While doing the show, I began taking class with a famous Russian teacher in New York City whose students included leading dancers of world class companies. I was in ballet heaven, and felt especially honored because this teacher gave me so much personal attention, placing me in the front row between the ballerinas.

She called me “Fine.� She would come up to me at barre, lift up my rib cage, push my “popo� (pelvis) under and jam my feet into a perfectly tight fifth position. Ouch. Nonetheless, I fell in love with her and her wonderful classes. I wanted to be “perfect� for her. I forgot everything Mr. C had taught me.

The more I tried to please her, the worse I danced. The more I took her classes, the more I pulled on the barre so that I could show my extended leg and foot in a flat second position. Consequently, my supporting side was always twisted toward the free leg. I was never able to release the barre without falling off my leg.

Without realizing it, I was losing my supporting side and forgetting the way I had worked with Mr. C. It wasn’t long before I started losing my double tours on stage. I was bouncing off course and stumbling on my landings. I started to get nervous and anxious because I didn’t know what was going wrong.

In Act II of Flower Drum Song, I had more double tours than in Act I. While doing tours, I had to cross the stage in front of the proscenium curtain with only about four feet of stage space. I feared falling into the orchestra. To complicate matters, I had to do these tours with a straw hat in one hand and a cane in the other. There were times when I nearly fell off the stage.

Eventually, I stopped trying to do the tours. I settled for double pirouettes. My self-esteem dropped several notches.

When you start falling all over the stage, you get “mental.� I grew afraid, lost my confidence and began panicking and freezing like a deer in the headlights. I was so scared my body would tense up before the tours, which is the exact opposite feeling I needed. I felt like every action I made was incorrect, which compounded my problem. I was losing my balance in the air, and was haunted with the memory of falling while trying to spot the red “EXIT� sign at the back of the audience. My tours got worse. So, for the next several years, I went through many ups and downs (both literally and metaphorically) with my tours.

When we had pirouette combinations in the ballet class, the teacher would stand in front of me and scream “five pirouettes!” and show me her hand with five fingers extended. And, of course, I tried to do them and usually ended up hopping around trying to stay on my leg.

By the time I joined the San Francisco Ballet in December 1960, my tours were even worse. (How much more could I fall?) In The Nutcracker, I had to do the ribbon dance (Russian) alongside my old friend Michael Smuin, who had become the company virtuoso. I was terrified and bounced all over the huge stage of the San Francisco Opera House. I was ready to kill myself. I would practice and practice. I got to the point where I could almost do them alone in the studio. But when I got on stage and looked out at the enormous blackness of the audience, I “pulled up,� scrunched my feet together in fifth and there I was: working out of my body again.

In time, I realized that I had lost my double tours because I chose the “vanity� route. I wanted to “look perfect� to please my Russian teacher. I had forgotten all the good things Mr. C had given me.  I ignored proper mechanics so that I could show a textbook fifth position. I became so pulled up I looked like I was walking on egg shells. I couldn’t push off the floor properly.

I didn’t recover my tours until I joined the Joffrey Ballet in 1962. Robert Joffrey kept telling me I was “too light.� I didn’t know what he meant. I was pulling up as much as I could! In fact I was so pulled up I was close to walking on air.

Gradually, Joffrey’s very basic classes began making sense to me. After all the emphasis on perfect fifth positions in class in NYC and with the San Francisco Ballet, it was an eye-opening (mind-opening) relief to see Paul Sutherland at the barre. He never had perfectly turned out 5th positions. He didn’t have perfect turn-out, kept his knees straight, and didn’t try to force his 5th position. Because Bob Joffrey never asked for tight, perfect fifths, I began to find my legs and feet again. My tours started to come back, even though it took me a while to get over the fear that automatically set in each time I got on stage, saw the blackness of the theater, and was reminded of my disastrous performances with Flower Drum and SF Ballet.

I found that much as I wanted to, I could not go back to the Russian teacher I loved. Her teaching methods were too contrary to what I needed to do in order to dance well—i.e. working with my body as it was built, and not forcing myself into textbook-perfect positions.

I finally overcame my double tour problem, but it took mental discipline and lots and lots of practice. In 1965, while dancing with The Harkness Ballet of New York in Cannes, France, my triumph came. I ended up performing 64 double tours over the course of a weekend of four performances without a hitch. Our Director, George Skibine, who had himself been a famous dancer at the Paris Opera, said he had never seen any dancer do so many perfect double air turns in one weekend and gave me a prized bottle of champagne.

