Goals

As a teacher of the classical ballet, it has never been my goal to assert
control over my students for purposes of bending them to my will. That would only produce resentment and rage, neither of which can produce either a better relationship with the student or a beautifully coordinated dance movement. The reason is simple: a dancer whose energy is the energy of rage will certainly not coordinate her body and her limbs more effectively or beautifully. In a struggle of wills, neither the teacher nor the student can win. The teacher may win the battle, but lose the war.

Nor do I expect to convert any student of mine into desiring to become a classical ballet dancer. That is not my goal for the vast majority of students I teach these days. It is not a realistic goal, given the current state of the art. The ballet is way too difficult a road for most to walk, and provides little remuniration and less financial security than just about any other path one might choose.

The problem with ballet is that it does not give “instant gratification”. It is not, initially at least, as freeing as one imagines it must be when one is a little kid looking at a ballerina leaping across the stage. It is only at a very advanced level — which, unfortunately, fewer and fewer students are patient enough to reach — that the student gains true freedom with their instrument, their own body. All the early work is simply not very much “fun” and, especially in our American culture, impatience sets in, students become restive and resistant because they don’t know about the freedom they will eventually gain if they humbly and patiently work hard. They don’t see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Unfortunately, because of their impatience and resistance (and also because of a total lack of positive feedback from peers or the dominant popular culture, which is market-driven and, therefore, focused on other things), it is more difficult than ever to change students’ work habits. Students want it all, and they want it all NOW! That is completely impossible within the classical ballet, where we must work very carefully and slowly to build up strength while maintaining form in order to safely and beautifully handle the final form and speed of large and brilliant movements. Since all they see is what is on television, the internet, and at their competitions, the vast majority of students these days are more interested in dazzling or titillating an audience than in affecting an audience at a more profound level. They subsequently understand neither the technical nor the artistic requirements (or possibilities) of the classical ballet. Devoid of substance and form, the ballet languishes, like the golden bird in the cage in "The Golden Bough, A Fairytale Ballet for Children".

Ironically for them, the more resistant a student is to changing his or her work habits, the longer it takes to reach the point where things become “fun” and where a more developed technique allows them the freedom that is based on the discipline they have developed. Freedom in classical ballet comes at the cost of an almost draconian discipline, which is something foreign to most students today. This discipline takes a certain humility, which is also in short supply these days. It’s unfortunate that such discipline is necessary, but we are working systematically with the human body which must be treated with respect and great care. Ballet is an extreme sport as well as an art. Ballet teachers, therefore, have a huge responsibility for the safety of students as well as the preservation of the art form. Even though most students will never see the inside of a professional ballet production, they will nevertheless benefit from the careful discipline and patience they develop in ballet class.

In the broadest sense, my goal these days as I teach my ballet classes is to try to move energy from students’ brain cases into their bodies, into their muscles. I am trying to bring consciousness of every muscle cell into each student’s awareness. I am trying to get students to the point where their bodies can become a vehicle of greater consciousness, so that emotion and thought, cognition and awareness, physical sensation, spatial awareness and movement all become one. The student of ballet then just might become the vehicle of something larger than their own ego; he or she just might become a servant of something of greater importance than fleeting peer admiration and trophies. That is a distant goal, but it is a goal that can be achieved slowly, humbly, with each small effort at concentrated focus.

Introduction

Whenever a dancer’s attempts to execute a particular movement go awry, we may suspect an infestation of the Wickitty-Whacky Wonky Wobbles. Wickitty-Whacky Wonky Wobbles are endemic to ballet studios, living under the floors. Casual observations have confirmed that the environs of any ballet studio seem to be particularly suitable habitat for these pests. In general, those studios without a marley floor covering experience a greater risk of incidence, but it is not known whether the elevated risk is from increased populations of Wonky Wobbles due to bare wood being their preferred habitat, or whether the greater frequency of attacks in studios without marley is due to the greater difficulty of seeing these creatures under the wood flooring, or to some other cause entirely. Wickitty-Whacky Wonky Wobbles are certainly more easily seen — and, therefore, able to be avoided — when studios have a marley floor covering (See, “Detecting Wickitty-Whacky Wonky Wobbles”, below). A more definitive study could answer this question.

