Secret exercising.

It's more acceptable to raise your voice in public than to raise your body. If you did a releve or a port de bras in the middle of the sidewalk, people would look askance at you. You can leap across a puddle but if you leap when there is no puddle, people will think you are odd.

Well, we are odd. We're dancers and we're always tuning in to our bodies. Because non-dancers find it strange, many dancers have figured out how to exercise surreptitiously in public places. Waiting for an elevator or standing in line at the movies are excellent places to work on those interior exercises that help you find your center or strengthen your problem areas.

While you're walking down the street, feel your center. Are you walking with your body "all in one piece," or are you leading with your head or your hips? Are you rolling through your feet to maintain suppleness? Are you engaging your abdominals to stabilize your lower back? Are you working on your plumb line, with your ears over your hips? Experiment. You can use the time to do isometrics and press your palms together. You might look like a prim person right out of a Tudor ballet, but you'll be strengthening your upper arms.

Driving a car for long periods? You can keep your eyes on the road and work on finding your sit bones or engaging your abdominals at the same time. Watching a performance that goes on and on? Plant both feet on the floor equally so that your abdominals have to work. Let one foot go on half toe and then the other. Ankle circles are always acceptable because even civilians do them when they are restless.

Sometimes just thinking of imagery helps. Rachel Straus, a student of Finis Jhung, borrows an image he uses in class. "I think about the backs of my ears and about them lifting," she says. That simple use of imagery makes her feel energized no matter how tired she is.

Nancy Bielski, a popular ballet teacher at Steps on Broadway, has a secret exercise for practicing not rolling in. "If you're standing, spread your toes like a cat spreading its paws and push against your toes to lift up your instep. Make sure to keep your big toe on the floor. Hold for four counts and then let the instep go." Bielski says this helps develop the metatarsal.

She also recommends that if you're working on a variation, "Sing the music in your head over and over until you really know it and it becomes part of your being."

KT Niehoff, artistic director of Lingo Dancetheater in Seattle and teacher of contemporary dance, says she can use the concept of rebound in any standing position. "If I push against the floor with my feet and think of that circular energy going through the floor and coining back up through the body, it creates space in the hip socket where the leg and pelvis meet." She calls it a gravity-defying technique. "Gravity pushes your spine into your pelvis, and your pelvis into legs, and so I'm using the image of rebound to defy gravity and create space in the joints."

Another Niehoff exercise is similar to Bielski's for the metatarsal, but this one addresses weak ankles. "I squish my toes like I'm trying to pick up a pencil, which lifts the underside of the arch of your foot. I do these just standing around: Curl and release, curl and release. I do it 10, 15, 20 times a day and it has changed everything about my ankles." However, she cautions, "It works better in tennis shoes than cowboy boots or stilettos."

Niehoff also has one for the rib cage and how it affects the lower back. "Ribs sticking out is a common dancer issue, and that makes your lower back hyperextended," she points out. "I work with the concept of fully inflating the rib cage, so I inflate the back of the rib cage equally, which balances out the forward thrust of the front ribs without feeling like I'm in a straight jacket. I do it when I inhale and try to maintain it when I exhale. It gives me an equilibrium if I'm sitting at the computer, talking on the phone, or when I'm bored at dinner."

Non-dancers may call this kind of continual involvement with improving the body obsessive--if not outright nutty. But most dancers will recognize it as a way to extend what you're working on in class to your life outside of class. The more you tell your body what to do, the more it will do it on its own. You are training the muscles, but beyond that, you are bringing the body and mind together into an integrated whole--and that's a prerequisite for great dancing.