Minute Masterclass Episode 128

Welcome to your one-minute masterclass. I’m Andrea Trench, founder of DiscoverDance and creator of the Foundations Course for Early Childhood Dance Educators and the DiscoverDance Experience Membership. Today, we are exploring the third pattern of the BrainDance: core/distal. Core refers to pulling all limbs into the center of your body. Distal refers to stretching all limbs away from the center of your body. By repeating this pattern in our classes each week we are developing our core strength and discovering our full body extension. 

For core/distal, we can pull everything into our center then stretch everything out to our straddle before stretching to each side. We can jump from ball pose to star pose in our acro classes. Or, we can use imagery of a small seed that grows to a big tree or as a small balloon expanding to a big balloon. Reinforcement props such as an expandable ball, scarf, or balloon can be great visuals to show the difference between small and big that the dancers can copy.  Repeating this pattern three or four times in our classes each week is all we need before moving on to the next pattern. For more information, to enroll in the Foundations Course or join the DiscoverDance Experience, visit DiscoverDance.com.