Lesson video

Keeping safe in this lesson.

If you're unsure about doing any of the activities in the session, make sure you have a trusted adult nearby when you start them.

This lesson should take place ideally indoors but you could work outside if it was warm and dry enough and it's safe to do so.

Ensure there's plenty of space for you to work safely including overhead, use bare feet and not socks and make sure that you're wearing comfortable clothing, put your hair up if needed and remove any jewellery.

Pause your video now if you need to do any of these things to get ready.

In this lesson, you will need your comfortable clothing, some writing equipment, so you'll need paper and pen and do make sure that you've got safe space.

In today's lesson, we are going to be taking our warm up.

I'm going to teach you a little technical session and then you're going to do a creative task based around that technical session.

Finally, you will do your exit quiz.

Let's look at some keywords.

So, the first thing I want you to learn today is parallel, and this is a position of the feet, legs hip-width distance apart.

We're just going to look at plié, which is a bending of the knee and extend which is to lengthen a limb or body part.

We're now going to have a look at doing a warm-up.

You'll be told when to pause the video to do work on different aspects of the warm-up.

We're going to start off with our warm up activity.

Before we begin, what I would like you to do is just have a think about the key elements that a warm-up should have.

So, pause the video here, have a quick think, either jog them down on your paper or if you want to just call them straight out to me, that's absolutely fine and then we'll go back over them altogether.

Great.

So, hopefully you've come up with some ideas that involve us raising our pulse.

And raising our pulse in turn helps to increase the blood circulation around the body, it helps to increase our breathing rate and get oxygen to those muscles.

So, pulse racing activities could include things like jogging on the spot, star jumps, running around the room, things that are going to get our heart raising.

If you are able to do it safely, you could run up and down the stairs, anything like that.

The second part of our warm-up should involve something that helps to mobilise the joints.

So, I'm going to demonstrate a few activities that I would like you to put into your warm-up today.

So, first thing is working in a parallel position.

So, this is standing with our feet, hip-width distance apart.

And you can find your hips by pressing and finding the pony part of your pelvis and then thinking about a straight line running down the middle of our feet and through our legs.

So, this is our parallel position.

Within that parallel position, we can perform actions such as a plié, which is a bending of the knee.

And we bend thinking about our knees going over our toes, we don't want to see our knees coming in towards each other.

We want to keep that parallel position there.

You can also take this into a first position.

So, we use that with our heels turned to touch each other.

Another way of finding that first position is to squeeze your feet together and let your feet and hips naturally open.

And you can plié in this position too.

So, we've got our parallel position, we've got our plié in parallel or our plié in first.

You could take that out to a second position as well.

So, this is the feet wider than hip-width distance apart and take your plié there.

The other thing I'd like you to think about is finding movements that extend.

So, thinking about movements that reach up maybe and extend out or even in this plié position thinking about arms extending out.

So, lengthening those limbs and body parts.

The final thing I'd like you to think about including in your warmup are things like shoulder circles, head circles and rolling down through your spine using that play to crouch and then uncurling again.

Pause the video here, choose a really upbeat piece of music and conduct your warmup.

Then come back to me when you're ready to start the lesson Our learning focus today, we're going to start a phrase of movement and assess your individual areas of strength and limitations.

You're then going to devise a dance activity that would help show improvement in a chosen skill.

These tasks will help us to understand how to link moving ideas together when we begin our own choreography.

Let's look at some more keywords.

So, technical skills means including accuracy of action, space and dynamic content and reproduction of movement in a stylistically and accurate way.

Physical skills are the skills needed to perform actions effectively and these include strength, balance, coordination, flexibility, stamina, posture and alignment.

We're now going to look out our technical session and this is going to involve you learning a centre phrase.

This is a type of activity that you're doing in the middle of a dance class that may be challenging physically and technically.

And they're important in dance as they help us to coordinate different body parts simultaneously.

Please watch the video on the next side.

This is the finished version of the phrase that we will learn today.

Pause the video to create your task.

So, you're going to spend about two to three minutes working through that section of the exercise focusing on the accuracy of your actions.

Resume once you're finished.

Let's break that phrase down.

So, part one of the phrase is going to be a swing.

So, we need to think about transferring our weight from one side of the body to the other.

So, you need to start with your weight slightly into your right side of your body.

And you're going to swing across over one, two.

And it's a bit like throwing a discus.

So, you want to think about this arm being powerful and having a slight curve and a throwing feel to it.

As that happens, you're shifting your weight from one side of the body through the centre and out the other, so we come across.

My arm is reaching nice and high through the fingers and I'm also extending out through that foot too.

So, you're one, two.

You step onto this foot and we change our direction to face the corner and we step and the hop.

