Accelerate Dance and Fitness

Wanting to make big changes in your dancing this season? Never be afraid to slow down! Backing things up to something simpler, slower, easier, allows you to discover what’s actually going wrong in the harder version. It allows you the time or ease to be able to feel and make changes to grow stronger, so that you can do it in the bigger, faster, more difficult skills. For example, working on your double pirouette? Go back a step to a single and see what you can do to make that better. Find out that you still have the same problem in a single, go back to your balance and see if the same problem exists? If so, back up even more and isolate the challenge until you can do it well, then integrate it into your balance, then single, then double. Don’t be afraid for it to take a while to change your double pirouette if it’s still difficult to do in a single. Stick with the single for a while if it’s where you’re able to make changes, then eventually you will be strong enough to do it in a double and your double will be better than ever before. Best yet, the changes will stick!

Fun fact! Flexing the feet will NOT increase a stretch for everyone. It will only increase the stretch if you have tension in your nervous or fascial systems. Holding stretches with a flexed foot? This can be great if it’s a light pull on the fascia, but if you have neural tension this can actually leave you feeling tighter so it’s important to know the difference!

In today’s class we looked at control in a cambre back. I videoed before and after. Notice how in the first video she hinges from her lower back and there is also a visible loss of the front of her core.

(Side note - this video was taken after she’s had a bit of time off of dance. We’ve worked on this before, but the exercises were really needed today to help her body find support)

After a few exercises focusing on thoracic mobility, core control and breathing in extension, is able to initiate her cambre from the top down, rather than hinging from her lower back.

In this side by side of her transition you can see just how much more lifted she is and how much more open her chest is. You’ll even notice she has less tension in her glutes because her core is more actively supporting her!

Always a pleasure working with this sweet girl! Want to try this out? I still have a few openings left in my summer classes. Come check them out!

Struggle with pronation? Sometimes the feet are the problem, but more often than not the problem can come from somewhere else higher up the chain. Here are five places to check:

1. Arch support - be sure to start in the obvious place first, can you isolate a lift from your arch muscles? Does it feel good?
2. Rotation of your lower leg - this one can be tricky and often needs some mobilization first as well as some specific cueing, but do you feel like your lower leg can rotate? If this is you, you will typically try to turn out and your knees will be rotated but your lower leg is not.
3. Are you turning out from the hip - another obvious one! If you’re not turned out, the arch will drop.
4. Are you gripping from the glutes and pushing your hip forward in the socket - shoving your hip forward in the socket will cause the rotators to have to do double duty and they can no longer do their job to rotate the leg, turning the leg in and dropping your arch. Center your hip in the socket and watch that turnout open and arch lift.
5. Are you tucking your tailbone and over lengthening your lower back - Yes we want a long lower back, but if we straighten it too much we lose support of the multifidus muscles that help stabilize our spine. If these muscles are not strong enough your psoas takes over and can block your turnout, again causing a ripple effect down to the foot. Think of a subtle lift of the lower back instead of drop.

Which one are you? My most helpful cues come from the lower back and hip. Comment below!

If your dancers straddle looks like this and they’re stretching and not making improvements, it’s time to try something different! Working on dynamic core stability and deep spinal stability is necessary to make changes. Google images of the deep core and you will see some little tiny muscles in the lower back called the multifidus. These muscles are often the forgotten part of core training in dancers and are some of the most crucial, especially for anyone with a bendy back and stuck hips! Switch from stretching to strengthening in a neutral spine (not in imprint) and build stability you didn’t know you needed!

Struggle with this common correction? Try this exercise to see if it helps! If you are anchoring your standing leg with your glutes medius locked into place, this exercise helps get the glute medius working in a more eccentric (or lengthened) position. Pay attention to these cues to make sure your body doesn’t try to find a way to cheat the exercise! Like this exercise? This can also be great to do before adagio in center for a more dynamic supporting leg.