I get many queries from young dancers as to what are their chances for becoming professional. This is a general answer to dancers whom I cannot see -
While I cannot see you dance and give any opinion as to whether you could make the professional grade or not, I will try to help you see it for yourself. Here are some professionally trained 14-17 yr old dance students, who will be able to get a job in a world class ballet company:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=National
+Ballet+School+of+Canada
This play list includes other schools as well. Compare the ability and technique to the students at your school/company and you will see how your abilities match. Bear in mind that these students have had 6-10 classes a week with world class teachers since they were 9-10 yrs old - so don't get self-critical! (I know, dancers specialize in that!).
While it may not be possible for you to train well enough to get into the top world ballet companies, perhaps you would qualify for a smaller/regional company. Look at as many as you can on line.
Consider a summer intensive next year at a major school, to work in a professional training schedule.
Consider a BFA program where you will train and perform through your college years, and be able to go on to dance history, criticism or teaching when you can no longer perform. Or, you could enter a B.Sc. program in dance that will proceed to dance medicine/physical therapy as a specialty for after you stop dancing. In the meantime, you will be dancing!
So you see, even if you cannot have the career that a dancer with 8-10 years of intense training can have, there is much to do in the world of ballet! Since you are so drawn to ballet, you must believe that you have a special gift to offer the dance world, in one way or another. Keep your personal vision alert and wide, and your adventures in dance may be amazing!
Showing posts with label ballet summer intensives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ballet summer intensives. Show all posts
"STUDIO TO STAGE" SUMMER INTENSIVE At The National Ballet School of Canada
From their recent newsletter:
"Offered for the first time at NBS is a new open dance program for students 12-16 years.
"STUDIO TO STAGE" SUMMER INTENSIVE
Offering a rich program in dance instruction – including Ballet, Musical Theatre, Character & Repertoire students will receive the best training in light-filled studios on NBS' award-winning campus, from
August 3 13 with NBS' world-renowned Artistic staff.
Class sizes will be small, with no more than 20 students in each. There are only 60 spaces available, with registration beginning February 1st, register Monday!
For more details, visit our "Studio to Stage" Summer Intensive webpage.
"Offered for the first time at NBS is a new open dance program for students 12-16 years.
"STUDIO TO STAGE" SUMMER INTENSIVE
Offering a rich program in dance instruction – including Ballet, Musical Theatre, Character & Repertoire students will receive the best training in light-filled studios on NBS' award-winning campus, from
August 3 13 with NBS' world-renowned Artistic staff.
Class sizes will be small, with no more than 20 students in each. There are only 60 spaces available, with registration beginning February 1st, register Monday!
For more details, visit our "Studio to Stage" Summer Intensive webpage.
Some Highly Effective Tips For Ballet Summer Intensives Auditions - And The Nerves
Many ballet summer intensives require auditions. Some will accept a DVD or VHS tape of you dancing, and they will specify what they want to see, to determine the level and accuracy of your ballet technique and ballet positions. If you search on the internet for summer intensives, there are pages and pages of results to view.
Some schools tour with audition classes. Another outreach is, for example, The Princeton University summer intensive can be auditioned forin Toronto, Canada, at the National Ballet School.
Look for details on every web site. Some summer intensives offer housing in dorms or "host family" homes. Many do not offer any housing. Parents, I'm sure, are concerned about the kind of environment where the summer intensive they choose is located.
Many parents and ballet students want an out-in-nature environment where a school may offer more than ballet classes.
And many serious ballet students know that, in order to be able to audition for the college dance department of their choice later, they need to focus on ballet and other dance styles now, to the exclusion of all else.
Spending a couple of summers away from home can be helpful for ballet students. Some may discover that they do not agree with the ballet lifestyle after all, even though they love dancing. The intensity, the competition, the sub-culture aspect of dance, is not a life that is meant for everyone.
If this is true for you, or if your real talent will come out best in some other performance venue such as acting, modern dance, singing, or in another field entirely, the sooner you discover this, the better.
There are many ballet summer intensives to choose from. Some will require auditions, and at the least, DVD or VHS auditions. Be prepared to pay an audition fee, and bring a photo of you dancing, and perhaps a head shot, to leave at the audition, if requested. Audition nerves can be a challenge, but you can train your brain out of those if you know how to.
Also bear in mind that smaller more local schools may offer better classes, even though they do not bear a famous ballet school name or have famous guest faculty. Depending on your age and level of training, it may be better to stay close to home, and continue to benefit from smaller classes and the familiarity that has nurtured you so far. You will know when you are ready for a bigger and strange environment. Even if you feel the audition nerves, you will want to go for a bigger challenge.
If you feel like the audition nerves are going to be overwhelming, take a look at "Train Your Brain" by dance medicine specialist Deborah Vogel. It is not written just for ballet dancers, but for all young people, to help understand how you can replace negative thoughts with positive emotions, and from there, better any situation that you choose to change.
