Anatomy and Kinesiology for Ballet Teachers

This professional source has helped me a lot! 'Anatomy and Kinesiology for Ballet Teachers' written by Eivind Thomasen and Rachel-Anne Rist in 1996 (published by Dance Book Ltd.) Recently I have re-read section 3: The Dancer in Action I found the beneficial stretching, warming up and warming down, breathing and balance sections (found in contents) really helped me in my topic of interest. It has also lead me to research more into stretching and flexibility. Stretching was already a big part to my topic of warming up and cooling down, but researching into factor that affect flexibility and how a child's body develops and becomes less flexible around the age of 10 or 11 (dancers may improve their flexibility throughout adolescence.) After warming your body up dancers tend to perform mid range stretches and save full range during the cool down when the body is completely warm but I want to research more into this.

I trained at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts and during my time at this school the Director of Dance was Rachel-Anne Rist. She was one of my many ballet teachers and I also took dance A 'level and again Rachel-Anne Rist was one of my teachers on this subject. This was one of our books we revised for our exams so we spent many classes reading through and taking notes. Having one of the authors of this book teach and train me at college and having the opportunity to study this book together has really helped me and motivated me. I have also seen Rachel-Anne Rist name when reading 'ISTD Foundation in Dance Instruction' in the acknowledgements they thank ISTD staff for their contributions.