As a species, the Wonky Wobbles are a diverse group, with many varieties in existence. They are very keen observers of human beings and have a perverse streak in them which predisposes them to cause havoc wherever and whenever possible to the humans that come into a dance studio to take ballet class. I shall attempt to describe several of the different types, along with their particular specialties and talents for causing mayhem. (Please note: This list is not exhaustive of the known variations of Wonky Wobble.) The forms depicted in this encyclopedia are ones that have been observed in the Brainerd Lakes area of Minnesota. They may appear different at your ballet studio, but their goals are always the same: the destabilization and frustration of the dancer. This encyclopedic guide has been compiled to forearm the ballet student with knowledge of the wily ways of Wickitty-Whacky Wonky Wobbles. It is hoped that, armed with this information, you — together with your ballet teacher — can keep the Wonky Wobbles at bay in your studio!
Wilor Bluege

Descriptions of the Varieties Within the Wonky Wobble Species: Their Forms, Modes of Locomotion, and Specialties for Causing Mayhem



The Yellow-Spotted Green Wonky Wobble (Plate No. 1) derives its perverse delight from watching young children lose their balance. This Wonky Wobble has sensors within the yellow spots on its skin that pick up the angle of a child’s shoulders and hips. If the Wonky Wobble senses that the child has not leveled his or her shoulders and hips, it slithers towards the hapless child and, with one swift movement, yanks the floor out from under the unsuspecting victim, causing the child to lose his or her balance (and confidence).



The Red-Spotted Purple Wonky Wobble (Plate No. 2) has a similar intent and also has sensors in its spots. However, in this case, the sensors are tuned in to the vertical alignment of the nose, belly button, and center of the standing foot of the child or adult who is attempting to lift one leg off the ground. The sensors of the Red-Spotted Purple Wonky Wobble are so highly sensitive that they can even pick up a lack of focus and intention on the part of the student. These creatures are capable of moving quite swiftly when they sense a student’s failure to commit him or herself over the supporting leg — even before it happens! Once the Wonky Wobble senses this situation, he quickly moves in, herky-jerky fashion, and begins to move the floor furiously from side to side, upsetting the dancer’s equilibrium and aplomb.



The Yellow-Spotted Green and the Red-Spotted Purple varieties have a similar general shape, however, the protuberances bearing the sensors on the Red-Spotted Purple Wonky Wobble are more pronounced and its general shape is more irregular than that of the Yellow-Spotted Green Wonky Wobble. This irregularity allows for easier field identification during the molting season, when the two varieties appear almost identical due to loss of the colors normally associated with them. (See color plates No. 3 and 4)





The Two-Toed Hairy Wonky Wobble (Plate No. 5) is a particularly nasty sort. With fine hairs all over its body, it can sense when a dancer’s knees are not straight or when the buttocks, thigh muscles, lower back muscles or abdominal muscles are not engaged during the rotation of the legs. The loss of control by the dancer is looked on with glee by the offending Wonky Wobble, but can be quite alarming and injurious to the dancer so affected by this pest as it lurches about under the flooring (whether covered by marley or not). Mode of locomotion: pronking from its two-toes.



The Brown-Spotted Blue-Gilled Wonky Wobble (Plate No. 6) resembles nothing so much as a large flounder in both its appearance and its mode of locomotion. This Wonky Wobble is delighted if it can find a dancer who has failed to keep his or her heels on the floor in the demi-plie or does not sufficiently bend the knees before and after a jump. Observing this, the Wonky Wobble buries itself deeper into the floor (much like a flounder does on the ocean floor), causing a vacuum to develop above, which pulls the floor down suddenly underneath such a dancer on the takeoff and prevents the dancer from getting off the ground at all. Or, when a dancer is landing from a jump, this Wonky Wobble will suddenly lurch upwards, shoving the floor up sharply, causing a very hard landing for the dancer whose knees do not bend sufficiently on the landing. Should this creature join forces with the Two-Toed Hairy or the Five-Toed and Mucilaginous Wonky Wobbles (Plates No. 7 and 8), the child will simply not get off the ground and will never develop the desired elevation.







