Weekend for Little Ballerina

It rained this morning. A bit chilly but i love the morning cool breeze.
Saturday morning... started with a good cup of coffee.

My plan for today:-
Tidy up my house.
I get pretty messy when i work, my whole dining table are full of paper and books, my Sony Alpha DSL camera, moleskin notebook, and various coloured pens. My cherry red Sony laptop stand in the middle of all these chaos....=)

Rearrange my collections of ballet DVDs & music CDs... (remind myself to pack them in my teaching bag, to share the DVds with my students, i'm sure they'd like to watch)

Whatelse should i do today?
Hm... i deserve a 'do nothing day', just unwind and relax after such a hectic and busy week.=) Often time, i fall into that category of women, feeling guilty of having 'me' time. I want to change that mindset and love my body, mind and soul. We all need to rest, and time to rejuvanate.=)

ok! I'm just going to relax now, & listen to some music...

"I can't go on pointe! Help!!"

Top 8 tips to help you to get on pointe easier (& chill, it takes practise to make it work)

1) PREPARATION

First and foremost, preparation!

For you to sustain the whole 15-20mins of pointe work exercise, (usually at the end of major lessons), you need to protect your toes! Some of you might still have teachers that forbide students from using thick toe pads, they prefer minimal toe protection (i.e. thin/simple cotton wool).

I'm an advocate for proper and good toes protection (i.e. gel type toe pads). The reason why i felt so strongly about this,is because i have seen too many students not preparing their toes at the beginning, end up getting blisters, bleeding toe nails, at the very beginning of the class, not being able to be trained. Then, what is the point? They end up not being able to follow the class, and sit out for weeks.

Mind you, blisters take time to heal!!

I usually use this type of gel type toe pad for my pointe exercise. I loved them the minute i discovered them! I can go forever on pointe!


My pink gel toe pad.=)


Here are the instructions to care for gel toe pad.

2) Lift the weight off. (Seriously, think light. You are as light as a feather)

Weight should be lifted out of the pointe shoes and distributed throughout the body. Failure to lift weight away from the hips results in curled toes or clenched, instead of elongated and narrowed. Avoid sinking into those shoes, causing pain and stress to your toes.

It is worth it to loss some weight before you go on pointe. Overweight students risk placing extra pressure on their toes.

3) Stand on pointe correctly

Check if you are standing on pointe with the entire tip of the platform flatly touching the floor and your toes perpendicular to the floor. Your instep should be fully stretched to avoid foot pushed too forward.

Example of a simple exercise:-
Facing barre or practise at home facing a chair.
Foot in 1st position, slowly roll up on pointe, then bend your knee on pointe.
Now, you can feel the entire tip of your pointe shoes flat on the floor.
Stay in that entire flat tip, slowly stretch those knees, until you are on pointe with a perfect tip on the floor.

Repeat a few times.

4) Eye line helps

Beginning pointe students should learn to look up and focus at eye level. Often times, you are so concern about those toes, your eye line keep looking down. This is not going to help with your lifted weight. So, look up and smile.

Feel your work.

5) Find your centre / Balance

Rolling builds strength. Rise slowly to full pointe and roll back from the ball down through the heel, using the whole foot. The instep is developed as it raises and lowers the heel. Rise to pointe should require minimal adjustment. It should be a smooth rather than jerky feeling. While you are on pointe, find your centre (abdominal muscle) and balance. Avoid sticking your stomach out.

6) Work on both legs

By working equally on both legs avoid having develop one foot more than another. Especially, during pirouette on pointe, where some students tend to have a favor 'good' side.

Make sure you work equally on both legs.=)

7) Confidence

Besides physical strength, you have to be confidence with your ability when you are on pointe. I think that a little pinch of confidence, lift you up and it shows.

8) Attitude

You must go in to pointe class with a positive and open mind. Do not let all the horror stories of injuries scare you off before you even try. I'm not saying injuries would not happen. Start slow, listen to your teacher's instructions, do not perform steps that you are not prepared and trained for. Be patience.

Believe you can do it!

By simply believing it, you won half the battle.

Students with a right attitude, are eager to learn, they do not complaint and wind over small failures, do not stop trying.



My collection of pointe shoes...=)

OK, here are some of my tips for getting on pointe. Enjoy your pointe work!

Love, Staphanie Mun

Little Ballerina: Top 10 tips on prevention of pointe-related injuries

Little Ballerina: Top 10 tips on prevention of pointe-related injuries.