Now you know why I say, “The more you stand; the more you stand. The more you fall, the more you fall.�

In every class I teach, I see many students who do most of their barre exercises without being properly placed over the supporting foot. They rely on the barre and don’t seem to have an awareness of the importance of transferring their weight to the supporting side. When I watch them work, I see that they’re “not on their leg.� If they were to release the barre, they’d fall over.

Not transferring weight on to one leg becomes a huge problem because the bottom line is simple: In ballet you will be doing most of your dancing on one foot, not two. No matter how much effort you put into perfecting the movements of your free leg, if you are not balanced on your standing leg you will fall over.

Let me tell you what happened to me when I had my first professional job in New York City in 1960:

My story is an example of the law of cause and effect. I am a Buddhist, and I begin each day with prayers and self-reflection in front of my home altar. Buddhism teaches us that we are responsible for our actions. The way we live and act today is based on actions we took in the past. Our thoughts and actions today determine what will happen to us in the future. It is like the saying, “what goes around, comes around.� The law of cause and effect can work for us or against us: Work positively, get a positive result; Work negatively, get a negative result.

I took my first technique classes at the University of Utah, when I was 18. I majored in ballet, which in 1955 was something of a first, especially for a man. I studied with Mr. C (Willam F. Christensen) who was still able to demonstrate pirouettes, double tours and jumps. He would always warn us men that we shouldn’t try to have perfect foot positions. He would say “Men shouldn’t to be too clean, too perfect. Always be a little dirty, a little sloppy.â€�

When we practiced pirouettes, he repeatedly told us not to over cross our fourth position, using as an example a respected male dancer who was overly conscious of his positions and who placed his feet in a textbook perfect fourth position, but couldn’t turn to save his soul. Mr. C encouraged us to place our back foot where we needed to in order to keep our weight on our standing leg. He showed us how to wind up and push down and spot like crazy.

Mr. C’s double tours in the air were lightning fast and solid. He knew (from his years of Vaudeville touring) what the audience saw and didn’t see. The audience wasn’t looking for a perfect fourth position before a pirouette—they just wanted to see lots of fast turns. The audience wasn’t checking a dancer’s fifth position of the feet before a tour either. They just wanted to see him get in the air, turn around twice with lightning speed and land on a dime. And then do it again. And again.

Mr. C had the “teacher’s eye.� He knew what to look for. He wasn’t checking us for textbook perfect foot positions. He was watching our placement, our timing (yum-pum-pum-pah) and he encouraged us to attack our steps with guts and vigor, which enabled us to make fast multiple pirouettes and strong double tours.

Each day after class, the guys—this included Michael Smuin, Kent Stowell, myself and others—would get together and conduct our own pirouette and double tour contests. We would stand in a circle. One of us would begin with a single pirouette. Then the next guy would try, and the next. Each time the circle was completed, we would start another circle, this time adding on one more turn. We usually got up to four or five turns (more or less.) After many tries and
displays of pirouettes (Michael would usually win the contest) we’d next practice our air turns.

We’d put a handkerchief on the floor, stand on it, do a double tour from 5th position without moving the feet, and have to land on it. Practicing double air turns without any preparatory steps (i.e. sous-sus, pas de bourrée, chassé) taught us to power up in the center of the body and to use our feet and eyes. While encouraging and challenging each other, we perfected our pirouettes and tours.

I graduated with a BFA (Ballet Major), High Honors, Phi Kappa Phi, in 1959 and then spent six months in the Utah National Guard, fulfilling the government’s mandatory military requirement for men. After basic training I was stationed as a clerk-typist at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. When I was tested for typing speed, I learned I was the fastest typist in the U.S. Army at 100 words per minute. (And that was with one those big clunky Underwood typewriters.)

In February 1960 I received a telegram from Rogers & Hammerstein. They needed an Asian male ballet dancer who could do double tours for their hit Broadway show Flower Drum Song. Other than standing on a platform in the middle of a drill field demonstrating squat jumps in front of hundreds of guys, I hadn’t done any sort of plié or ballet class for at least four months. I had only a few days to get into shape, so I gave myself class and practiced my pirouettes and tours in a room in the barracks.