Methods of Locomotion

The means used by Wonky Wobbles are quite varied and include, but are not limited to the following: pronking (favored by the Two-Toed and Five-Toed Hairy), slithering (favored by the Yellow-Spotted Green and Red-Spotted Purple), scurrying like a centipede and galloping (the Mucilaginous), and wobbling from side to side and from forward to aft (favored by the Brown-Spotted Blue-Gilled). In addition to pronking, the two- and five-toed Wonky Wobbles can mimic the bouree movement of dancers, using this mode more frequently when moving above the floor or marley surface. Under certain conditions, all are capable of flattening themselves out and creating a vortex, which spins so fast that it creates a vacuum similar to a tornado (see below) . This mode of locomotion has quite deleterious effects upon the dancer and on the flooring or marley. One can see these effects on the surface of the floor or in places where the tape has come off the marley or seams have curled up or separated.



The Archeological Record

The multitude of forms and locomotion adaptations indicate the specialized niches taken by these creatures and reveal a long history of development that has been confirmed in a recently discovered archeological record.

Workers working underground to shore up the foundation of the complex at Versailles in central France unearthed fossils that were subsequently taken to a university laboratory for study. Carbon dating confirmed that the fossils came from the period of the last quarter of the 17th century. The remains resembled closely the structures of the Yellow-Spotted Green Wonky Wobble (see Plate No. 9). The researchers determined that it is likely that the Yellow-Spotted Green Wonky Wobble is the most primitive of the Wonky Wobbles, both because of its anatomy and because of where the fossil was found — in the oldest layers of sediment under the building.



With the necessary permits obtained, the archeological site was expanded. Further investigation at the site revealed more fossils, a truly rich find containing what has been described as precursor and intermediate forms (see Plate No. 10) of Wonky Wobble, since the fossils possess similarities to both the Brown-Spotted Blue-Gilled and the Two-Toed Hairy Wonky Wobbles. It is likely that the two branches of Wonky Wobbles, the non-footed and the footed varieties, separated sometime during the period from the last quarter of the 17th to the mid-nineteenth century, but the gap in the archeological record has yet to be filled.



With the discovery at Versailles, the search was spurred on in Italy, Russia, Denmark, and eventually in England and the United States. The archeological record in this country is much more recent, not appearing until the first half of the 20th century. The vicinity of La Scala in Milan, Italy and St. Petersburg, Russia have, to date, produced enormous finds of exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating from the end of the 19th and early 20th century (see Plate Nos. 11 and 12). The fully developed forms of the Two-Toed Hairy and Five-Toed Wonky Wobble are more recent, first appearing in a fossil record dating to the first half of the 20th century in Russia. More recent still is the appearance of an early fossil of the Mucilaginous Wonky Wobble that was recently discovered in this country in New York, when the old Metropolitan Opera House was torn down in 1967.





The stages and relationships between the various forms of Wonky Wobble will be clarified as the archeological record becomes more inclusive. The gaps in our knowledge base will be more complete and we will have a better historical picture of these creatures and their influence on the development of ballet, as they most certainly must have adapted to changes in training and the development of an increasingly athletic technique in dancers since the 1960s.

Detecting Wickitty Whacky Wonky Wobbles

As mentioned, Wonky Wobbles are particularly insidious when there is no marley floor covering because they are not as easily detected. Nevertheless, this does NOT mean that they are undetectable to the well-trained eye of an astute observer. The astute observer can detect and ferret out any and all Wonky Wobbles infesting a ballet studio. This observer is called the Ballet Teacher or Ballet Master.

The first line of defense against all varieties of Wonky Wobbles is the Ballet Master. This person has been especially trained in the variations and ways of Wonky Wobbles. He or she will immediately give corrective instruction and frequently physical assistance to the student who is threatened or who has been disturbed by the Wonky Wobbles. The Ballet Master has a moral duty to be absolutely relentless in eliminating the conditions that give rise to disruptions by Wonky Wobbles. The Ballet Master must give no quarter in the event of an attack upon her students by the Wonky Wobbles.

