BENEFITS:

High heeled shoes:

Tone the calf
Make the leg appear longer
Elevate the buttocks
Increase overall height
Make the bust more prominent

HAZARDS:

Elevating the heel can pitch you forward onto your toes. Possible hazards with this are:
Locking your knees and arching the back, restricting breathing and creating stress on the hip, knee and ankle joints
Makes us less stable, ankle injury more likely
Pushes the belly out
Negatively effect healthy functioning in walking- more musculature is used when wearing heels than in flat shoes which get the benefit of the free return of energy of the Achille's tendon (*see link below)

AT DIRECTIONS:

Let the heel of the shoe actually lengthen your whole body by *using it like a natural extension of your own heel*
Unlock the knees
Send your back back and up
Let your head float UP and your tail release down
Counterbalance the knees releasing forward with the back going back
Release the abdominals into upward length (don't contract the abs; counterbalance with upward front length)
Think of drawing a line down the back of your body from the top of your head through your own heel and down through the heel of the shoe into the floor

*(The more the top off your head goes toward the ceiling, the less weight is going DOWN through those wee heels- think of it as a very upright monkey: unified torso, head and tail lengthen away from each other and joints are released, but with a super-human long heel. :)

Because of the physics of the shoes, you will already appear very upright in the front without arching the back and lifting the chest.
Your natural poise and postural muscles will take you up!
You will also be less likely to fall.

SINGING IN HEELS:

Singing in heels is perfectly fine in my opinion. (I do not do it myself, as I appear tall already, do not like to limit the spread of my foot with narrow footbeds, and do not like to have to think in performance about counterbalancing with the lifting of the heel.)

Things to be conscious of are the tendency to lock the knees as a strut against the raising of the heel, which will cause or be caused by contracting the low back, lifting the chest and contracting the abdominals- which need to be free to move with breathing and dynamic for balance.

RELEVANT LINKS:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/life-style/fashion-beauty-wellbeing/what-s-the-story-with-the-alexander-technique-1.991611

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/scientists-look-at-the-dangers-of-high-heels/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22241055

Learn From Home

NEW!

Skype video lessons now available for Voice, Voice + Alexander Technique and Bulgarian singing.
Schedule a session today by emailing: info@kateconklin.com

Meg Jolley and Kate Conklin

Tuesday, July 10, 6:00-8:00 ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE and YOGA
Meg Jolley and Tina Chappel

Sunday July 15 3pm ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE and DANCE
Meg Jolley

Single Class $15 or $40 for the Series

For info or to register, contact Meg:
mjolley@pomona.edu or (626) 796-1750

ARC Pasadena is located at 1158 East Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, California 91106. Entrance to ARC Pasadena is behind the facility.

ABOUT KATE

Kate Conklin is a soprano and a leading interpreter of the highly ornamented vocal music of Bulgaria. She was the vocalist for Cirque du Soleil's "O" for two years. Kate teaches Voice, Alexander Technique and the neurobiology of performance practice. Her work has been called "simple and instantly adoptable, yet radical and groundbreaking."  She specializes in working with performers whose work demands both excellent technique and profound artistry. Kate works with elite performers from musical, athletic and theatrical arenas including members of the LA Phil, LA Master Chorale and Cirque du Soleil. She has taught and lectured at The California State Summer School for the Arts, The Oakwood School, Academy of Creative Education, US Performing Arts Theater Conservatory in Los Angeles, CalArts, Pomona College, LA Music Academy, The Marlborough School, USC and UCLA.

ABOUT MEG

Meg has been on the faculty of Pomona College (Claremont, CA) since 1983. She is a dancer, teacher and choreographer, as well as a Somatic Movement Educator. Meg currently teaches Anatomy-Kinesiology, Explorations in Somatic Movement Techniques, Beginning Ballet and Mind in Motion (a study of the evolution of sensory awareness and movement patterning in fetal and early infant development.) Other classes in her teaching repertoire are Alexander Technique for the Performing Artist, Limon-based Modern Dance, improvisation, composition and stretch-placement/injury prevention techniques for Athletes.

Benedikt Negro on Performance and The Alexander Technique:

"I am a pantomime. As the lead actor in Cirque du Soleil's 'O', I portray a mischievous and highly agile character. Alexander Technique helps me to keep a hunched back while I jump in 10-foot paces and stop on a dime.

Besides the effectiveness in creating a visually provoking character, Alexander Technique also helps me to stay injury-free. Running and jumping with bent knees and a hunched back was causing me pain in the past, so I received massages and conditioning from my physiotherapists on stuff.

From Kate I learned that powerful movements in a restricted position can be done with ease, and then don't strain the body. It has been 4 years that I don't need extra conditioning or massages anymore, while performing a schedule of 10 shows a week."

More about Benedikt:

http://www.benediktnegro.com/

In the most modest words, Kate Conklin's approach to voice and body is the most insightful and potent I have ever come across in my training. She has absorbed and blended all aspects of her body and voice training into a teaching method that is pure, simple and focused, yet astoundingly profound. Her outstanding vocal and tutoring proficiency and her deep level of awareness for The Alexander Technique are attributes that are rarely seen. Her techniques were on the one hand, simple and instantly adoptable yet on the other, radical and groundbreaking for my awareness and control. Her method seemed to be all about working as easily as possible for the maximum results, through increasing bodily awareness.

She brought the pleasure I felt as a child back into my voice, the pleasure that so many teachers over the years had smothered with their narrow, heavy-handed approach. I cannot put into words my gratitude and respect.