Whatever summer ballet intensive you find, once you are accepted and registered, you have a grand adventure to look forward to!
Some schools tour with audition classes. Another outreach is, for example, The Princeton University summer intensive can be auditioned forin Toronto, Canada, at the National Ballet School.
Look for details on every web site. Some summer intensives offer housing in dorms or "host family" homes. Many do not offer any housing. Parents, I'm sure, are concerned about the kind of environment where the summer intensive they choose is located.
Many parents and ballet students want an out-in-nature environment where a school may offer more than ballet classes.
And many serious ballet students know that, in order to be able to audition for the college dance department of their choice later, they need to focus on ballet and other dance styles now, to the exclusion of all else.
Spending a couple of summers away from home can be helpful for ballet students. Some may discover that they do not agree with the ballet lifestyle after all, even though they love dancing. The intensity, the competition, the sub-culture aspect of dance, is not a life that is meant for everyone.
If this is true for you, or if your real talent will come out best in some other performance venue such as acting, modern dance, singing, or in another field entirely, the sooner you discover this, the better.
There are many ballet summer intensives to choose from. Some will require auditions, and at the least, DVD or VHS auditions. Be prepared to pay an audition fee, and bring a photo of you dancing, and perhaps a head shot, to leave at the audition, if requested. Audition nerves can be a challenge, but you can train your brain out of those if you know how to.
Also bear in mind that smaller more local schools may offer better classes, even though they do not bear a famous ballet school name or have famous guest faculty. Depending on your age and level of training, it may be better to stay close to home, and continue to benefit from smaller classes and the familiarity that has nurtured you so far. You will know when you are ready for a bigger and strange environment. Even if you feel the audition nerves, you will want to go for a bigger challenge.
If you feel like the audition nerves are going to be overwhelming, take a look at "Train Your Brain" by dance medicine specialist Deborah Vogel. It is not written just for ballet dancers, but for all young people, to help understand how you can replace negative thoughts with positive emotions, and from there, better any situation that you choose to change.
Whatever summer ballet intensive you find, once you are accepted and registered, you have a grand adventure to look forward to!
Ballet Shoes and Pointe Shoes and Summer Intensives
Go to a pointe shoe guide for pointe shoe sizing tips, strengthening exercises, and more.
Summer Intensives offer a chance for increased flexibility. After your first morning class, you are partially warmed up for the rest of the day. That is, unless you are resting in between classes in highly air conditioned environments. I recommend not to do that. A cool but not cold place, perhaps shady outdoors somewhere, is better.
Also, allow your ballet shoes and pointe shoes to dry as much as possible in between classes, they will last longer, and will not lose that 'exactly right fit' so soon. Having two pairs of each helps, if you can do that.
Intensive training in ballet means intensive use of the flexor muscles. Battment tendu, grande battment and developpe en avant mean heavy use of the iliopsoas (hip flexor) muscles. Without constant stretching, this tension will compromise your turnout, as the tension at the side of the hips will counter the thigh's ability to rotate outwards. It will also lessen the flexibility of the low back and front of the hip, in doing an arabesque.
A standing lunge done in between exercises will relieve the tension building up in the hip flexors and postural muscles. Finding exactly the right balance between strength and stretch is what creates power in your work.
One of the best ways to stretch for a good arabesque is at the corner of the studio where you can hold on to one barre, while placing yourself in your ideal arabesque position with your working leg on the barre of the other wall behind you. If there is a lower barre, use it so as to get a more upright (but still adjusted forward)
back position. Do a demi plie repeatedly, holding the position well-placed.
If there is no corner with barres, get a fellow student to hold your hands to keep you upright, and place your leg on the barre behind you to do your demi plies.
A wonderful stretch regimen for dancers is yoga. My favorite is "Ali McGraw - Yoga Mind & Body". It is a few years old but still available. It is not for beginners, but dancers will love it. The positions are easy for most dancers, and give fantastic relief to muscle tension. Done in the evening it will leave you stretched and ready to sleep.
A more active stretching routine is the "Classical Stretch" series.(now also called Essentrics") On a lighter class schedule day, or on a no-class day, the "Athletes' Intense Stretch" will get rid of the muscle tension while still allowing muscle recovery.
If you are recovering from injury, both of the above may be helpful, but please consult with your doctor, teacher or trainer as to whether you are ready to do these routines.
Losing electrolytes and dehydration can cause muscle tension and cramps. Real sea salt on your foods, calcium/magnesium supplements and "All 12" cell salts are a great help. Celery is one of the saltiest foods you can eat, get organic. It contains multiple mineral salts, and is a hydrating food too - a perfect snack in between classes.
The apparency of weight loss through dehydration is a seductive trap. Recognize it and don't worry about weight. If you feel puffy from drinking water, then your mineral balance is off and your cells are floating in water but are not able to use it. So you're still dehydrated. Forget the junk food sports waters. Better to mix a pinch of sea salt into your water and drink it. Neon colors and a couple of minerals won't help.
