Teaching Skips
Teaching Skips in Your Ballet Classes
Skips can be rather difficult for some students to master. Even after a child grasps the coordination of a skip, the technical aspects can be difficult. Here are some tips on getting your students skipping and helping them with the more technical aspects of their skips.
In particular, for younger students (ages 2 through 5), making the connection of the toe to the knee can be difficult developmentally. Have them imagine their toes are “kissing” their knees as they make their passés. You can also have them imagine they are standing or stepping into paint and want to paint a dot on their knee with their toe as they make passé. Ask your students what color paint they are using to add a little more fun.
A lot of the same images used for passé and retiré can be used in skips. Have students pretend they are animals like flamingos, storks, or ostriches. Have them “kiss” their standing knees with the toes of the working feet. Or have them pretend their feet are paintbrushes for the knee-toe connection. Use the headlight image to help them keep their hips level.
To encourage stretching the standing leg and pointing the standing foot in the air during skips, have students practice jumps on one leg. For your youngest students, this will simply be standing on one leg and jumping. Older students should jump in an actual parallel passé.
For students who have difficulty with the coordination of skips, practice plenty of hopscotch activities. (Hopscotch uses similar coordination.) Also practice plenty of marches, passé walks, and passé walks en demi-pointe.
Happy Dancing!
Ashley Hartford
Founder + Owner, Once Upon a Ballet
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