Maintain the alignment by feeling a reach through the top of the head (not the chin) through the entire jump.Odette is a tall, attractive woman with dark brown hair with a widow’s peak tied in a low bun, blue eyes an pink lips. Many student dancers seem to crumple as they land (making it harder to rebound into another jump if necessary). However, the whole leg is involved and should arrive at the floor extended, rather than bent to provide the most cushioning.Īlignment should also stay in tact on the landing. Articulating the feet is vitally important in landing a jump. I’m sure your teachers have all cried out “Toe, ball, heel!” at least once during a jumping exercise. Try these images and see what works for you! This gives a nice idea of the downward force needed to shoot your body up into the air and, like the harness image, encourages the feeling of lift from beneath the pelvis. I also like the image of attaching rocket boosters to your sit bones. Sounds embarrassing? Maybe, but they don’t forget the image!) Does it make a difference? (If imaginations aren’t enough, I have been known to have students lace their hands between their legs, one arm back and one arm front, and actually give themselves a lift as they jump. That is the web of muscle and tendons at the base of the pelvis between your sit bones (ischial tuberosity), tailbone (coccyx), and pubic bone. So, in order to get yourself off the ground let’s try to imagine a harness supporting and lifting the pelvis from underneath.Why do you suppose that is? (go ahead, think about it!).When a rock wall climber is harnessed and attached to ropes and pulleys in order to get him/her off the ground, what part of the body is the harness supporting?.To aid you in your sauté, I’m now going to pretend you are my students. This tension is not effective in getting good height so, as a teacher, I try to re-direct my students’ focus to other parts of the body. To strengthen the muscles of the feet, practice good foot articulation (like articulating syllables in a word, you want to articulate each action of the foot when “rolling through”) in tendu, dégagé (tendu jeté), other battement, and relevé will strengthen the feet for both taking off and landing in a jump.įurther resistance training with exercise bands can also be done as homework outside of class.Ī mistake many dancers make is bringing tension into the shoulders, arms, and neck as they leave the ground.
In the book, Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance, Eric Franklin encourages you to imagine your feet extending and piercing the sand beneath your toes as you jump into the air. For height and power, it may be helpful to imagine your legs in plié as a coiled spring ready to release straight into the air.Īs the legs lengthen and the body is leaving the ground, remember that vertical height is greatly increased when the feet roll sharply through to pointed toes beneath the pelvis. The ankles (or, more correctly the tarsus) should not roll in or sickle before or during lift off and there should be a feeling of widening and lengthening through the feet and toes so that the whole foot (including the heel) is used for optimum leverage. And, a quality plié is defined by not only the action of the legs but also by its supporting base (the feet). The quality of your jump is only as good as the plié that proceeds it. The centre is strong and active so that the rest of the body can stay connected without added tension. This does not mean you should be stiff like a pogo stick when you jump. What keeps the stones in alignment is a strong core. This slows the jump and reduces its height. When one stone is out of place, a horizontal element is added to an otherwise vertical force. In vertical jumping, especially, it helps to imagine stacking your body parts (the head, the torso, the pelvis, the knees, the feet) on top of one another like stacking stones. Proper alignment is key in quality jumping. I’m going to focus mainly on vertical jumping ( sauté) in this post, although many of these principles can also be applied to traveling jumps or leaps, like grand jeté for example. Sorry, but never fear, I can give you some pointers that will help you as you practice those jumps. What’s the secret recipe that will improve your jumping skills?įor the most part the secret to jumping is not so secret, it is the same hard work that goes into most everything in dance: proper alignment, solid technique, and practice, practice, practice!
Vertically Challenged: Improving Your Jumps
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