This is actually really good for me to review because I start teaching in a week. I want to explain that you never want to "collapse" A) in your abdomen when you over tuck and B) in your chest if you lose a drop.

My plan is to start with the tail bone tuck and discuss not engaging your abs so that you do have room to move and shake your gluts. They are a huge muscle group and if you have no mobility in them you will never gain a lot of range of motion or even hip flexibility. I noticed that once I stopped using the gluts to get into posture I suddenly had a much nicer taxeem because I was not holding it in by clenching the butt cheeks.

Also I am planning on having students make the largest possible chest lift while still tucking and then softening that by about 20-25% so that they have somewhere to go when they have chest lifts, chest rotations, and torso rotations to move. Maintaining that high of a lift is really strenuous and gives you nowhere to go for those accents.

Most of my teachers took the time to explain why these were important for the dance style as well as body alignment and also that there was more for the posture. I've actually found that my daily posture improved and I almost "lost" my chest lift because I assumed that position more naturally. Also, these posture themes make it a lot easier to "separate" your upper and lower body while dancing and articulate them independently. I think of it as the magician trick when the girl is cut in half, good posture gives you that option.