The first steps in the attainment of grace of motion is to avoid short, angular, jerky movements, and to learn to do everything, even the most difficult exercises, with the least expenditure of power and energy. This implies considerable muscular strength and great muscular endurance and control. As soon as the dancer loses her balance or poise, holds one arm too straight, and bends the other one at too sharp an angle, or puts too much stress on this movement and too little on that, or makes too much effort, the harmony is lost and gracefulness is not attained.
The modern gymnasium dancing conforms more completely with the requirements of good exercise than ball-room dancing, because the trunk, arms, and legs are brought more generally into action. While the exercises of the feet and calves are not so intense or so concentrated as in ballet dancing, the range and the extent of the movement are much greater. Not only are the shoulder, back, and chest muscles considerably developed by the free use of the arms, but so many of the muscles of the lower part of the back, abdomen, and thighs are used that greater respiratory power is acquired to sustain the extended action; hence, the chest-walls are expanded by the effort, and the abandonment of the corset during dancing gives the utmost freedom to all respiratory movements.
Statistics show that some of the benefits accruing from a conscientious study and practice of aesthetic dancing are, that it raises and develops the chest, lengthens the waist, and also reduces its circumference; the hips are reduced in size, the thighs and calves are enlarged, while the ankles are made smaller and the insteps are raised and given a higher arch. Properly applied and directed, dancing exercises are even a cure for flat-foot.
The improvement noted in thirteen young ladies during twenty-five days by M. B. Gilbert is as follows: The average increase in the normal chest measure, from half an inch to one and a half inches; with the chest inflated, from half an inch to one and three-fourth inches.
The foundation for this coördinate work, from which an unlimited variety of the most valuable developing exercises is formed, consists of the long-established five positions of the feet and five positions of the arms, together with positions of the whole body, known as attitudes, arabesques, poses, elevations, groupings, etc. From these precepts are established, whereby steps, attitudes, and motions are systematically arranged, according to the method, and in strict harmony with time and cadence of music.
Fig. 70.—Figures of the dance. Second position of hands; second position of right foot.
Fig. 71.—Figures of the dance. Third position of hands; third position of right foot.
