JACK COLE
Methodology and Training
'There's also a psychological component.... in that state of physical and psychic warmth, dancers touch their moments of greatest physical potential. They're not afraid to try new movements. They can trust their bodies, and that's when magic happens.'
- Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit
The JACK COLE Technique is a unique method of training that focuses on full body awareness and deep connection. Although one Cole Technique class can provide huge benefits for any dancer, the best way to experience the lasting impact of this work is through a progression of habitual technique classes taken overtime. The work explores foundational, sensory-based exercises that allow the body to release tension and approach technical work through expansion, breath, and deep mindfulness.
A Jack Cole training class features true technical progression, beginning with a full-body warm up that drops the dancer into their breath and sensations from the inside, stretching and charging the body for the work ahead. From there, the class moves into Cole's pilates-based floor warmup, perhaps the most integral part of the method. Cole's pilates warmup (created alongside Joseph Pilates himself at Jacob’s Pillow) acts as a movement progression with each exercise building on the last. This method challenges the dancer to slowly and deeply tune into themselves, using the power of their mind, breath, and innate functionality to create more space, length, strength, and trust in the body. The class culminates in various center and across the floor exercises that explore the application of this work, as well as the cultural movement styles that informed Cole's choreography.
A runner cannot run race after race without training for each. As artists, we are athletes ourselves, our bodies temples. We must prepare the body and mind for immense degrees of pressure and expectation that we take on daily, without fear of injury or our nervous systems interfering. The Cole method empowers the dancer to drop into "that state of physical and psychic warmth" where they are face to face with their humanity, resonating deeply in their body. By giving themselves the consistent and undisturbed space to deepen their mind-body connection, the dancer will expand their capacity to take on new, challenging, and dynamic movement. From there, the possibilities are endless.
Training must be ritualistic, a practice of devotion to yourself, your craft, and being with the present moment. It is an exercise of patience and working with the body to progress, rather than against it. It is something you can always rely on. So why wait? Imagine what could happen, what more you could discover, if you didn't wait.
There is no time to waste.
Hollywood Dance Shoot
JACK COLE TECHNIQUE
Hollywood Dance Shoot
