NED WAYBURN’S ACROBATIC DANCING
THERE is a very decided distinction to be drawn between acrobatics pure and simple, and acrobatic dancing, which is quite another matter. It is, of course, acrobatic dancing that you see on the stage accompanying and accentuating the more formal dancing steps in musical comedies, revues, and spectacular performances, and it is this acrobatic dancing that receives wide attention in the teaching of the dancing art in the Ned Wayburn courses.
There are properly two divisions into which acrobatic dancing is naturally separated:
(1) Bending exercises; including the back bend, hand-stand, inside-out, front over, back limber, cartwheel, tinseca, nip-up, the various splits, and several more advanced feats that should be attempted only after thorough physical preparation.
(2) High-Kicking exercises; including all the so-called "legmania" varieties of dancing, which are best acquired by thorough preparation of the body in the Ned Wayburn foundation technique and studious attention to the drill in the Ned Wayburn Americanized ballet technique.
All of the acrobatic dancing tricks that are properly classified under bending exercises have for their foundation the back bend and the hand stand, as they are called, both of which must be mastered absolutely before attempting other and more complicated acrobatic exercises.
I want to go on record with the emphatic statement that acrobatic dancing must not be attempted except by those who are entirely and absolutely physically fit. The acrobatic dancer must possess unusual strength in the arms, in order that the weight of the body may be safely supported; and there must be strength and flexibility of the waist muscles and the abdominal muscles, and of all the muscles of the back and shoulders, to enable the performer to execute the front and back bends and their companion strenuous exercises. First, the pupil must have an unusual adaptability to this type of dancing, and then must prepare carefully and properly in advance of entering upon the real work of the course.