I was flown up to New York, showed the dance captain my pirouettes and tours, was told that as soon as I completed my Army duty at the end of the month, the job was mine. As soon as I was discharged, I flew back to New York, watched the show on Saturday, had a private rehearsal to learn the number, and on Monday, made my Broadway debut in the “Pink Ballet” in Flower Drum Song at The St. James Theater.

Some of you who are adult beginners (or former dancers returning to class) find it difficult to remember and execute center combinations and you’ve asked if I can help you. I’ve come up with a checklist for Learning Combinations which you will see in my first eight posts.

If you find you’re tripping over your feet, can’t keep up with the music, and lose your concentration and can’t remember the sequence of movement, it may not be because you can’t remember, but more because you may have some technical issues.

Now that you’ve seen the first seven posts, the final and most important advice is that you Study My Videos.

If you find what I’ve said in the earlier blogs helpful, then I strongly encourage you to use my instructional videos.

In every one of my videos, I give each exercise, it is demonstrated by a professional, and I stand by correcting. The ideas I’ve given you in these blogs are bare outlines of what I give you in great detail in each video.

Especially in the Centerwork videos—Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4 Centerwork on Jumps—you are going to see many different exercises where you’ll get to practice our body positions and directions and learn exactly where to put your feet.

In each video I show you everything you need to know and tell you exactly how to do it.

But even more than that, remember that when you watch a video you can look at it in slow motion, which is something you can’t do in class. You can’t see the teacher in slow motion. You can’t study other dancers in slow motion.

With a video, you can study in slow motion and all of a sudden you realize that you can see exactly where the foot goes, and where the supporting shoulder is. And when you begin studying like this by yourself, you will gain an understanding that is priceless, because you can’t get this in any class.

I hope you will continue to give me your suggestions because we do want to continue making these blogs for you which will help you to be a better dancer.

Check us out at finisjhung.com!

We’ve always got something new for you.

Have a good day!

To dance is to live — Finis

We also recommended:

• The Finis Jhung Ballet Technique Level 5 Centerwork on Turns & Jumps
• Turning Connecting Movements & Turning Jumps

Some of you who are adult beginners (or former dancers returning to class) find it difficult to remember and execute center combinations and you’ve asked if I can help you. I’ve come up with a checklist for Learning Combinations which you will see in my first eight posts.

If you find you’re tripping over your feet, can’t keep up with the music, and lose your concentration and can’t remember the sequence of movement, it may not be because you can’t remember, but more because you may have some technical issues.

When you’ve checked the first six potential problems off your list and you think you’ve got them under your belt, then here are some Tips for Remembering Combinations.

The first is to Verbalize when the teacher shows the combination. You should try to say it. If you know the French terminology, say that. If you don’t, make up your own description as best you can. It’s very important that you say something to yourself and not just stand there looking without verbalizing.

At the same time you’re verbalizing, you can be “Marking” — indicating the foot/leg patterns — with your hands. It’s very important you start setting up a script for yourself, because when you do the combination, you’re going to talk to yourself. Or, you’re going to sing to yourself—whatever you think the combination means to you, whether it’s the French terminology or whatever it means to you, or right-left-right-left. You must verbalize and make yourself a script.

The next thing you can do is when you are home, is Visualize. Get in front of a blank wall—I always did this when I danced professionally—I would sit or stand in front of the wall and visualize myself doing the dance I was supposed to perform. And, of course when you do this, you want to visualize yourself dancing correctly! You need to be able to put your vision on the wall because that means it’s getting into your brain, and into your body. This will help you, because it’s all a process of familiarizing yourself with these steps and combinations.

Another thing you can do, either after class, or during the break, is Take Notes. You know you can write something down, because the more you keep saying these things, either by Verbalizing, or Visualizing, or just writing it down and looking at it—these are all keys that are going to help you get the combination into your brain. And, you know it can’t get into your body if it’s not in your brain first.

So, it’s very important that you have a very clear idea of what these combinations or series of steps are so that it all becomes second nature to you. Then, when you hear/see pas de bourrée dessous, right away you’ve got it—you have the whole package—the balancing, the opposition, and the direction.

