How to jump higher...and it's not about plie
Forget a deeper plie. The best jumpers think of something else.
I think there are plenty of tips and exercises out there to work on plies for jumps. After all, plie is the most used movement in ballet (it literally means to bend). So yes, it is very important. But when you hear a teacher yell “plie!”, it doesn’t really mean anything most of the time.
So how do you jump higher? It comes down to few things:
Activate elastic-like muscle effect.
Use coordination before take off.
Implement your core.
Land correctly.
Become a bouncy ball
You must understand the difference between slow plies and rhythmic plies. They are both important and should be practiced both ways.
When you relax a muscle and change the length, you are actually stretching the muscle. But when you pre-load (tense) your muscle and stretch it, it causes your muscle to act like an elastic. This action can be used to spring it back and fire muscles explosively. Not only is this energy-efficient, but this is one way to jump higher.
When you watch people with good jumps, their time spent in plie before take off seems very short. But really, they are accessing this muscle behavior to use it fully for jumps.
In the clip below is international Principal ballerina and my friend, Evelina Godunova. Her jump is magnificent. You can see the elastic effect of her muscles when she starts to jump higher and higher. She truly is an amazing dancer—go follow her on Instagram @evelinagodunova.
Learn how to coordinate your arms
You need to master how your arms swing as you take off into your jump. This coordination comes naturally for some, but with practice you can get this right.
Here is what you do:
Imagine your favorite grand allegro. You are about to jump. Your arms will swing down when you go down (plie) on the take off leg. Below is a great demonstration of how arms swing down before they take off.
You actually want your arms to help you. What tends to happen is that arms go down too slowly, and then there’s not enough speed. Watch the timing of the arms from the guys in the video again.
When you go down on take off, you want your arms to swing down and gather you into the air. The arms swinging into a downward motion before takeoff should help get you into the air.
Your core is a black hole…
Of course I have to talk about the core because it’s the source of magic at this school of Ballet Wizards.
Activating your core before taking off will protect you from potential injuries. And more importantly, you will be able to access your core to throw yourself in the air with incredible power. The way the core works is that all power moves through the core. So if your core is soft and not correctly engaged, then your potential power will escape to other places of your body. You won’t be able to translate the force to action no matter how much you try to push it (or no matter how much you focus on your plie). And that power that escapes could result in potential injuries.
Typically for any jumps, big or small, you must engage and reengage at three checkpoints:
Before take off.
In the air before striking some position.
Before the landing.
Once again, imagine your favorite grand allegro. Imagine it very slowly, taking it moment by moment, almost like meditating on it.
When do you take off?
What do you do in the air?
How do you land?
Then think about how, before each moment, you can engage your core (abs) like a blackhole sucking your whole body inwards. Now slowly speed up to the real speed, and those “black hole” moments will happen very quickly.
Whether you are just going up and down in first position, or splitting your legs in the air, you want to re-engage your abs (core) before each of these checkpoints.
Before landing, always do this
Taking off correctly is important, but injuries happen when landing most of the time. So it is in your best interest to protect yourself from the impact of landing. It seems obvious by this point that engaging your core will protect you, but here’s an even more important point: Using your core before landing is what can help you nail a position after every jump. I used to mess up at the end of my variations, meaning that I would do my last jump or pirouette…and crumble to the ground. Many times, I touched the ground in my last pose (a huge no-no in the ballet world), and in the worst case, I fell on my butt. That last moment always felt like a gamble.
When you use the core before hitting the floor, it’s like magic. You don’t have to think much about nailing the landing. It just happens with or without you thinking about it. The reason why you can nail it is, like I said earlier, because all force goes through your core. So if you have a stable and strong core, all the impact from landing is already in control even before impact. It is always a pleasant surprise when you finish a combination solidly as if it happens out of nowhere. But it is nothing but an accident. It is your core.
So if landing a jump hurts, or if landing makes you even more unstable as you finish a variation, go back to how you got into your jump.
There’s a good chance, you’re not engaging your core at the beginning to get it all going.
Remember these jumping truths:
You need strong muscles in the right places—especially your core and the back of your thighs (hamstrings).
It takes practice day in and day out to get the coordination. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Start extra slow. Practice moment by moment. It would help tremendously if you have friends who can give you with feedback on the timing of your arms.
If you’re alone, record yourself! Just don’t judge yourself while watching it. When you film yourself, you are only noticing where to give yourself feedback on what can be improved, and not to criticize the dancing.
Don’t let preconceived ideas about your jumping abilities hold you back. Anyone can learn to jump. And training for bigger jumps is a great way to increase your overall body strength and coordination.
While some things are actually genetic (like the strength and the tightness of ligament and tendons), which contributes to how you approach jumps, training with correct principles in mind can push you to levels you didn’t know you could accomplish. Don’t hold back. Maybe one day, you’ll also be called a gazelle by random people who sat in the audience during your performance (story for another day).
Big bonus tip: Take a look at all the dancers who are great jumpers. For example, Natalia Osipova, Evelina Godunova, Tetsuya Kumakawa, Ivan Vasiliev…etc.
When they take off, they don’t take off with extremely turned-out legs. If anything, their take off legs are considered “turned-in” for ballet. From a physics point of view, their take off legs being more “parallel” give them more force to jump resulting in higher jumps. From an anatomical point of view, their legs are aligned to the direction they are jumping towards, which is healthy for their joints.
So to turnout? Or not to turnout. That is the question…
Go watch one of your favorite jumpers.
If they’re a friend or classmate or coworker, ask them how much they think of turn out before their jumps.