Professional artefact and other developments

After a conversation with Nikki and sharing ideas with professional friends and students at the college, we came to the conclusion that my professional artifact should be a guide booklet. With further consideration this booklet will include all the information I am looking for and will advise a dance student how to maintain a well conditioned dancers body. This guide will focus primarily on physical fitness and well being maintenance. When researching body conditioning in training and physical fitness, especially in literature there were heavy links to injury prevention. Therefore, within the guide I have decided it would be important to cover frequent injury complaints and how to avoid and recover from them.

I have progressed and developed my inquiry drastically as I continue to ask the question; what is it I want to know? This has meant that my theme has not changed but the content of my inquiry has. I have followed my plan as much as I could but circumstances have prevented a smooth investigation. This is because it was not as easy as first thought to combine my work-load with research, organizing activities and finding a time that suits all participants.

Here are a few things that I have had to contend with in the past few months:

• I have left employment at the dancing school stated in Inquiry. Thus carrying out an investigation here is no longer an option.
• I have had a cut in hours at the dance college meaning less time to instill body conditioning within a particular course. The gym at the college has also been out of action due to a ongoing improvements therefore, gym programs have not been looked at due to lack of time and facilities.
• I have started my own dancing school. Preparing for this, a show and other performances along with everything that comes with starting a school from advertising to costume organization, has proven difficult with such limited time.
• I have had to add hours to a cafe job that helps pay the bills taking up more of my researching time.

Never before has prioritizing been more important. It seems I am still developing this skill even after I thought I had done so well last term. Things seem to be escalating and time is escaping. I need 'Bernard's Watch'!

Interviews are going well I only have one more to complete. I will right a small summary over the next week and post my recordings and findings. 

The survey I posted needs many changes. Thank you to everyone that participated. The results I gathered have lead me to develop my questions further. Also, I now need to add questions about common injuries to aid the creation of my artifact.

My brief overview of 'Survey Monkey' findings

• 88.9% trained at a Trinity accredited college. I choose to find out this information as I am currently working in a Trinity accredited college, this is my area of professional practise. I will cross reference this with my findings later on in my research.
• 77.8% had a ballet class every day. This percentage and the next three bullet points show me what emphasis was put on a particular style of class within the course thus allowing me to understand what is important when training.
• 0% had a fitness/body conditioning class everyday. At first I was concerned about this. However, I realised that a weekly fitness regime can consist of classes and personal fitness regimes combined.
• 33.3% of participants took part in one to three classes of body conditioning a week.
• 66.7% had access to the gym when training.
• A third of participants use the gym now either less than one hour a week, one to two and three to four hours a week.
• 22% of training focused on fitness within weekly training at 10/20%, 50/60, and 70/80% of the course content. These results varied immensely. I was surprised at this as I assumed Trinity Colleges were standardized. 33.3% at 30-40%. Therefore, most colleges focus less than half of there course content on fitness. This alone outlines the need for a guide that helps students to maintain body condition within and around their college timetable.
• 77.8% have a fitness regime now and either swim, run, work out, visit the gym 2-5 days a week, or take part in more than 40 minutes of exercise everyday. These can be ideas outlined within my professional artifact.
• Only 10% work on flexibility and core strength. Leaving one guessing what else they work on, maybe I should have added a question that required a more specific answer here as this is not very helpful for my research.
• 100% agree they were correctly trained for their career. Conversely in the comments box a few participants added that knowledge of strength and fitness was not covered within the course. The course focused on correct execution of technique. This also supports the need for a guide to help students understand their bodies and how to keep them well conditioned.

New Survey

Hello again!

If you are a professional dancer or underwent professional dance training, I would really appreciate it if you could take the time to answer a few questions. Any comments are very welcome. Please take my survey and let me know what you think...

Click here to take survey

Useful Website!

Hi Everyone!

Ive found a website that has been very useful on Google Scholar as advised by Paula. I was looking at dance science, and the relationship of fitness in dance, its affects on the physiological make up of a performer for the prevention of injury and found an open repositery on the University of Wolverhampton's Website: http://wlv.openrepository.com/wlv/

Check it out! Hope someone finds this as useful as I have! Review to follow...

Re-group, Re-focus and Re-fresh...

After a phone conversation with Paula and looking at all the feedback obtained so far thoughts have lead me to the following questions;

• What is it I want to know?
• What is it I am trying to find out or discover?
• What will my outcome be?

Ive found that so far I have been very vague without really even realising. I myself had an idea of what it was I wanted to inquire about but I wasnt setting a clear path for anyone to follow. How would I create an inquiry that is accessible, clear and relevant? Time for a re-think

A number of events over the past couple of months have curved my inquiry topic. First of all, I left employment at a dancing school and I was uncertain of my employment in the field of teaching dance. I was left feeling very dissapointed and sad. With some time off I realised that it was something I was born to do and I have since then set up my own dance school in my local area. Here is my website: http://www.triplethreatacademy.co.uk/ This however will not be the employment I will choose to focus on. I have  recently renewed a contract of employment with a Trinity Musical Theatre College as a body conditioning student. I decided that my main area of curisoity is in professional dance training. Particularly in the Trinity Diploma curriculam.

How do I efficiently train a dancer for their profession through Body Conditioning?
Sub questions:
How does Body Conditioning enhance training within the trinity diploma course?
Does Body Conditioning help technique within the dance classes and how?
What are the Body Conditioning practises of professional dancers in employment?
Are there any similarities?
Do other Trinity Colleges have a class soley for fitness, strength and flexibility that is not a dance style/technique?
Why is Body Conditioning part of the timetable?
What is in a Body Conditioning class and why?