Ballet Injury, Pain And Over Use and Muscle Recovery Time

I am shocked at the periodic reports I get about dancers' training schedules. Five to six hours a day, and as much as twelve hours on a Saturday, and then maybe two to three hours on a Sunday. Somehow a dancer may feel that he or she is imitating a professional training schedule, in their local dance academy.

Young dancers with this kind of drive need some counseling about muscle recovery. Not that recovery time is taken into consideration in general in the ballet world. Studios without any input from local physiotherapists or chiropractors (who would probably love to come to your dance school and lecture on the topic), can allow dancers to get carried away with extra recital/competition rehearsal or exam preparation.

I wince when I am asked by a student (not mine) "I have had pain in this area for two months now - do I need to start resting it?"

Most ballet teachers have or have had a student who, they know, will go home and run through the variation fifteen more times in broken pointe shoes, on a concrete floor, if necessary. Nothing will stop them.

Except, unfortunately, a ballet injury. It must be the days of relentless rain that is making me feel a little gloomy about this.