Skates on floor exercises at Atlanta Workshop 2018 This is such a difficult subject as coaches are required to teach both "stiff" and "hyper-mobile" skaters in the same lesson! I am going to just give some suggestions and bullet points as this is TRULY an entire week seminar in study (in person!). So here goes - and I am purposefully leaving this open ended so that we can study this more in depth in the future. Mobility is the KEY! The precise combination in methodically teac

Here I am again about how social media is not only changing the way we communicate - but also the way we LISTEN to instruction. Earlier I wrote about people not wanting to read these days - our emails will even "summarize" a correspondence so that we don't even need to read it in order to respond! But even in listening - we now want to cut to the chase. It has become "just give me the "take away", and this doesn't work for deep learning, or really any kind of learning at a

Demonstrated By Laura Carolina Morelli a master graduate of Ballet for Figure Skaters program and co-owner of “Skate to Soar” in Toronto, Canada Just as in my previous article “ The Importance of Plié ”, Tendu (or Battement Tendu ) is a fundamental part of almost every move we make – whether in skating or in dance. Plié is how we prepare, but Tendu is how we move. The genius of Russian ballet Methodology, Agrippina Y. Vaganova , said that it is the very foundation of the

As we scroll, it’s good to keep in mind that most exercise gurus on social media are looking for “likes” and more importantly -...

A Definition of Cuing for movement training:  “A short phrase or word, verbalized in place of a spoken count, used to inform the student...

Photo of Sasha Cohen by Kathy Goedeken Photo of Alicia Makarova by Dina Makarova The Problem (The don’ts) I think we have...

Remember when you were in school and, in certain subjects anyway, you wondered “How on earth does this apply to my life?” or “Why do I...

More and more there seems to be a glut of online workshops, seminars and teachers promising "the world". Marketing has become so...

I want to preface this “musing” with the understanding that I am in no way pointing fingers at anyone or any group of people here. This...

With almost everyone staying home and avoiding social gatherings including dance and exercise classes for the foreseeable future, I...

As kids we used to sit in a circle and play a game where one person would start by whispering a phrase into the ear of the person next to...

One’s approach to movement is all-important. An incredible force is lost if one relegates dance to just the outward appearance of a...

There are many opinions/ misconceptions about what a ballet class is supposed to "do" for a skater, how effective it really is as a...

Definition of Pedagogy: “The act, process and art of imparting knowledge. The art and science of instructional methodology.” Many coaches...

and how it affects our teaching and our learning Typically, the way many people teach dance classes today is that they give the...

I’m pleased to announce that In conjunction with Inna Stabrova and Dmitriy Tuboltsev, I am now teaching the complete Vaganova Level One...

I wrote this article quite a few of years ago, and later incorporated it into my “Lesson Book” in 2011. At that time, I was still...