“PBT is about the feeling before the form”

In the last decade the adult ballet world has grown exponentially. Adult dancers are wanting more than a class where they are sandwiched between two perfectly molded teenage dancers in their community’s weekly class. It is a global phenomenon where we have created our own place in the ballet world, and rightfully so. We can dance beautifully, build strength and flexibility, and, with the right encouragement and teacher, meet our own personal dance goals.

PBT is the perfect way to safely meet these goals. What is Progressing Ballet Technique or PBT? It is a gift from Australia to every dancer, young or old. According to PBT’s website, Progressing Ballet Technique “is an innovative body-conditioning and strengthening program that has been designed to enhance students’ technique by focussing on training the muscle memory required in each exercise in all forms of dance. It is a unique training system using ballet-technique specific exercises to train skill acquisition in a graded and progressive manner from junior through to advanced levels. PBT helps teachers around the world prepare their students to receive the strength they need to achieve their personal best.”

Founded by Marie Walton-Mahon, PBT is the ingredient missing in every dancer’s regimen. She has been changing the dance world at as rapid a pace as the pandemic and the pandemic has pushed her to expand her latest program in the PBT repertoire-Progressing Ballet Technique for adults.

Her decades of experience, both dancing and teaching professionally, have led her to create a program taught in the best schools and practiced by professionals. It was such an honor to sit down and chat with her and be able to share with you, the reader. Our lovely hour plus interview was intended to result in a single post but has now evolved into a two part series. There was just too much valuable information not to share.

PBT has a new program for adult ballet students.  Thank you for thinking of us. What inspired you to create these courses just for adults?

The inspiration came really from the need and request from so many adults and I know there’s a whole resurgence out there for this love of movement, love of music. At first I kept telling them to just follow my Junior Program and work through the Junior Program and when they feel strong enough, move into the Senior Program. I had so many adults saying, “that’s great but I feel intimidated watching the children and I would like my own.” It came from requests and fair enough, adult students deserve their own program.

If they are going to take their training serious, students need to know the how and why before the movement. It’s a little bit like peeling apart an onion and then putting the layers together. PBT is about the feeling before the form. The ethos underneath it is that if they don’t understand where the movement comes from how can they stand up and do it. They are intrigued by it so why not give them all the information. They’ve got plenty of freedom to ask questions as my daughter and I are the ones answering questions every day.

How can PBT help adult ballet students as they begin or continue their journey?    

First of all if they have danced before they have to retrain and align things. If they have danced when they were young and had a big break, they’ve got an idea of their body but those muscles need to be tweaked again. The alignment needs to be there. It’s not about how high, but how the alignment is for the pelvis to sit right instead of just throwing things. And they can go into it just too fast. This prepares the mind and body to then train safely. It’s all about safety. Adults deserve this and should be treated seriously but it has to be safe or it’s not worth doing at all. It’s the feeling before the form. It works best if they have a PBT class and the elements of that PBT class molds into the ballet class to follow.

Where did the idea originate to use a fit ball in ballet class?

I have taught with a fit ball in the room forever-since they came on the market. Tweaking that alignment is so important. Because the ball is moving constantly, it gives the student that instant feedback. It resonates quite quickly. In ballet class if something is amiss, I’ll just bring the fit ball and put that same déveoloppé or grand battement onto the fit ball to feel it then stand up and repeat it. I am constantly referring back to it.

I have always been interested in trying to keep myself to be able to demonstrate enough, I started to work on a Reformer and did some Pilates. And that’s expensive. I love the feeling of it – the taking the weight out of it and using the Reformer. That feeling is wonderful, but how many of those students can afford those sessions? The cross training is so necessary, but ballet is expensive and they’ve got the shoes and everything else. How many can afford that? So I thought I’ll get a fit ball and just trial some of those things with a fit ball because they are cheap.

I bought fit balls for a ten-year-old class. I started to substitute a class every couple of weeks and we just called it BB Day, Ballet Ball Day. The parents viewed the class at the end of the term and commented how much the children loved it and were practicing at home. They said that instead of substituting a class, they would like to have a special class. And they improved drastically. It was absolutely amazing. It went from there and I kept creating more.

And so PBT began its inception and evolution. It is truly amazing how one creative teacher’s need to help her young students has evolved into one of the most in demand teaching programs in the dance world and beyond. This kind and generous woman is making the dance world a safer place one fit ball at a time. Stay tuned for my next post as we dive deeper into Marie’s personal advice for you, the adult dancer, on your journey.

Until our next plié ❤