Final Project

I have found that many beginning dancers do not understand what muscles they should use to perform specific movements. This seems counter intuitive because dancers move their bodies all the time so they should understand where their muscles are and how to use them. However, in my dance experience I have found that sometimes I engage muscles all the time and then overuse them which fatigues them and if I do not stretch them out afterwards, they can bulk up. This is a problem because dancers typically want to be long and lean instead of bulky. Another problem is that beginning dancers simply cannot anatomically visualize where certain muscles are in their body. I decided to do a project that can help show my dance students what muscle groups they should be using while also teaching them anatomy at the same time. I used photoshop to complete this project. I first started with a simple image of a ballerina. I then went in to photoshop to add in muscles that I would want my students to focus on as they do that specific movement. This is also a way that I can teach muscle groups so they students can see where the various muscles are on a dancer.