Have you ever wondered if there are safe ways to improve your muscle strength … and beyond? Meet the PBT technique.
The Progressing Ballet Technique is a revolutionary method designed by Marie Walton-Mahon to enhance muscle conditioning and help students achieve their classical ballet goals to the fullest. The ultimate goal of the program is to perfect movement coordination, alignment and posture through strengthening, flexibility and muscle memory.
To avoid injuries in ballet, students should not “cheat” in technique. But to achieve this, flexibility, muscle strength, absolute coordination of movements and of course muscle memory are needed.
By performing some exercises in the wrong way, we give our brain the wrong information. So it starts to create incorrect muscle memory and when the student performs that particular exercise, they will now perform it incorrectly. Considering, the number of muscle groups used in ballet, we understand how many mistakes can be made in performing exercises, eventually leading to injury at some point.
With PBT we train the body to remember exactly which muscles it uses, for example for alignment. This is helped by the exercise ball, which is not completely stable and leaves the body no choice but to use those muscles to align. So, by removing the body from the stable floor and placing it on the ball, we improve posture. Eventually, at a slow but steady pace, the student performs the familiar ballet exercises with ease because the mind has now been trained to give the correct commands.
At the same time, through the exercise ball and the hose that creates a light resistance, we also see a dramatic improvement in the students’ muscular strength.
In addition, for children who have an ultimate goal of a professional dance career, it would be a great omission not to mention that this technique builds long-term strength and resilience, elements absolutely essential for a professional dancer.
Ballet arts has incorporated PBT into its student warm-ups and enjoys the safe development of its students into strong and flexible dancers. On top, the dance studio offers dedicated PBT classes.
It is the greatest and safest gift a dance teacher or instructor can give to their classical ballet students.