Becoming an astute observer and detective of Wonky Wobbles is, however, the responsibility of each and every student in the classroom. The quicker the student grasps his or her responsibility to observe and detect the telltale signs of “wobbledom” the more discouraged the Wonky Wobbles will become! Although they never leave a studio all together, their presence can be limited and controlled once the students have understood their responsibility and taken steps to address the conditions that give rise to infestations of Wobbles. Inattention and lapse of focus will only encourage and embolden Wonky Wobbles!

To the observant student there is subtle evidence of the presence of Wonky Wobbles in the flooring and marley surface of any studio. If one looks carefully, one can see small divots or shiny areas on the surface of a wood floor caused by the pronking, slithering, and vortex movements of the Wonky Wobbles. On marley surfaces, lumping and humping of the marley itself, loose or missing tape, or curled tape and edges of the marley are sure signs of the presence of Wonky Wobbles. Avoid these areas. The sooner these areas can be attended to by the studio owner the better.




Up Next: "Tools and Early Detection Systems for Identifying and Controlling Wonky Wobbles"

DANCERS ARE LIKE HORSES

Dancers are like horses. Some horses just want to go as fast and as hard as they can. They can tolerate the incoherencies and chaos of the racetrack, or the barrel racing, etc. of the rodeo. There are dancers with temperaments like that: they only want to go as fast and hard as they can. These dancers can tolerate the incoherencies and chaos of exhibition/competition dancing and may, if they last, do just fine in the entertainment world of show business. They are fun to watch and can thrill us with their tricks. Unfortunately, these dancers have a short shelf life. Like race and rodeo horses, they will be good for only a few years before being put out to pasture. The entertainment mill (should the dancers make it that far) will chew up these dancers, spit them out, and open its maw to gobble up the next batch of young people that will always be there, yearning for fame, adulation, excitement, and bright lights. These dancers, like the race and rodeo horses, burn out quickly.

There are other dancers and horses (high-school, dressage horses, so I am told) that have the talent and the temperament for artistry. For these dancers and horses the sun rises and sets on coherency, order, perfection, symmetry, balance, self-carriage, and, ah yes, meaning and purpose. These dancers and horses are maddened by the incoherency and chaos of less demanding, less meaningful iterations. These dancers and horses demand of their trainers something more, something akin to art, to soul. They demand “meaning.” Because of this “something more” and the much more careful, in-depth, and technically correct training these dancers and horses receive, they will be able to go on for years (barring injury) and will continue to get stronger and improve their performance. These dancers and horses will continually bless us by their depth of soul and what can only be termed “artistry”.

Long after their performance careers are over, the classical ballet dancer may continue to contribute to the soul life of the culture in ways that are beyond the reach of the competition dance circuit. For these dancers, it is not about fame and fortune; it is about the message, the artistry, the communication of soul. It is about meaning. As Viktor Frankl has written, meaning makes almost any suffering more tolerable. For the ballet dancer, as well as for the dressage horse, it is the moment of congruence and contact with the splendor of their own soul and with an artistic purpose beyond self-interest that makes the physical pain of all the hard work a mere trifle.

What Xenophon (Greek historian and military commander, 434-355 B.C.) remarked about the training of horses could apply as well (with minor adaptations) to the training of ballet dancers: “But if a rider teach his horse to go with the bridle loose, to carry his neck high, and to arch it from the head onwards, he would thus lead him to do everything in which the animal himself takes pleasure and pride.” We must teach the ballet student in a way that would "lead him or her to do everything in which he or she can take pleasure and pride." We ballet teachers must lead our ballet students in a manner which allows them to make contact with their own splendor and with a purpose beyond their own ego.

Slow and careful work is necessary. There are two axioms in training: (1) Nothing that is ugly can be correct (whether it is the shape of the hand or the fundamental stance); and (2) nothing that is forced can be beautiful. Moving with force is not the same thing as moving with self-power and confidence. A corollary to these two axioms is this: If something is executed technically correctly it will, ipso facto, require less force, and will, therefore, be (a) more beautiful and (b)conserve energy (something much needed in a long ballet).

