Grand Jete Essay

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A grand jetè, better known as a leap is a long horizontal jump. The name grand jeté is a French term, the first part grand means big, and the second part, jeté means to jump or throw weight from one leg to another. It starts on one leg and lands on the other. It looks like a split in the air. To start this jump you must bend your bottom leg, keeping your heel on the ground this is called a plié, it should be very deep. Then, you unfold your top leg into the air at a ninety degree angle and the back leg goes in the opposite direction, but it stays straight. Both legs should shoot out at the same time. You have to hit the fullest position of your split when you are at the highest point of your jump. You land on your front leg; in a plié. The …show more content…

Gravity acts as a downward, vertical force on the body, and is the only force acting on a dancer while in mid-air. If the downward force on your body and your weight are the same, then you would be completely motionless. To jump off of the ground a dancer has to exert a greater force downward than her weight. This is stated in Newton’s third law, "for every action there is an opposite reaction". The height of your jump depends on how much downward force you exert. In other words the harder you push off of the ground the higher your jump will be. When your leap is higher you will have more time in the air to open your legs to the largest possible …show more content…

First, make sure you are warmed up and realize that the angle of a person’s legs is different for everyone depending on how well they are following these steps. Second, make sure before you leap you get a nice big plié if you don’t do that then you would be jumping from a straight leg, and that will not allow you to get very much height at all. The last thing to remember is to land it correctly, if you do not plié after your jump, you could hurt your knee, because if you land on a straight leg all of your dead weight is going to hurt your leg joints and mostly your

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