And, going back to when you’re home, you can go back to Marking. You can do it with your hands, or you can walk through the combination. You may not have much room in your apartment, but try to walk through it with the correct posture, use your eyes and look where you’re supposed to. Try to do the arms. Try to walk through it until the patterning becomes very familiar to you.

The more you use these ideas, you will find it easier to pick and remember the combinations.

In our next post we will provide the final item on your checklist: Study My Videos.

To dance is to live — Finis

We also recommended:

• The Finis Jhung Ballet Technique Level 5 Centerwork on Turns & Jumps
• Turning Connecting Movements & Turning Jumps

Some of you who are adult beginners (or former dancers returning to class) find it difficult to remember and execute center combinations and you’ve asked if I can help you. I’ve come up with a checklist for Learning Combinations which you will see in my first eight posts.

If you find you’re tripping over your feet, can’t keep up with the music, and lose your concentration and can’t remember the sequence of movement, it may not be because you can’t remember, but more because you may have some technical issues.

Today’s post is about Keeping Tempo.

Do you have trouble keeping tempo—keeping up with the music? As I always say in class, “the music is never too fast, you’re always too slow. And, the reason you’re too slow, is you’re too low.”

Meaning, you’re leaning forward (again!) You’ve dropped your ears, you’re hunched forward leaning over your feet. And you can’t move your feet because you’re leaning over them.

Because you’re off balance, you fall over, can’t hit the position, and can’t put your foot where you need it to be. And, when you can’t move your feet, how can you keep up with the music?

Always remember, when you feel that the music is too fast for you, when you already understand the steps but you feel you can’t seem to do the combination, you are probably off balance.

This is the main reason you can’t keep up with the music (although you have the combination steps clear in your mind). Whether you are moving sideways, or forward, in order to maintain your balance and move in tempo you need to use opposition, you need to keep your posture, you need to observe all the points we have previously discussed.

And when you do, then you should be OK—and up to speed.

The next post will provide Tips for Remembering Combinations.

To dance is to live — Finis

We also recommended:

• The Finis Jhung Ballet Technique Level 5 Centerwork on Turns & Jumps
• Turning Connecting Movements & Turning Jumps

Some of you who are adult beginners (or former dancers returning to class) find it difficult to remember and execute center combinations and you’ve asked if I can help you. I’ve come up with a checklist for Learning Combinations which you will see in my first eight posts.

If you find you’re tripping over your feet, can’t keep up with the music, and lose your concentration and can’t remember the sequence of movement, it may not be because you can’t remember, but more because you may have some technical issues.

Today we’re going to discuss Changing Directions.

Do you really know how to change directions?

As you advance, in some combinations you will begin traveling downstage right to corner 2, then turn back and travel upstage to corner 6, or perhaps turn left and travel downstage to corner 8.

The first thing you must do when you change direction from corner 2 to corner 8 is change your head. In every class I see students trying to change directions with the head on the wrong shoulder.

When I travel downstage to corner 2, my head is on my left shoulder and I’m looking towards corner 8. When I change direction and move towards corner 8, my head will be on my right shoulder and I will look towards corner 2.

And, again, I find that students are late in doing this. You tend to want to always look where you’re going. Traveling downstage to corner 2, you want to lean forward and look at corner 2. And vice versa, to corner 8.

This makes you lose your balance, and you can’t move your feet as needed.

So, the first thing you must do when you change direction is change your head—change your gaze—change your corner. You must use your eyes and look in opposition to the direction you are traveling. This will place your head where it belongs. And, when your head is where it belongs, then you can move your feet and legs properly.

Our next post will be about Keeping Tempo.

To dance is to live — Finis

We also recommend:

• The Finis Jhung Ballet Technique Level 5 Centerwork on Turns & Jumps
• Turning Connecting Movements & Turning Jumps

Some of you who are adult beginners (or former dancers returning to class) find it difficult to remember and execute center combinations and you’ve asked if I can help you. I’ve come up with a checklist for Learning Combinations which you will see in my first eight posts.

If you find you’re tripping over your feet, can’t keep up with the music, and lose your concentration and can’t remember the sequence of movement, it may not be because you can’t remember, but more because you may have some technical issues.

The fourth potential problem may stem from how well you understand that one foot or leg is always more important than the other, and in fact, controls the movement of the other leg. In other words whenever you begin a combination, the first thing you must do is Get on Your Leg.

