movement of c

My right knee is a little blown out right now. It hasn’t been this bad in a few years, and it brings me back to when I was 16 and I got my first serious knee injury…on stage at a recital. Both of my knees suffer from Chondromalacia Patella - or easier said, continuously deteriorating cartilage. My left knee has sustained injury rather well. At the onset of the injury, my right knee blew first. About 6 months later my left knee blew, but recovered well. My right knee was worse, and within the next 3 years it failed to stay in its socket about 3 times.

What’s happening now is that my right patella (the little round kneecap) is coming in direct contact with the vertical surfaces of my femur that encapsulates the front of the joint. This result is a well-known “Snap Krackle Pop” upon bending. I’m avoiding another serious injury by taking it easy in my dance classes, and adopting a somewhat different style of teaching until I’m fully recovered.

Not being able to bend my knee more than inch or so with weight on it, I can’t demonstrate most of the steps that I review and/or am trying to teach. This week I decided not to teach too much new material, because it wouldn’t be fair to my students not to able to explain and demonstrate new concepts properly. We focused on reviewing and drilling a lot of the technique work and choreography that has been set over the past few weeks.

I realized over these past couple of days that I have developed a teaching style that relies heavily on demonstration. I’ve worked really hard over these past 5 years to be sure not teach in a copy-cat style. I always take the time to verbally explain dance concepts and steps in addition to showing. I use the chalkboard a lot when teacher Ballet, because learning the terminology and the translations of words like “plie”, “tendu”, “rond de jambe” are really helpful for young kids executing these steps. (Plie = to bend, Tendu=to stretch, Rond de Jambe=circle of the leg).

Ballet is the most verbal of all the dance forms for a couple reasons. The first is that it is spoken en Francais. This gives an element of poetry to the class, learning the French words, understanding their English meaning and working to execute the movement based on the meaning of the words. Ballet is a beautiful verbal art form. When we execute a combination of steps we speak a poetic line such as, “Tendu coup, pas de bouree…chasse releve pique plie.” or “Tombe pas de bourree…soutenu….balance balance, glissade saut de chat.”

Teaching jazz has been harder. My students tonite were pretty disoriented without my ability to demonstrate steps full out. It kind of hit me that teaching jazz all these years, I’ve relied heavily on my ability to demonstrate steps, and have worked to teach this form of dance on a very aesthetic level. I mean, it’s worked in a lot of ways, but it’s not something to rely on so heavily in the future. My jazz dancers are good dancers, and understand more than just copy-cat learning for sure. But it was a really amazing learning experience to have to implement different styles of teaching.

I’m a very vocal teacher, and felt as though my students would have been more receptive to this approach but was a little bit disappointed when I saw their turnout and grasp of the concepts we were reviewing. Focusing more on their success in listening is something to be more aware of in the future of teaching, knee injury or not.

During my last semester at BU, I took an English Folk Dance class with Tony Barrand. He has Multiple Sclerosis, uses a scooter to get around, and taught a class of 45 students the intricate and age-old dance forms of England, specifically, Morris Dancing. It hit me last year that this was a foreign method. It is a gift to be able to teach the techniques through verbal explanation, drawing on physical metaphor and explanation that could translate in to comprehensive and intricate movement. I had been trained as a dancer since I was three years old, and never had a teacher that was disabled. It was a new learning experience for me that I took a lot from at the time. I’ve seen fallen in to the easier route of demonstration as my main source of communication in my classes. Right now, though my level of disability is severely minor, I have some very valuable lessons to take from Tony Barrand.