Ballet Dance Lesson
The Technical Skills you HAVE to know!

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On this page are the technical skills a dancer needs in order to be successful. In every ballet dance lesson your teacher will most likely be focusing on teaching you these skills.

The skills I'm about to describe to you are physical, meaning they are skills YOUR body has to physically do.

To find out the performing skills which you can mentally achieve click here

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Lets focus on the technical side of things first; this would be looking at the following skills - 

Posture, Balance, Alignment, Co-Ordination, Elevation Strength, Stamina, Flexibility, Mobility 

Posture

Alignment of the spine

Good posture is an important factor for every person, but for dancers it is a crucial part of their training. It will help sustain the correct spinal alignment. It's important throughout every ballet dance lesson you maintain the correct posture. With good training, it will eventually just become a natural skill which you won’t even need to think about. 

Balance

Correct weight placement

Dancers have incredible balance. This falls into place with having the correct posture which will enable you to have a strong core stability, allowing balancing to be effortless.

Alignment

Having two body parts being in a line with each other

As well having correct body alignment, the expression alignment is also seen as part of a dancer’s technique. This would mean having the knees over the toes when in a demi plie, or keeping the leg in front of you when in a tendu devant. This makes a ballet dancer's overall technique more clean and precise. 

Co-ordination

When the body does two things at once

This skill is important to every dancer. Having accurate co-ordination will let each movement come easier, it will help secure those challenging steps. There's a lot of multi-tasking for dancers because all at once they have to think about what each part of their body is doing - arms, legs, feet, head .... everything!!

Elevation

Reaching a higher level

This is the ability of a dancer to attain height in jumps. Some dancers naturally have a higher jumps than others. It is a valuable quality for dancers to have good elevation and can make you stand out from the crowd.

Strength

Physical power and energy

Being strong and having strength is something you can't just pull off in a day. Strength takes time to build up. It isn't just the number of repetitions that increase the strength but the high loads, such as holding the leg in extension.

Stamina

The ability to sustain physical exercise

Every dancer needs a lot of stamina in order to last through all those vigorous ballet dance lesson and lengthy performances. You'll find that as your stamina increases you will feel a lot better about yourself because it will no longer be a struggle to finish a tiring grand allegro or a challenging solo.

Flexbility

Mobility in the joints and elasticity of muscles

You will see that practically all dancers are flexible. It comes naturally to some dancers but for the majority of us it seems to be something we have to really work for. Flexibility is a feature that is needed in so many ballets and choreography, you won't go to see a ballet without noticing their flexibility and suppleness.  

Mobility

The ability to move or be moved freely and easily

Every dancer has very mobile joints which includes the feet, ankles and the hip joint. With all the training that we do, our bodies naturally become very versatile. We can adjust to all sorts of positions which ordinary people would find impossible.

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