Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of attentional focus instructions on movement patterns in a ballet pirouette task. We were also interested on how the effects will apply in different skill levels: professionals and amateurs. Methods: Four amateur dancers (1-3 years of experience) and four professional dancers (more than 9 years of training) participated in this experiment. All were asked to perform a single pirouette turn on the non-dominant(left) side. Each dancers had 5 trials for each of the following three instructions: non-focus instruction (turn as you usually do), internal focus instruction (stretch your standing leg vertically, making a consistent turn-out with the working leg, make your head remain to the front as long as possible), and external focus instruction (push against the ground with your standing leg” and “imagine that your body spirals up to the ceiling”, and “try to keep gazing at a spot until you have to turn your head”). Data were collected with motion analysis systems having 10 cameras. We analyzed the qualitative change in individual movement patterns on each three conditions. Results: Professional dancers did not show any difference from the contrasting instructions. However, the amateur dancers showed varieties according to different focus instructions. For amateur dancers, it was possible that internal focus instructions as well as external focus gave positive effects. Conclusion: In order to apply these research findings, further research is needed with more challenging task in professional dancers. Moreover, individual tendencies on using attentional focus when learning and enhancing dance techniques should be clarified.

INTRODUCTION
 METHOD
  Participants
  Task and Procedure
  Measures and Data Analysis
 RESULTS
  Manipulation Check
  Professional dancers
  Amateur dancers
 DISCUSSION
  High level performers
  Amateur level performers
 CONCLUSION
 REFERENCES

• Youkyung Kim(Ewha Womans University)
• Seungha Park(Ewha Womans University) Corresponding author