Good Tips on Improving Technique

1. Set small goals. If you have a hard time keeping your insteps lifted, focus on just that for several classes.  It may mean lowering your leg a little in grand battement or rond de jambe en l’air, but it’s okay to sacrifice height for alignment and proper use of the feet.  If you aren’t using your feet properly, nothing else is going to get better either.
2. Listen to corrections that are given to anyone in class. Just because the teacher may not have singled you out doesn’t mean that what they’re telling someone else doesn’t apply to you as well.
3. Write down corrections after class in a notebook, and refer to them often. The more you are able to concentrate on applying corrections to your dancing the faster you will improve.
4. Mark. When the teacher is showing a combination for the first time, it helps you remember it better if you mark it with her.  The same holds true when you are in the center and watching another group perform.  Mark the steps in time with the music to cement the combination more clearly in your head.  Don’t, however, focus so much on this that you are unable to observe the other dancers.  Watching others is a great way to learn and improve.
5. Pay attention to detail. ...

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Tip of the Day

Remember that you do need to concentrate… Half of the strengthening you will achieve is by learning how to tell the nerves how to switch the right muscles on. -Lisa Howell, The Perfect Pointe

 Howell was talking about the exercises in her book, specifically, but I think that quote can be applicable to any ballet work you're learning. (Quote taken from Amazon's "Search Inside This Cover"... I REALLY want this book! Just can't shell out $50 right now, though.)