The Appropriate Effort, an excerpt from Attention and Focus in Dance In our endeavour to achieve the desired line and movement form as seen from the outside, we regularly adopt a more-is-more approach. We strive ceaselessly in Western dance to do more – pull up more, turn out more, hold more — with the assumption that more effort, more control, more hours and more repetition will eventually lead to mastery. This more-is-more approach persists even though we have the evidence from sport science that more conscious effort, more conscious control and more physical repetition lead us to more of the same result. It is counterproductive and inefficient and can lead […]

mind and attention strategies to free your power and precision. An open access, professional development webinar aimed at Professional Dancers and Trainers. Tuesday 9th November 11am ET / 5pm CET on line Join us for this 5th and final webinar in the ‘Bridging IADMS’ series that I have been hosting this year – Discovering Attention and Focus strategies in practice: Interdisciplinary tools to enhance performance, learning and recovery. This webinar for professional dancers is kindly hosted by Finnish National Ballet and we are joined by artistic director, Madeleine Onne, colleagues Jani Talo, Johanna Osmala, and Laura Nuutinen, and company dancers. We all want to do and be our best, but […]

Saturday 29th May at 11am EST/5pm CET Dance Educators: The 1st guest of attention and focus specialist Clare Guss-West MA, in the IADMS interdisciplinary webinar series “Discovering attention & focus strategies in practice” is Ellie Kusner, MSc, IADMS Dance Educators’ Committee Chair. Join us and learn more about using Attention & Focus in your Dance context. IADMS – International Association for Dance Medicine & Science. Registration Join Clare Guss-West and Ellie Kusner on a metacognitive journey to explore the role of attention and focus in dance teaching. This relatively uncharted territory in dance provides rich tools for teachers to enhance the performance and learning of dancers. Ellie and Clare bring ‘internal’ and ‘external’ attentional focus approaches to […]

‘Bridging IADMS’ Webinar Series – May – September 2021 Interdisciplinary tools to enhance performance, learning and recovery. The interdisciplinary skills of Attention and Focus get the exposure they merit through IADMS – International Association for Dance Medicine & Science. I’ll be hosting this 5-part webinar series with amazing guest presenters Ellie Kusner, David Leventhal, Astrid Sherman, Johanna Osmala and Madeleine Onne, artistic director Finnish National Ballet. Open to the public and free access, this 5-part practical, interactive webinar series spans the disciplines and some specialist focus groups of IADMS with the objective of promoting interdisciplinary exchange. The webinar series aims is to provide a background introduction and application to the […]

Attention & Focus strategies to enhance on line learning and teaching. Still teaching virtually? This is the perfect moment to shift learners attention on line to an external focus whilst dancing by using imagery or focusing in on sensory feedback and proprioceptive feedback. The stress and frustration of on line learning will be relieved and as a secondary benefit – technique progression sharpened despite the virtual environment. Learn more in this Human Kinetics post . . .

2020 has been quite a year and dancers and dance teachers have had a steep learning curve to embrace technology and develop the skills sets to deliver effective distance and on line dancing and learning. The up side of this year is the incredible accessibility to learning that this new virtual medium has afforded. Dancers from as far and wide as China, Canada, the US and New Zealand have been able to participate together in my recent workshops, lectures and conferences. We are sharing knowledge and best practice in dance training in a way previously unheard of in my whole dancing life time. So if you participated in our on […]