Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects that breathing, thoracic and abdominal, had on the smoothness while performing ballet pour de bra. Five skilled ballet dancers(age: $24{\pm}1$, height: $163.4{\pm}2.88$, weight: $44.4{\pm}1.34$) with experience of over 10 years participated in this study. Each participant performed the ballet movement three times with abdominal respiration and with thoracic respiration. The kinematic data was recorded at 60 Hz with three digital cameras (Sony VX-2100). The pour de bra movement consists of two phases, up and down. The up phase is defined as the movement from the en bas through the en avant to the en haut. The down phase is defined as the movement from the en haut through the $\grave{a}$ la seconde to the en bas. During these two phases the Jerk Cost (JC) factor was calculated for the shoulder, elbow and wrist to quantify the smoothness. The group who performed the movement while abdominal respiration had a lower JC factor and so it was concluded that while abdominal respiration the smoothness of the movement was increased as opposed to the thoracic respiration.