And it's a swingy hop.

So, you use the momentum from the swing to then step here and hop as you do that.

And you can let your arms just swim naturally as you hop.

So, you go, one, two, three, four.

You'll then stretch that leg out and turning onto it, five, six, seven and then we just pop that foot up and eight.

Let's try it one more time.

So, we go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight.

Pause the video there, have a little practise and then come back when you're ready.

Pause the video to complete your task, spend one to two minutes working through this section of the exercise focusing on the accuracy of your actions.

So, we finished section one of that phrase with the foot popping up.

From there, imagine that you've got a big weight on this shoulder and it's going to pull you down.

And we get this stretching action and this idea of the head being heavy and a sense of weight coming down, one, two.

We drop this arm down to meet it and circle three, four, uncurl, five, six, we lunge out, seven, eight, making a nice dive in line with that arm and out with that leg.

So, let's have another look at that.

So, since we are putting down, one, two, three, four, five, six and seven, eight.

From there you're going to do a windmill action with the arms. So, think about someone pulling this hand out behind you and so, they pull that foot in to meet this one.

So, this foot stays where it is and this arm is going to drop and help pull you in and that releases that back arm.

So, let's try it again.

That one is a bit tricky because you need to use your coordination and your balance to help you do that fast.

So, you circle up and you suspend here three, four, the arm comes down and then that foot comes back out again.

So, you replace it back to where it was.

Let's try out that match again.

So, we've got drop pulling round, uncurl lunge at, pull back, use your core and out again.

Pause the video there, have little practise of that section and when you feel comfortable with all of those moves, come back and would start section three.

Pause the video to complete your task.

Spend one to two minutes working through this section the exercise, focusing on the accuracy of your actions.

So, we finished here at the end of section two.

You're going to transfer your weight into a balance or like your shoes extend like backwards and use your arms to reach forwards and you hope there.

From there, you're going to spring onto your back leg and transfer the weight out into another balance.

So, this is quite a challenge.

So, we're thinking about coming from this windmill, stepping forward, planting that foot into the ground, spread your toes out to help you balance, pulling out and extending and then springing back.

See, it's hard to do, exciting.

Extending, springing back, extending that leg out, closing it down and then we finished with the look.

And make that look really, really confident like yes, I just achieved that.

So, let's try that again.

So, you've gone from the windmill, we step forward, we extend out, you spring back, close down, look.

Pause the video there, have a little practise and then come back and we'll put it all together slowly.

Let's go.

So now, we've found each section.

What we're going to try and do now is put the whole thing together slowly so that we can see how each bit slots together.

So, let's start from the beginning.

We have our swing, we step onto it and hop, we step around, turn into that parallel position, we pull down, we circle, uncurl up and lunge out.

From there, we're using our core to help pull us in, find that balance, step forward, step and extend, hold that balance there, spring back, close, wait and look.

Let's try it with some counts.

Remember when you practise this you can use that metronome beat to help you same time or you can choose your own piece of music.

So, we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, wait, seven, eight.

Pause the video, have a practise and then come back when you're ready to move.

Pause the video to complete your task.

Spend time working through your exercise, focusing on putting the whole thing together, with accuracy of your actions and performing on both sides of the body.

There is a suggested track for music, however, you can choose something else if you want to.

Let's look at what we've done.

So, I would like you to write down two aspects that you were successful in performing in that phrase.

Why do you think these went well? And then suggest one way that you could make further improvement, and why would this help you? Pause a bit here, write those things down and then come back to me and we'll have a little chat through them.

So, you might've picked out something that you thought was successful and it might be that you picked up the movement phrase really quickly.

And that might have been really helpful because then it meant you had more time to focus on getting your accuracy right.

A way that you could have improved further, you might have already started to think about maybe my alignment wasn't great or perhaps my timing was a little bit off, it might also be something specific like a particular skill.

So, maybe you found that your balance was difficult to sustain and that you wobbled quite a lot.

Think about something that will help you do an improvement and then why this will help you in the future.

So, if we improve our balance, for example, it's going to mean that our more challenging dance actions are going to be able to be formed a lot more successfully and with a lot more accuracy, which in the long term would improve our whole performance.

Let's move on to some more keywords.

So, devise, this is to plan and create movement material.

Let's say we've identified that we needed to work on balance.

So, how could I improve my balance and what are the benefits? Let's have a look at different types of balancing.

So, we have stationary balance and this is where we rise up and down on the balls of our feet.

We can also have moving balances and this is something where, for example, you might try to walk with one foot in front of the other in a straight line as if you're walking on a tight rope.

