This has been my most challenging quarter at Ohio State since I started last year. I came back to school with an injury that had kept me out of commission for the month before classes began. My ankle injury and the guarded walk I had been limping with rendered my left knee unable to track over my foot and my leg significantly weaker than any other period of time in my brief dancing career. My ankle/foot is still only working at around 50% strength and participating in class is nerve-wracking because I feel as if I'm one misstep away from re-injuring my foot again. This leads to non-committal exercises at the bar and meager efforts across the floor. I've been feeling like my attempts at protecting my body are causing a general malaise to crawl upon my ballet technique. I've been experimenting with ways to address this because it effects not only ballet but every single class I have and recently a new idea has been bubbling up.
Locking.
The only form of dance that is somewhat natural for me is the "hip-hop" vernacular. I often dance to dubstep and hip-hop music on the weekends and in my apartment because I enjoy it and can freestyle my way through the music, but I've been experimenting with "locking" technique recently and it has re-informed my body of what stability actually means. With locking, you isolate and sequentially move parts of your body and the key to executing movement is an almost unreal capacity for tension in the core and legs. I had forgotten how much strength I was actually capable of until I was practicing locking on Thursday night after ballet and had a moment of mind-blowing realization of what stability truly was.
I'm looking forward to applying my newfound insights in class and hope that the changes will be significantly positive.
-B
Almost as embarrassing as this is, I also took a similar class as Brian in high school that consisted of both locking and breakdancing. As I had mentioned before in my own post, although this genre of dance (whatever exactly it may be) and the ballet technique may be on complete opposite sides of the dance spectrum, using ideas from each and applying them to the other may in the end help in accomplishing the different styles. Looking back, I specifically remember the infamous "k stand," (warning: this trick may lead to dislocated shoulders and disheartening complications). In order to "k stand" successfully, one must be conscious of pelvic placement in relation to the heel, as well width in the back. While this may be a stretch, I may also say that the precision and execution of foot placement in the six step seen in breaking may help with similar exactness seen in ballet. It's crazy!
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