I spent fifteen years of my life dancing. Everyone gasps at the show-stopper steps, but I’ll tell you a secret: the bedrock of ballet is the “transition” steps: the rather quotidian, easy movements that three-year-olds learn their very first class.
A plie is a straight-up knee-bend. First position places your heels together, toes turned out, like a dove’s wingspan. Glissade is a small jump to the side that prepares you for showier leaps like grand jeté.
They seem simple but undergird everything. If transitions are askew or sloppy, everything goes awry.
When I googled transition steps ballet I came across a post for dance teachers emphasizing this very idea. “…Transitional moments between movements are just as important as the steps themselves…”
A jazz teacher added, “If [students are] thinking of the next big thing, they’re not in the present moment, staying in character or expressing themselves fully.”
Um. That hits a little too close to home.
One of my children is not big on transitions—moving from one activity to the next. Even with many reminders, she will not be ready to go for a while…or perhaps ever.
She completely and totally inherited this problem from me…
I’m at SheLoves Magazine talking about my little time-management problem. Join me there?
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