Hello everyone ❤️❤️ Gentle reminder that our half term starts tomorrow, which means there are no classes on, and everything will resume on Sunday 3 November with our next Variation of the Month. (Tonight’s technique classes are still on!) Welldone for your incredible dancing and hard work the first half of this Autumn term 🍁. It’s been fun to get to pop in and watch more sessions too! Have a wonderful week and Happy Halloween! 🎃

Hello everyone 👋🏽 A reminder that LBC has no classes running between Friday 25 October and Saturday 2nd November because of our half term. (If you have a membership with us the renewal date will be extended :) ). Our classes will restart on Sunday 3 November with our variation classes 🙌🏾 ⭐️Announcing our next Variation of the Month! Starting Sunday 3 November ⭐️ Sundays: 3, 10, 17, 24 November at The Place studios in Kings Cross 5-6.30pm: Intermediate/Advanced 6.30-8pm: Beginners/Improvers Week 4 is an (optional) solo/group performance day in the studio! Swipe to learn more about this variation and to see this variation performed by the one and only Svetlana Zakharova 🥰. ❤️ A reminder that our Thursday evening Technique classes support our variation classes, so if you would like extra support/practice with some of the trickier steps or aspects of the variation, definitely join us Thursday evenings at WAC Arts studio in Belsize Park. Each month we have a selection of focal steps to achieve this; so keep an eye out for what these are and practice incorporating them into class choreography every Thursday (Note: Our Technique classes also split into Intermediate/Advanced and Beginner+ classes too) 😊 (Slide 2 features a photo of Maria Alexandrova, taken by Irina Lepnyova).

Throwback to our last workshop with @leticiadias_ ❤️ Leticia will be returning to teach for us on Sunday 1 December. We will be learning the Swanhilda variation from Coppelia 🙏🥳

Our Wednesday Beginner Pointe crew 😍 It’s been SUCH a delight watching you all grow and piece things together over the last few weeks. Pointe is physically challenging and mentally scary and so many things are happening all at once. I am super proud of your mindful, focused approach, appreciation of the details, commitment to repetition and most importantly your consistency in showing up each week and practicing between lessons too! ❤️ Not everything needs to be a deep dive and intensely detail focused - of course some ballet classes are just for fun or for practice, but I really believe the start of your pointe journey does need to be as much detail as possible. Teaching this class has only reinforced my commitment to finding models that support the adult learning process and recognise how different this can be (and needs to be) from the ways in which we work with children’s bodies. Welldone everyone ❤️❤️❤️. If you have enjoyed this class or recommend it to a friend; please share your experience in the comments, because it might give somebody else the encouragement to try it out next term :) and start their pointe journey ❤️❤️❤️

Beautiful shot of the lovely Beth 💓 Captured by @emilydurhamphotography

Coming soon 👀 We are delighted to welcome Leticia back to lead another workshop for us this December. This Intermediate level workshop will be held at The Place studios in Kings Cross :). Bookings now open :)

Comment your dream variations below 👇🏽 Considering options for workshops and next term ❤️💜🙏 Photo by @emilydurhamphotography

A reminder of our Pointe classes throughout the week week: 1. Mondays, 8 - 9.15pm: Intermediate+ Pointe at The Place 2. Wednesdays, 7.45 - 9pm: Beginner+ Pointe at The Place 3. Fridays, 1 - 2pm: Pre-Pointe and Pointe via Zoom (mixed levels) - recordings available Message us to discuss suitability. Book via the link in our bio :) ❤️

Behind the scenes in one of my 1-1 sessions where we use posture work to better activate our ballet technique :) Here is Shin unlocking her potential for a sustained, secure single leg balance after just 90 minutes work together! (And us having a little celebration lol 🎉🥳). As you know, I love preaching about intentional work and here is a perfect example. Sometimes correcting something relatively small in our posture is a major unlock and massively transforms our balance. Not only because balance is much easier when we align ourselves correctly, but also because posture informs how the muscles activate (if our posture is not functional, some muscles overwork while others don’t engage. This imbalance makes ballet very hard - even if we are quite strong!). This particular session looked like: 1. A full body postural assessment to identify standing posture, muscle imbalances and movement tendencies 2. Body awareness exercises to help Shin differentiate between straight and hyperextended knees 3. Exercises for quad activation and finding connection to the deep external rotators (in addition to the glutes) for turnout 4. Breathing exercises to better understand and correct pelvic placement 5. Slow rewiring of Shin’s tendency to flare the rib cage on an inhale (a common breathing pattern which leads to curvature in the upper spine and a resulting anterior tilt of the pelvis). This one was more tricky to feel but gradually Shin moved away from accessory breathing to a more ‘three dimensional’ breath pattern. This was a bit of an unlock in this session! 6. Footwork exercises to mobilise the feet and develop awareness of how to manage pronation 7. We pieced it all together in basic standing work; gradually reducing the proprioceptive feedback to add a little challenge! 8. We applied the movement principles in a turned out position 9. We returned the original goal and successfully completed a single leg rise and balance - without the barre! TRICKY! 10. As you can see it’s a little harder on the leg with more hypermobility, but Shin achieved it on both! So proud of you Shin ❤️ and thank you for letting me share this moment with our community!

⭐️Every October we learn a corps routine in our Sunday classes - and this year we have something extra special for LBC’s sixth birthday. Expect a fun, celebratory, uplifting group number ⭐️ Sundays: 29 September and 6, 13, 20 October at The Place studios in Kings Cross 5-6.30pm: Intermediate/Advanced 6.30-8pm: Beginners/Improvers Week 4 is performance day in the studio! (In our Intermediate class we learn the original choreography and in our Beginners class we learn an adapted version inspired by the style of the piece) Swipe to learn more about this piece and to see a short snippet of the choreography 🥰. ❤️ A reminder that our Thursday evening Technique classes support our variation classes, so if you would like extra support/practice with some of the trickier steps or aspects of the variation, definitely join us Thursday evenings at WAC Arts studio in Belsize Park. Each month we have a selection of focal steps to achieve this; so keep an eye out for what these are and practice incorporating them into class choreography every Thursday (Note: Our Technique classes also split into Intermediate/Advanced and Beginner+ classes too) 😊 For this upcoming routine, both our Intermediate and Beginner classes will be taught by the lovely @lucinda_strachan_balletcoach - dancer with the English National Ballet. She is amazing, so come and join her ❤️🫶🏾🙏

The LBC website has a new banner - naturally it’s been snapped by my favourite photographer @emilydurhamphotography Featuring some (of our many) incredible students at LBC in their very autumnal attire 🤣

❤️❤️❤️ 📸 by @emilydurhamphotography