dance lesson

Exersises performed today.

Warm up: The first part of the warm up is mobility; this is circulation of the joints and the adduction and abduction of the arms and legs. The purpose of this is to increase production of synovial fluid located between joints to reduce friction. This is important, as this will increase efficiency of the joint and increase mobility. An example of this will be shoulder rolls. It’s a gradual increase of movement from still essentially preparing the joints for movement.

Pulse raiser: Next we introduce a pulse raiser to our body this is larger movements that will increase the heart rate. By doing this more oxygen is supplied to the muscles and organs to cope with an increase of body movement. This increases the temperature of the muscles and reduces the chance of injury. As muscles are warm injuries are less apparent as your body is now prepared for strenuous activities. It is important that warm ups be specific to the activity, so that the muscles to be used are activated. The risks and benefits of combining stretching with warming up are disputed, although it is generally believed that warming up prepares the athlete both mentally and physically. An example of this is walking around the room and then later progressing into a jog. 

Stretching: Stretching is the next stage in a warm up this loosens the muscles here are some reasons as to why stretching is an important part of a warm up.

       To reduce muscle tension

       To increase Range of Motion

       To increase circulation of blood

       To increase energy levels

To decrease your risk of injury!

An example of a stretch is as simple of reaching down to your toes with straight legs. This stretch is for the hamstrings.

In the next part of the lesson we focused on our technique. This involved corner work, traveling across the dance studio. This helped get us back into the swing of things but it also highlighted how easily your technique can decrease over summer. I found my kicks were not as high as I had not been stretching as regularly as before. An example of an exercise we did was step turn leap turn. This helps us work on our spotting, flexibility and core. Our spotting is used to keep us in a straight line when we turn down the room. It helps us stop falling over and reduces our levels of dizziness. Our flexibility is tested during our leaps as we have to use this skill to perform a leap. This is the separation of the legs in opposite directions and tests all your leg muscles such as: hamstrings, quadriceps and gastrocnemius. Our core (abdominal muscles) are used to keep us upright and maintain a solid posture. Our core is very important in dancing and sometimes this goes unrecognized.

The final part of our lesson we did a cool down. This involved walking around the room at a reduced pace. By doing this it allows our heart rate to reduce to normal gradually which is safer than just stopping all exersise immediately, it also allows our muscles to cool down which is important to stop fatigue the next day.

Presentation Evalutaion

Evaluation of my Presentation

I feel my presentation was to a very high standard however there were certain areas that were perceived as being weak. One strength was my content, I feel that I properly researched my topic of how stress can be reduced by dance, I went in depth scientifically and socially. I included the picture of the brain in the second slide to show my audience where the hormone cortosil was released (pituary gland). Furthermore I explained how dance can help all age groups and gave a broad examples to show dance isn’t just experienced by younger people.

On the other hand I do feel that technology weakened my presentation. I have never been good at using computers and if I had asked someone to help possibly this area would have been strengthened. I wasn’t able to present my slide as a power point like other students because my college email was down, there for so I was able to display my work I screen shotted the slides and put it on my dance blog. As a result of this I could not flick through slides with ease I had to scroll down and it was apparent the slides because of this were too small for the audience to read. Luckily I had rehearsed my presentation a lot prior to the display and was able to say my key points with only the slides there to prompt me. Although this displayed un-organisation it did however prove to my assessor that I had done my research and was in other areas very prepared for this lesson.

I felt that my speech was clear and loud and the audience could understand what I was saying. I know this because eye contact was maintained through out and I didn’t witness anybody fidgeting or looking at the time. Given how I presented my work I did display nerves and I was playing with my hands and my body structure showed how I felt. I often fidget with my hands as a distraction from the audience as my confidence is quite low. Generally I have low self confidence when presenting to classes and I do not feel that this was because I was under rehearsed.

For future presentations I will invest in a memory stick so I will not have to rely on emails to display my work. I will continue to also upload my work onto my dance blog as a backup to future technology faults. 

Dance workshops summer

Summer dance workshops

For the next six weeks of the summer holidays I will be continuing my current dance classes at D.T.A.A up until my class breaks up for summer. I will be attending on a Thursday a 30 minute stretch class. The purpose of this is to increase my muscular strength and flexibility in all muscles and joints such as my spine, hamstrings, neck, abdominals, gluteal’s. I find these classes to be very useful for me imparticular as they allow me to improve my technique. I can focus on my areas of improvement in these half hour sessions. I also on a Thursday participate in a one hour street dance class. These are also very useful to me as it helps me pick up choreography every week we add on to an existing dance or create a new one. I do however sometimes feel that these lessons aren’t very challenging and are slightly repetitive because I have been in that class for 5 years and I am now one of the oldest students. The younger students that have just moved up from junior street dance are 11 and 12 there fore subsequently haven’t been dancing for as large period of time. I feel that whenever new students do arrive we do dip down back into basics which is good for the new students but not for me as I feel it does nothing to improve my technique or performance.

•Furthermore also with D.T.A.A on Saturdays I participate in fourty five Minuit modern lessons. I have just moved up a grade and am now in Intermediate modern which is very challenging and new. I like this as I find flaws in my technique and movements I am not able to perform, in the first week this made me feel upset however after practise inside and outside of lessons by the fourth week I had seen a dramatic improvement in my technique and was able to do moves I previously couldn’t. This gave me a lot of self esteem and satisfaction which also increased my levels of confidence.  In addition on Saturdays I also take part in one hour tap lessons. This is by far my most enjoyable class with D.T.A.A because I can truly be in my element. When my tap shoes are on I feel free and truly like a dancer. I think its because I have been doing tap classes since I was 5 and now I am fully comfortable in myself to know I am not bad at it. During these last six lessons we went back to the advanced two syllabus work which was interesting. Because we had been doing show work for the last year I didn’t expect to remembered any of the set phrases however I surprised myself and knew the majority of the steps.

 •I went to a summer work shop set up by my previous dance school. It was a contemporary work shop however I did not feel it was enjoyable at all. Usually I like contemporary but this was very ballet like and myself am not a fan of ballet. Although I didn’t enjoy it I did gain a lot from the work shop. And this was that I need to keep my hips tucked under. I also learnt that my calves are too tight for me to plea low and it is impossible for me to plea correctly because of this. I also have very minimal turn out so my side kicks should but more diagonal than straight out to the side.

dance summer homework