You should always try to keep your weight solidly on your supporting foot, or standing leg, or the foot that is going to push the floor.

Whether you’re in a static pose, or moving from one foot to the other across the floor, you always want to be completely balanced on one foot, which will then allow the other foot to either travel or go up into a position in the air.

Again, what I see repeatedly in the class room is students beginning a combination by trying to assume the pose without first making sure they are balanced on the supporting leg. I see them trying to lift a leg into position when they are not really standing on the other. As a result, they lose their balance and fall over. So, this too is going to make you lose time when you’re working in center floor.

In other words, you never want to think that first you lift your leg to a position, but rather where is your balance? What leg are you standing on?

And, more than that, what foot is going to push the floor? If you don’t push down, you’re not going to move. Realize that most traveling movements involve a plié-relevé. If you’re not driving down through your supporting leg and foot, you’re not going to go up on half-toe. You’re not going to be able to travel.

So, you want to always remember that one leg is always more important than the other, and it’s always the one you’re standing on.

The bottom line is you either stand or fall.

You’ve got to have a leg to dance on!

Our next post deals with Changing Directions.

To dance is to live — Finis

WE ALSO RECOMMEND:

• The Power Barre
• Get On Your Leg & Dance!

Some of you who are adult beginners (or former dancers returning to class) find it difficult to remember and execute center combinations and you’ve asked if I can help you. I’ve come up with a checklist for Learning Combinations which you will see in my first eight posts.

If you find you’re tripping over your feet, can’t keep up with the music, and lose your concentration and can’t remember the sequence of movement, it may not be because you can’t remember, but more because you may have some technical issues.

Today we’re going to discuss The Rules of Opposition.

Do you understand and use The Rules of Opposition?

Basically, if you’re moving forward, you must also have energy and weight that is moving backward. If you’re going to the right, what’s going to the left?

You never, at any time, can move just one part of your body in one direction. There must always be energy and weight that is equal and opposite.

In class, we usually move forward from upstage corner 6 to the downstage corner 2 in fourth position, with the legs working in front or back of you. Opposition is created by keeping your head placed on the L shoulder. When you move sideways from studio left to studio right, Your head is again connected to the left shoulder.

If you look in the ballet manual, you will see illustrations of the classical body positions of effacé (the open fourth) and croisé (the crossed fourth)—both are in the fourth position diagonal facing corner 2—your head does belong to the back shoulder, and your eyes should be focused toward the downstage corner 8.

However, when you are working in class, you should look at yourself in the mirror, because your head will be where it belongs, on the back shoulder, and you will be able to check your body placement and line.

A very important point for you to understand and get used to doing is that while you are moving forward to corner 2, instead of looking where you’re going, you want to look away from it. Again, you’re safe watching yourself in the mirror, which will place your head in the correct technical position.

At the same time, if you’re going to work sideways from the left side of the room to the right, then you need to think the opposition is to the left as your feet move to the right. I think of reaching to the left with my left arm and shoulder. Also, I’m going to begin walking to the right while I’m looking to the left. So there again you have the idea of not looking where you’re going. You have to look and stretch away from it.

This idea it taken to the utmost in Balanchine’s choreography, where the dancers are always looking out at the audience. They may be going diagonally right or left, but the head always faces front. This is what allows them to move their feet and legs quickly without falling over.

In order to move right, you have to have opposition left. In order to move forward, you have to have opposition back.

In my beginning classes, we start off with the tombé forward to the mirror. The first thing I say is “your ears and shoulders are always back. Your ears are up and back, your shoulders are back and down, and only your toes and hips can move forward.”

And that applies to moving diagonally forward as well.

Remember that as soon as you learn forward, drop your ears, and hunch over your feet, you won’t be able to move your feet and legs correctly. And each time you do that, you’re going to lose your timing of the combination, you’re going to become confused because you’re on the wrong foot—when everyone is on the right foot, you’re still going to be on your left foot.

And so it’s very important you understand that in order to balance all your movements, you have to use opposition, which will make everything much easier for you.

Our next post is titled Get on Your Leg.

To dance is to live — Finis

• The Finis Jhung Ballet Technique Level 1 Centerwork
• FJBT Level  2 Centerwork
• FJBT level 3 Centerwork
• FJBT Level 4 Centerwork on Jumps
• Connecting Movements Sideways & Forward