It's been a good week at the gym, on Tuesday Salem had his first session with a personal trainer to sort out a program for him to help with balance and strength. His trainer is Belinda and she is great.
She has sorted him out a program which is appropriate for his age and really works on his problem areas. And it is really fun for Salem too.
In the studio we are working on audience interaction and using the mirror so that Salem can see what his hands are doing and to be aware of the shape of his hands. There is already a big improvement. Also even with only a few days of doing a bit of strength work for his balance, his arabesques are a lot more stable.
For his contemporary dance, "Du Hast", we have added a couple more hops in one part and it works really well, everything flows a lot better. He is also making great eye contact with the audience and adding his own little quirks. It's looking really good.
Having the studio space to ourselves has been invaluable for sorting out Salem's problems, I can talk to him straight away about any mistakes and it doesn't matter how long it takes.
Due to him having Aspergers, he takes things very literally and he gets very set in how he perceives his teachers instructions in class. I have to do a lot of explaining. He has been told in class over the years not to look in the mirror when he is dancing, not to look at his hands and many other things. So he will not look at all, which means that he hasn't been able to see what his body is doing while he has been dancing and doing exercises.
So we are now using the mirror as a tool, he can see what he is doing, what looks good and what doesn't, and we are using it as the audience. He is improving every day.
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