Finding True Value in Supplementary Exercises

There are a lot of diligent students out there dedicating their time to foot and toe exercises, and often not finding the correlation between this hard work and their dancing.

If this is you, you really need to ask yourself if you are getting a direct result from this additional work. Is the result transferring to your dancing? Isn’t that the very reason we do supplementary work? Supplementary exercises are supposed to enhance, strengthen and improve your core technique. Exercises should not be compartmentalised, but rather utilised in your classwork and subsequent performances.

For instance, toe exercises are specific to pointe work for classical ballet dancers. If you are doing your theraband or foot exercises correctly, that is precisely how your foot should be working in your pointe shoe and also in your allegro. Let’s assume that you are doing your foot exercises correctly, at a steady pace, in a controlled manner (which is frequently not the case), this should mean that your foot should be articulating in your shoe, you should be noiseless and totally in control. Be sure to emulate the control you aim to have in your pointe shoe in your theraband or foot exercises, for example, snapping the theraband equates to falling off pointe or landing from a jump without any resistance.

All exercises including theraband exercises consist of two phases: concentric and eccentric. The concentric phase is the part we consider the main movement: like the throw of a battement jeté or grand battement or the sitting up part of a sit up, etc. The eccentric phase is the return to start, like the closing of the battement jeté or grand battement. The targeted muscles remain contracted in both stages, shortening in the concentric phase and lengthening in the eccentric phase. The eccentric phase is imperative to build necessary strength and control. The desired noiseless pointe work and controlled allegro landings is a direct result of focused eccentric movement using resistance.

If you knew me at all as a dancer and more recently as an instructor, you will know how much I stress the linking of steps. Fundamentally, ballet steps are all linked by pliés and fondus and pointe work is linked by not only pliés and fondus but also by articulating the feet.

So, be sure to do your theraband or foot exercises with the same control you hope to have in your pointe shoes and at a steady tempo in order to get everything you possibly can out of your invested time.