Warm-up/ Know your body

1) Always do enough warm up and stretching before class. Arriving at least 15-20min before actual class to do stretching and warm up, gives you enough range of motion to fit into stance, positions, even challenging poses. Remember, warming up and cooling down after class are crucial to longevity of a dancer’s career.

2) Always do a regular technique class before going on to a full pointe class. By doing so, it prevent frequent cause of tendonitis.

3) Floor exercise that involve stretching and working on the instep and forefoot will lessen ankle related injuries.

4) There is a misconception of wearing leg warmer, people thinks that by wearing them it will warm up muscle. So not true! So, always put them on after warming up to preserve the warmth, rather than wearing them to warm-up and then removing them.

5) Everyone has its own body type, own range of motion. Think of lengthening line to accomplish your maximum range of motion, instead of imitating someone else and risk injury.

Shoe size does matter!

6) Pointe shoe that is too short can bring great discomfort to the Achilles tendon, cause ends longer second and third toes to become pressed, resulting in corns and callous formations, or possibly to disjoint from its normal structure, which can lead to an arthritic condition. Wearing shorter shoes prevents the arch from expanding. Once the elasticity of the arch is lost, the ability to jump is lost. In addition, it also lessen a dancer’s plie. If foot contact a half inch or longer on the satin at the heel of the shoe, the size may be too short. Beware, it can cut into the back of heel when you do plie or during jumps! Shoes that are too narrow squeeze the toes and joints, pressing together might lead to toe nails ingrown or cutting into other toe.

7) Shoes that are too big lessen control of movement. Bigger shoes might cause sprained ankles, overstretched tendons, and overdevelop of muscle that is working hard to hang on to the shoe. Stiffness of back, shoulder, and neck might result on compensating for loss of range of movement when control of foot is lost. Foot will end up sinking into the shoe, causing the big toes twisted.

8) Always tie your ribbon just right. Tight ribbon cut off circulation, creating tremendous pressure on ankle.

Faulty techniques

9) Faulty techniques always lead to injuries, these include incorrect line, improper weight placement.

10) Ballet injuries always happen when fatigues set-in. Long strenuous classes, rehearsals might result in poor placement caused by tired/weak muscles incapable of holding the feet in proper alignment may cause varies physical strains and stresses.

What is Little Ballerina about?

What is Little Ballerina about?

When I was six, my mother signed me up for ballet lessons. I immediately feel in love with ballet, I enjoyed my classes, recitals and performances. I always worked extra hard, put in more effort than other girls, for main roles in performances.

Having passed all R.A.D. ballet exams up to Advanced level, I was advised of a teaching opportunity which, at the age of 18, I decided to try my hand at. I found that I enjoyed teaching children the art of dance.

I decided to pursue academic instead of pursuing ballet professionally, I continued my studies in Pharmacy and graduated as a pharmacist years later. Classical ballet is still a huge part of who I am. I grew up with ballet surrounding my daily routine. My former ballet academy was like my second home. I continued my passion for dance all these years, during my university days till now as I worked as a pharmacist.

Ballet is such a beautiful, graceful physical and artistic expression. It was love at first sight for me!

This is a project I wanted to start for ballet lover who have or have no dance training, for the ‘little ballerina’ in you. It is a sharing platform, for wonderful people that appreciate the art of dance.

My Thoughts on Teaching:-

Teaching children and adult ballet allow me to give back what I have enjoyed all these years of training to our next generation of dancers.

Children can be trained with patience and love. As teachers, we should give our best to train and teach them to be sensitive to music, let them learn about the captivating stage expression, discipline, cultivating self esteem, self-confidence thru dance.

I am a strong believer of positive affirmations and encouragements in teaching children. I believe in character building, shaping positive happy children while instilling foundation of discipline. Children thrive on encouragement, laughter, trust, boundaries, listening and freedom to be themselves, on the contrary, children wither on criticism, being judged, authoritarianism. I hope my students will enjoy their ballet class every single time, come running out from the studio wanting to share all details with their parents after class. Be a ballet teacher that cares, loves and children will always remember their names up until adulthood. Be a teacher that changes lives!

My goal isn't to see my students dance on the stage with a world-famous ballet company, by giving Nazi style training. I’m more interested in letting my students enjoy, have fun and establishing the right foundation in life for all of my students, by instilling discipline, self-confidence and joy in dance.

Many of the skills needed later in life- discipline, perseverance, the ability to learn new things are learned in the dance studio.