A dancer who is emotionally abused, denigrated, and humilated by the teacher will not use his or her arms and legs more beautifully any more than a horse will move more beautifully if it is beaten. Both dancers and horses have souls, and there is an inexorable logic of soul that makes coercing either into superior performance ineffective. It's not that you can't coerce dancers (or horses). It's just that, if you do the most you will end up with is a dull, unenthusiastic, blank-faced dancer, incapable of expressing depth of soul. I like to paraphrase Xenophon's ideas on the subject of horse training, because what he says can be applied to the dancer as well. I have merely substituted the word "horse" for the word "dancer": "The result of training a [dancer] properly should be this: never to have a [dancer] whose energy is the energy of anger, for [dancers] when they are angry or annoyed will assuredly not use their legs with greater agility and grace. What one wants are movements that are at once pleasing and formidable to contemplate." — That is exactly what we are after in classical ballet training, "movements that are at once pleasing and formidable to contemplate" — like the magnificent, controlled power that we see in the well-trained horse.

Xenophon: "The objection to cruelty is simply that it doesn't work. The horse must move with self-carriage, from his own pride and pleasure. For what a horse does under compulsion, he does without understanding, and with no more grace than a dancer would display if a person should whip and spur him during his performance."

If a dancer becomes more beautiful in the course of her work, it is a sign that the teacher's training principles are correct. In the ballet, the development of the dancer's beauty is a sign of a true training philosophy. The discipline of teaching ballet entails continually making the right distinctions, not allowing oneself to be taken in (whether by a student or by one's own flabbiness of soul) into either asking for or accepting merely pretty movement. We need to make the right distinctions between the profoundly beautiful and the merely pretty. One of the reasons for the extreme difficulty of the classical ballet (and dressage) is that the difficulties are invisible. We are, in fact, trying to make it all look easy. It is the same whether the trainee is a ballet dancer or a dressage horse: The appearance of ease and the attainment of simplicity is neither easy nor simple!

The Veri Tasimova

When I taught exclusively at one ballet studio, I used to have a skinny, ½-inch wide by 7-foot-long piece of molding that I had stashed in one corner of the studio. I would use this handy “tool” as a teaching aid to help students “see” where their “center” was and where and how it needed to be centered over their standing foot. But there was a problem once I started traveling all over to teach at many different studios: I couldn’t take my “vertical alignment tool” with me! So I got myself a 6-foot, folding carpenter’s ruler that tucks nicely into my satchel, and I can carry it with me to every studio, wherever I am teaching. Every ballet teacher should have one!

The folding carpenter’s ruler is a multi-functional teaching tool, and I use it to great effect. It is actually much more versatile than my original, non-folding vertical alignment tool. Not only can it effectively show vertical alignment and demonstrate — when you hold it up in front of a student — how the center of the weight must shift when rising from flat to demi-pointe or pointe, but by bending and forming it into an “L” or a “Z” or a “T”, it can help students visualize (again, when you hold it up next to them) what should (or should NOT) happen to their shoulders, hips, etc. I have found that students suddenly “click” on basic principles of alignment and stance when I use this instrument! The tool can also be formed into an oblong representing the alignment “box” of their shoulders and hips, or placed flat on the floor as a square box or hexagon to demonstrate directions of the room or a hexagonal pattern of movement.

After recently introducing this device to a class of young students, I have decided that I should name my teaching tool “Veri Tasimova” — rather than calling it my “vertical alignment tool”. I chose this name because it occurred to me that the Latin word for “true” and “truth” is veritas. (The tag end, “-imova”, is a frequent ending for feminine names in the Russian lexicon.) The ruler is a symbol and metaphor for that which is “straight and true” and “in alignment” with our core values. In ballet we talk a lot about our “core strength”, “alignment”, and “centering”. In this and so many other ways, ballet is a wonderful metaphor for life, helping us to be “in balance” and moving correctly and wisely through life, with freedom and joy. Now go get your own “Veri Tasimova” to use with your students. Find one at your local hardware store. They’re inexpensive and well-worth the price.

“The Veri Tasimova” sounds like it should be a dance, doesn’t it? Kind of like “The Bossanova” with a stick, maybe? I am given to humor and occasionally to downright silliness, when I am teaching. I use humor judiciously to get a point across or to allow students (particularly young students) some “lightness” in the midst of a very demanding lesson — like calling a folding ruler the “Veri Tasimova”!