Now, these types of balances help to give us more body awareness, coordination and help to improve our reaction time, which in turn leads to us being able to be stronger performers.

So, your creative task today is to devise a dance activity that is going to help you improve the skill that you identified in task one.

So, for example, my suggestion was balanced.

So, I'm going to show you some ideas to get you started focusing on that but you might have chosen something else.

That's absolutely fine.

Once again, please watch this video to see the final version of an example of an activity that you could create.

I'm going to break this down with you and show you how to put an activity together.

And then I'm going to set you off on a task to create your own.

So, we're looking at creating an activity that's going to help us improve one of our physical skills.

So, I picked balance.

And what we're going to do now, is I'm going to show you a dance activity, which should help you to improve your balancing skills.

And then what you're going to have a go at doing is then creating your own boat for whatever physical skill you have picked.

So, here is the full version of my dance activity.

Five, six, seven.

If we break down each of the.

If we break down each of those little sections parts of those exercises are designed to strengthen our feet and our ankles, but also make us think about engaging our thighs.

So, our quads and our hamstrings, our glutes but also our abdominal muscles.

All these muscle groups and body parts, again, help us to balance.

And by strengthening them, we make them really for those tricky balances like we had in our phrase.

So, I put my hands on my hips to help send to myself but also this helps me to really focus on, am I working my core muscles? We start with some ankle raises.

So, you rise up and down, up and down.

And on our rise, we bend our knees and push them into a plié position, but without putting our heels down and then we lift them and lower.

So, in this, the ankle raises, strengthen those calf muscles and our ankles and then pushing that way into there, forces us to think about using our core and helping us to balance.

So, transferring our weight between our feet helps us to think about our foot placement and making sure that we're grounded.

And bending those knees, also improves of the transference of weight from one side of the body to the other.

In a tilting part of the phrase, we focus on making sure that our arms are helping to provide us with some counterbalance.

And by taking that tilt, we're having to work these muscle groups again really, really hard to help make that balance secure.

And then bending the knees provides that extra challenge because we have to really focus on stretching and strengthening our arms and also strengthening our muscles in our legs.

So, we do that on both sides.

So, we get that equal exercise.

You might find one side a lot easier than the other.

So, if you've got one side where you balance a lot more stronger than the other, then maybe focus on doing a few more repetitions on your weakest side to try and balance and equal yourself up.

Pause the video here, have a quick practise of my phrase and then come back to me once you are done.

Pause the video to complete your task.

You're going to spend six to seven minutes planning your idea now and you can use my example to help you if you get stuck.

Come back once you've had a go.

Now, run your task at least three times and then go back and try my one again.

Pause the video to complete your task.

I want you to notice what your body feels like each time you repeat the activity and what happens when you are retrying mine.

Your can choose you own piece of music to do this too.

Something upbeat and energetic.

Come back once you're done.

Great work.

Let's think about what we created and why we think it may be effective.

If you need to pause your video to write down your answer or you can just call out.

Excellent.

So, how would we know if this activity is helping us to improve over a period of time? Write down one method we could use to enable us to see that we are improving.

Once again, if you need to pause the video, do so or you could call out your idea.

So, let's have a think about our answers.

So, if I take my work, for example, I think my balancing exercise would be effective because I think I would see an improvement in the strength of my ankles really, really quickly and also it is making me think about engaging my core and my thigh muscles.

So, therefore, it's making me more conscious of those areas and working them to their best ability when I'm doing the exercise.

The method that I would use to enable me to see if I was improving would be to do something like keep a diary.

So, it might be that I can repeat the exercise more and more before I become tired.

And I might see that every week, for example, I'm able to do an extra repetition of the exercise.

If it was something that you chose and it was maybe strength based, for example, you might find that you had the ability to use more force or if you were doing something that involved using body weight that you could support your weight and a plank for longer, for example, or if you were doing something to do with increasing your stamina that you could maybe jog further or for longer.

And those would be signs that you were improving.

If you write anything like that down then brilliant It's now time for a cool down.

So, cool downs are really important in helping our body return back to its pre-exercise state.

So, please take part in the cool down.

At the end of a physical class we need to make sure that we do a cool down.

The reasons for this are to help bring our breathing rate back down to normal, to stop blood from pooling in your muscles ending up with things like cramp, aching muscles, building up lactic acid.

So, ways that we can do that are to go from jogging down into a walk.

You can think about some long and slow stretching.

Things like you did in your warm-up, but in reverse.

So, rather than increasingly the intensity, we're trying to decrease the intensity.

So, you could use some of those exercises that you did in your warm-up but make them slower and make them more deliberate.

So, have a go at doing your own cool down and I will see you again very soon.

Thank you.

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Thank you, bye-bye.