This giveaway is now closed.
Our second giveaway of the day comes from The Body Series.
The Body Series provides educational material to the dancer and dance teacher to maximize their technique while minimizing the potential for injury.
The BodySeries.com is a natural progression of Deborah Vogel’s teaching, coaching, and medical experience. Working in New York and running a free dancer’s clinic with Dr. Richard Bachrach gave her years of practical experience putting together injuries and concerns with inefficient movement patterns.
Deborah has danced from an early age and has taught dance at the college level since the late 1970’s. “I understand the dancer’s world, with it’s unique demands, from the inside,” Deborah says, “and my goal is to give dancers and dance teachers the tools and skills they need to create change.”
When Dance Advantage arose as a platform for my thoughts on dance and teaching, I knew I wanted to spread the word about The Body Series and I’m proud to be an affiliate as well. I am quite sure, if you’ve been following Dance Advantage for any reasonable length of time, you have seen The Body Series mentioned before. I have followed Deborah’s Dancing Smart newsletter for *gulp* years now (long before she shifted her anatomy and injury Q&A to her blog).
You can subscribe to her newsletter, too. It’s free! (Just scroll down the sidebar at thebodyseries.com and enter your name and email) Discovering her work, if you haven’t before, will make you a winner already!
What we’re giving away:
Deborah would like to give away the Essential Anatomy Multimedia Course (value $149) to ONE lucky Dance Advantage reader.
Essential Anatomy is the only multimedia anatomy course that talks you through an area of the body, animating it visually, with included stretches and strengtheners to better your range of motion as well as flexibility and strength. The course comes directly from Deborah’s 22 years of experience teaching a functional anatomy course.
Dancers and dance teachers don’t need to know the name of every muscle in the body. They DO need to understand the important relationship between muscles and the alignment of the body. This is an efficient way to learn important anatomical principles and it’s easy to understand. Essential Anatomy is being used by Cecchetti USA as the required anatomy component for teacher certification.
As part of my bachelor of arts degree in dance, I took a kinesiology course. Like Essential Anatomy, the class and my textbook by Sally Fitt took me on a tour of my body, and more importantly, my dancing body. It may have been the most significant class of my college career, improving my dancing and my teaching with an affect like rippling waves; I’m still riding them. I haven’t made it through all 10 units (hours of material) on this 2-CD set but watching it is clearly accessing the essentials of Deborah’s college course right there on your computer. I picture, and I hope you can too, teachers and even students gathering to watch, learn, and discuss. The animations and video clips, plus conditioning and teaching tips make Essential Anatomy an invaluable resource for teachers and studios and it’s not nearly as heavy as my textbook!
The video below is an excerpt from the Knee Unit of Essential Anatomy:
Essential Anatomy’s video files require Quicktime, which can be downloaded for free online.
Dance studios, teachers, and students will benefit from having this learning tool on hand!
Enter to win:
Place a comment at this post, answering the question: What is the dance correction, statement, or “teacher-ism” you would most like explained anatomically?
The ever-popular “lift your leg from underneath?” Deb — and I — have both talked about that one.
Hold your arms from your back? Lift up? Get on top of your leg? We want to know!
This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canada contestants and will close Sunday, November 14.
Best wishes! I hope you win.
Nichelle Suzanne is a writer specializing in dance and online content. She is also a dance instructor with over 20 years experience teaching in dance studios, community programs, and colleges. She began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. As a Houston-based dance writer, Nichelle covers dance performance for Dance Source Houston, Arts+Culture Texas, and other publications. She is a leader in social media within the dance community and has presented on blogging for dance organizations, including Dance/USA. Nichelle provides web consulting and writing services for dancers, dance schools and studios, and those beyond the dance world. Read Nichelle’s posts.
I would love a better explanation for a contraction. I did it with my class today and although I gave them alignment cues and imagery, they still do not get the concept.
As a teacher, I’m always trying to instruct my students on proper placement for arabesque. It’s a difficult position! The hips are to be slightly opened to the audience but not so as to be torqued, the standing hip is pulled up and the working hip is “dropped”, not lifted up into the ribs.
This multimedia course looks great!!! What a fantastic FREEBIE!!!
Pointe!! My 7 year old daughter gets frustrated because her ballet teacher is always yelling at them to pointe their feet and she says, ” I am pointing!” Maybe if this process was anatomically explained, she would have a better understanding of what was expected from her!
I would like to know how to “lift up on my legs” and also how to extend a high arabesque from underneath, using the inner thigh instead of the back & buttocks. I love freebies, too.
I would love to have the ‘don’t sit in your hips’ correction explained! It’s always one of those corrections you think you’ve done right, until the teacher comes around to truly correct your posture! Yay freebies!
Anatomically, how do you extend energy out of your gesture leg (développés, grand rond de jambes) so that it appears longer and lighter. I hear this and I end up gripping too much.
As an adult ballet student one of the many corrections I receive frequently, and just can’t quite visualize or implement, is to not “tuck under” but to not have a “sway back” either. Also,”using the floor” to be grounded and ready for jumps, etc. while at the same time being light and lifted. I seem to float around without using the floor and then do not have enough power and “push off” to execute jumps, leaps, and turns. The Body Series would be a great addition to my dance resources and tools! I love freebies!
How about “settle in the hip”? I’ve figured it out, but only visually after many years of practice. I don’t understand what happens anatomically in the pelvic cavity and spine and all those muscles around there.
