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Permalink Reply by Angelika Berber on July 14, 2008 at 12:08pm

I find therabands work well for strength training (oh, well, WHEN I do that.....it does help to be disciplined!) and also I do some Pilates which I find makes dancing a lot less "effort", you just feel more balanced and centered and have better coordination plus it strengthens and lengthens you muscles at the same time.
For jumping higher, plyometric exercises can be helpful if you have a spring floor or a lawn to practise on. Tighter feet placement: I am not sure what you mean by that, do you mean more crossover?
For cardio the gym works best for me, cardio machines or aerobics courses, or you can do that at home with exercises dvds of course.

A good book to get in touch with finetuning your body is a dance kinesiology book by Eric Franklin...I think the one I have is called Conditioning for dance. You gotta like thinking about how your body works though and be willing to try the imagery and the often very gentle exercises with a lot of mind focus on how things feel and whrer your muscles are and stuff...it requires quite a bit of concentration. Working with imagery is very effective I find, but often Irish dancers prefer the "Drill" style of working out, and do no like imagining their spine to be a string of golden beads radiating light....sounds weird, but can improve your execution of certain dance moves......

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Permalink Reply by Jeannie Quall on July 15, 2008 at 3:29am

Jumping higher - My teacher used a mini trampoline to practice jumps.
:-)

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Permalink Reply by Hannah on July 16, 2008 at 7:26am

that helps a lot...really it does!!!

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Permalink Reply by Hannah on July 16, 2008 at 7:26am

hey..
it's great u moved into ppreliminary...well done! (:

Well 2 get your jump higher u ve 2 jump....u ve 2 fly..so practice just jumping on the spot as high as u can and the jump and lift your front leg up and your bag leg up 2 the bum- and then jump a again and again up!! thats good 4 your jumps and good 4 muscles and stamina :P

2 get your front leg on your jumps even higher stretch the back and do sum excersices 2 get the thigh stronger!!!

2 practice bit by bit...stand in front of a mirror and repeat the bit 10000 times and keep attention 2 cross feet and pointed toes!!!

I hope this helpz a bit
keep jumping
xxxx

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Permalink Reply by allie on August 5, 2008 at 8:16pm

i take apart my steps and practice it over and over of what i have trouble with.. basically just drill it over and over .... in prelim i think what you should keep in mind is turn out and crossing.. that seems to be what they look for.. good luck!

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