work hard in classes, and try to take as many classes as you can. Don't practice anything at home until you have enough training to be very sure of what you are doing. Floor exercises, like things for abs and gentle stretching of the hamstrings, working on the feet, etc., can be done at home. Get yourself a Theraband and learn how to work with that to improve your feet. They can be useful for other stretching exercises too.

[Guest SammyAnn]

To improve in dance (or anything, for that matter) you have to work hard and pay attention in class. Like Victoria Leigh said, you should probably do some stretching and stuff at home to better your dancing. But before you do anything like stretching, you should go to a search engine and research stretches and how to stretch properly.

 

I hope that you have fun!

[Victoria Leigh]

Actually what I said, SammyAnn, was that she should LEARN the stretches from a teacher. Young Dancers do not need to do stretches before they go to class and learn how to do them properly, and researching them online is not the way to learn them.

[aletheia146]

When I first started pointe, my mom was afraid that I would hurt myself, so she got me a used book online called Dance Technique & Injury Prevention. It's got a lot of stuff on anatomy, injuries, nutrition, and different exercises and stretches. It can get a little scary with pictures and all in the injuries section, but it's a great book.

[Guest aenergizerbunni3]

what is a theraband?

[Victoria Leigh]

It's a long piece of stretchy rubber, about 5 or 6" wide, in varying strengths, depending on the color. It's used to create resistance in stretching exercises.

[Guest jballet]

In a dance class that I assistant teach in we use therabands. The girls are older beginners and use the red ones. The other teacher and I use gray. The other day we were talking and could not remember which color is the strongest, do you know?

[Guest qqqqqq111222]

The strengths of the different colors depends on which company manufactures them. The "Thera-Band" brand therabands use the following system, from least resistance to most resistance: tan, yellow, red, green, blue, black, silver, gold.

[luv2dance515]

Another stretching idea, but check with your teacher first:an innertube for a bike is great. You know those things you put inside the tire when it's popped? You can get them at bike shops or sometimes hardware stores. They're very cheap and come in all different sizes, but they stretch you legs and extensions really well. Pm me if you can't figure out how to use it.

 

PS: If you're wondering about size, I'm five one and a 27 inch one works for me, so that could give you an idea. Happy Dancing!