Of all the freebies this is the one I most hope to win!
I would suggest “keep the hips square” when doing tendu (or glisse etc) derriere from 5th. We don’t REALLY want them square, as doing so will not optimize the turned-out line. But if then if you say OK go ahead and open up, that usually leads to a worse outcome! An article discussing the magic words/images to give the right result, along with an anatomical discussion of why the hips would generally need to open, would be great!
“don’t sit in your plié”. I know what it means but can’t figure out what to do if get to bottom of my relatively plié and have to wait to jump to stay on music. Can’t go much slower and if “sit” it is difficult to jump well.
I would like someone explain spotting to me. I love the body series. I have used the books and dvds for years. They are so helpful to make your students understand anatomically what is happening with their bodies. Deborah is phenomenal at helping students of all ages dance to their highest potential. I would love to own the multi media version of the Essential Anatomy Course. I would love a freebie anytime.
I would like somebody to explain at what point the hips need to shift when lifting the leg to the front or side. It’s much later than for an arabesque, but it still happens, and I’ve had trouble getting a good grasp on it.
I can’t tell you how invaluable this book would be for me and my students. Kinesiology seems like light years ago! I would definitely say a term I think needs to be described better is “lift up.” Yes, we want them to stand up straight but lifting up indicates so many other things.
I’d have to say “pointe from the hip.” Technically, I get it, but I know there’s more to it, and I’ve yet to really spend time understanding the connection of all of the muscles involved. I have a visual in my head that works for me, but I can never get it on paper and pass it on.
Such good suggestions! I might start with exploring a few of these comments in a Dancing Smart newsletter. Thanks, everyone!
i’d love to see how best to help students who don’t have a lot of turn out or good “ballet bodies”. i have a lot of rotation in my hips and as a teacher often have a hard time trying to figure out how to help those with little hip rotation to look their personal best.
As an adult beginner I wonder what does it mean to feel like someone is “pulling you up” while going in plie. Also, how to be on your big toe, while distributing weight evenly on all the toes.
My external rotation is different in each hip, to the degree that if my hips remain square in a wide 2nd position one foot is more forward. Anatomically is it better to square myself based on keeping my feet in the same line, or squaring my hips and allowing my foot base to be different…
The Essential Anatomy Multimedia Course sounds incredible. I have followed the blog for years now. Thank you.
I have a few teachers who, in attempts to explain the turning out of the leg (in any exercise, in any position of the leg), talk about the “ice cream scoop” phenomenon, or the old fashioned barber pole – spiralling the leg in the hip socket and “presenting” the inner thigh.
I can access (and finally isolate) the external rotators, as opposed to using the entire gluteus muscles (thanks to being a subscriber to the bodyseries.com newsletter!) but I think I’m missing something in that activating the external rotators doesn’t feel like “spiralling”, “ice cream scoops”, or an old fashioned barber pole to me.
I would love to add the Essential Anatomy multimedia course to my small but growing library of “Physics and the Art of Dance” (Laws), “Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery” (Franklin), “Dance Anatomy” (Haas), and “Dance Anatomy and Kinesiology” (Clippinger). There is much value in hearing things presented in different ways – you never know what imagery or sensory input will be the one that “clicks” for us students!
I’d love to learn more about stengthening foot and ankle muscles to help
the children not sickle their feet!
Thanks,
Michele
The “teacherisms” I would most like explained are “pull up” and “ribs down”! 🙂
I would like to know what “pull up” really means
As a teacher, I am always looking for imagery to illustrate the concept of not “sitting in your hips” and how that extends to aiding in a good (well lifted/strong) develope. I LOVE the Body Series and have ordered a number of the books for my teaching library. The multi-media course looks absolutely incredible.. Here’s hoping for a wonderful addition to my collection;-0
The best thing for our students would be explaining how and what muscles are used to point the foot- I think it would make a lot more sense and be easier to instruct them.
I love freebies!!
Hyperextension–how to close a tendu (or anything) with a straight a leg, how to stand in first and fifth positions with straight legs
My question is about the the term elongate…like through the neck, the shoulders, the center back etc, in order to elongate, some muscles must relax while others will have to contract, is that correct, how then would you release the tension in those areas while elongating?
I’d like to know which muscles should be relaxed when stretching the legs to achieve a split – my teachers used to say “relax into the stretch”, so I’d like to know which muscles I should be relaxing!
Ok – mine is the correct use of your rib cage and gaze over your hand for penche and how it helps to maintain beautiful lines and balance. It is so hard for students just beginning to learn this.
I have subscribed to Deborah Vogels blogs and newletters for over a year and always find great information and helpful tips, but owning the entire program would be awesome!!!!!
I have subscribed to Deborah’s blogs for a very long time and consider her the most expert of experts when it comes to the body and how it works, and dance.
The position of the leg when it’s to the back is something that is hard to do. I’d be interested in imagery, as well, such as in “pull up”, “elongate”, “tuck under”, etc.
Being a single mom of 4 I could never afford this but I would most definitely use it consistently should I win this giveaway.
For me, personally, I’d like to learn more about the connection of the feet to the rest of the body and how to keep knees healthy as I have arthritis in both knees now. I want to keep active as I age and keep the “machine” oiled and running.
Thanks for running this contest!
i would like some ideas on how to explain keeping the proper posture…ribs closed, shoulders down, neck elongated, etc….
thanks! this looks amazing!