MPT Seminar with Yehuda Maor

MPT-Maor Placement Technique

In late August 2003, California DanceArts was honored to have International Ballet Master, Yehuda Maor educate us in the most current supplementary training method for conditioning and ballet which he developed. MPT (Maor Placement Technique) is an impressive tool for teachers who wish to bolster their students to a new professional level. As director and ballet instructor, this was what attracted me to the method and what motivated me to become a certified MPT teacher. For intermediate and advanced level dancers, the technique maximizes training by gaining increased benifits during the time spent in class. Focus is in finding one's center and creating placement that is strong, balanced and solid. The technique enhances over-all flexibility and strength, creates better turn-out from the hip and increases extension. In addition to the method specifiaclly designed for ballet dancers, MPT offers a conditioning program which can be used to help anyone wishing to improve their physical health and strength.

I took my first MPT class beside my students because I wanted to FEEL it...in other words, to experience it firsthand. We were told to put a neoprene band specifically developed for MPT training around our legs and to attach it to the ballet barre. We were given very simple ballet barre exercises...Plie, Tondue etc... but because of the tension created by the band, these exercises did not feel so simple. They felt like serious work! I certainly felt it and I'm quite sure the students felt it, too, especially the next morning! Despite the challenge, I was already hooked and wanted to do it again the next day.

Soon, I decided that I needed to SEE what effects this new training was having on the dancers. So, I forfeited participation in the class for a chair in the corner as I took notes. Mr. Maor was relentless as he led students through a series of abdominal strengthening exercises, while continuing to use the band. He explained that use of the band as a tool for conditioning exercises would help to accomplish what the average popular elastic straps and pulley machines do, without the added cost and without snapping back, which can be dangerous. I studied carefully as Mr. Maor, at the age of sixty, demonstrated a multiple, upper body workout routine. He's fit and has more energy than most teenagers.

Soon it was my turn to try my hand at using what I had learned of the MPT method, using Nora, a sixteen year old beginner student whom I had been having trouble helping with standard technique. Her ankles were weak, her coordination was off and she leaned into her standing hip while working at the ballet barre. As part of my training, it was my job to use my understanding and theory of the MPT method to help guide her. Mr. Maor graciously spent many hours with me following the workshop, demonstrating how best to use the MPT training in order to achieve the most favorable results with Nora.

As the final day of the workshop approached, I sat back to look at my students. There they were at the barre, standing tall and straight, working smoothly through the exercises and supporting themselves effortlessly in advanced balances. And there was Nora, who, only a few days earlier, was a very beginner student. She was standing and working just like the other dancers. She was a real dancer with her hips firmly and properly placed. I was most impressed and so were the students and their parents who came to see the last class demonstration. The improvement achieved by each participating dancer was astonishing.

For me, the workshop was a continued education and after long hours of training, I was given an opportunity to show Mr. Maor that I understood the theory of the method. I felt confident that I could demonstrate and teach MPT with the mastery and confidence the technique required and deserved, and I am please to announce that I passed my exam! Now I am proud to be one of the first and few in the international dance community to be a certified teacher of MPT. Just as thrilling is the fact that our dance academy is one of the few currently offering an MPT program designed to advance our students. I feel that I have been given a head start in a future tool that ballet dancers everywhere will eventually use. The value of the training that we can now bestow upon our students is superior to using traditional training alone.

We are currently the United States Representitive for the MPT Method. MPT Los Angeles is now available at California DanceArts where we offer several classes of MPT each week. Grand Reverence to Yehuda Maor.

Erin Holt
MPT Los Angeles at
California DanceArts