Modern Dance Straddle Jump

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Chell Garcia-Trias, and I'm a modern dance instructor in Austin, Texas. I'm going to show you how to do a straddle jump off the floor--at least that's what I like to call it--in modern dance. So, I'm going to put my feet a little bit apart, maybe two feet apart, and I'm going to put my hand behind me, and I'm going to lift up with my pelvis off the ground, and really push through that arm. Now to do a jump, I'm just going to push through my pelvis and hop a little bit with my toes, like that. So, I really need to push through my pelvis to bring my self up off the floor, though. That's going to make it more interesting than if I'm just jumping with my feet. So you push with your pelvis. You can really throw your arm up in the air also to help you get up, and you can also push and straighten your opposite leg of the arm--straighten it and bring it around you. So, if I was to do that to come to standing, I would push and bring my leg around to standing. So I'm really doing this action with my leg. I'm bringing my leg to the side and around, and that's kind of bringing me up off the ground. So again, if I'm down here, my arms behind me, I push my arm and my leg up at the same time, and I bring my leg around. So that's a straddle jump to come up off of the floor."