Body Alignment

Body alignment in ballet is crucial but very difficult. There is always something new to learn and something to improve upon. feel that I am constantly learning new things on how to pull up out of my hips and have correct pelvis placement without tucking my pelvis. I think that I focus on correct body alignment more during barre than I do during center work. For some reason I think that I have more control over my body at the barre than I do in center. Also, if I focus on my placement during barre hopefully I am aligned and ready to focus more on technique during center work. Though body alignment is so important especially in ballet I think it is also important to relax and shake it out after trying to have correct alignment. I have a hard time with having correct alignment without tensing and gripping my muscles. I am getting better with this struggle, I really try to think about turning out with my hip flexors and not gripping my glutes while growing in my standing leg to make room for my working leg to completely cross in fifth. Body alignment is most important in ballet because if you are not correctly aligned and continue to do the combinations with wrong placement, you often build the wrong muscles and your body gets used to it and it is harder to correct yourself and train your body to have correct body alignment. It has been difficult for me to learn the feeling of correct alignment compared to being able to see what correct alignment looks like. I am a very visual learner so not having a mirror is forcing me to learn how to feel my body alignment which I think is very important because as we know for the next two years we are not going to have mirrors and it prepares you for the future because you never know in what types of spaces that you will be dancing in.