So please take care of yourselves in the heat, treat spare time as recovery time, and you will reap the most benefits from your summer intensive!
Summer Intensives offer a chance for increased flexibility. After your first morning class, you are partially warmed up for the rest of the day. That is, unless you are resting in between classes in highly air conditioned environments. I recommend not to do that. A cool but not cold place, perhaps shady outdoors somewhere, is better.
Also, allow your ballet shoes and pointe shoes to dry as much as possible in between classes, they will last longer, and will not lose that 'exactly right fit' so soon. Having two pairs of each helps, if you can do that.
Intensive training in ballet means intensive use of the flexor muscles. Battment tendu, grande battment and developpe en avant mean heavy use of the iliopsoas (hip flexor) muscles. Without constant stretching, this tension will compromise your turnout, as the tension at the side of the hips will counter the thigh's ability to rotate outwards. It will also lessen the flexibility of the low back and front of the hip, in doing an arabesque.
A standing lunge done in between exercises will relieve the tension building up in the hip flexors and postural muscles. Finding exactly the right balance between strength and stretch is what creates power in your work.
One of the best ways to stretch for a good arabesque is at the corner of the studio where you can hold on to one barre, while placing yourself in your ideal arabesque position with your working leg on the barre of the other wall behind you. If there is a lower barre, use it so as to get a more upright (but still adjusted forward)
back position. Do a demi plie repeatedly, holding the position well-placed.
If there is no corner with barres, get a fellow student to hold your hands to keep you upright, and place your leg on the barre behind you to do your demi plies.
A wonderful stretch regimen for dancers is yoga. My favorite is "Ali McGraw - Yoga Mind & Body". It is a few years old but still available. It is not for beginners, but dancers will love it. The positions are easy for most dancers, and give fantastic relief to muscle tension. Done in the evening it will leave you stretched and ready to sleep.
A more active stretching routine is the "Classical Stretch" series.(now also called Essentrics") On a lighter class schedule day, or on a no-class day, the "Athletes' Intense Stretch" will get rid of the muscle tension while still allowing muscle recovery.
If you are recovering from injury, both of the above may be helpful, but please consult with your doctor, teacher or trainer as to whether you are ready to do these routines.
Losing electrolytes and dehydration can cause muscle tension and cramps. Real sea salt on your foods, calcium/magnesium supplements and "All 12" cell salts are a great help. Celery is one of the saltiest foods you can eat, get organic. It contains multiple mineral salts, and is a hydrating food too - a perfect snack in between classes.
The apparency of weight loss through dehydration is a seductive trap. Recognize it and don't worry about weight. If you feel puffy from drinking water, then your mineral balance is off and your cells are floating in water but are not able to use it. So you're still dehydrated. Forget the junk food sports waters. Better to mix a pinch of sea salt into your water and drink it. Neon colors and a couple of minerals won't help.
So please take care of yourselves in the heat, treat spare time as recovery time, and you will reap the most benefits from your summer intensive!
A Ballet Dancer's Guide - Increase Your Turnout, Learn Ballet Stretches
Deborah Vogel's ballet dancers guide books highlight the hot topics - increase your ballet turnout, ballet stretches and much more.
This summer there are some extra workshops scheduled for any teacher or dance student interested in functional anatomy - "FUNctional Anatomy" is Deborah Vogel's title of her book series (with co-author Anneliese Burns Wilson).
I remember that nothing felt as good as the progress a summer intensive created. Several classes a day, 6 days a week. Exhaustion, hot and humid weather, but no academic school. Complete focus on ballet, and then running off to extra modern dance classes in the evenings too. (Gosh, how did I do all that?!!!)
The evenings at the school residence were spent sewing all pointe shoes we needed for the summer intensive, and getting ready for the next day.
Deborah Vogel is a dancer, author, and master teacher who conducts workshops across the U.S. for both student and professional dancers. From a recent e-mail:
"Announcements
The venues have been set! Here is the listing of the cities and contact information
of my summer workshop tour. The full workshop information will be posted online
soon - and I will send a notice out when it is viewable. Contact the sponsors ASAP
to save a slot, as registration will be cut off at 25 participants per workshop!
7/07/07 Santa Fe, NM, Contact: Audrey Derrell, charismatopia@aol.com (10 - 1pm)
7/08/07 Albuquerque, NM, Contact: Cecelia Jaramillo, cjlamesa@swcp.com (1-4pm)
7/12/07 Paso Robles, CA, Contact: Cheryle Armstrong, classactdancepasorobles@yahoo.com
(5-8pm)
7/14/07 Berkeley, CA, Contact: Elizabeth Godfrey, berkeleycityballet@sbcglobal.net
(9am - noon)
7/14/07 Berkeley, CA, Contact: Karen Olson, idance@berkeleyballet.org (2-5 pm)
7/18/07 Elko, NV, Contact: Yong Pratt, dance_elko@yahoo.com (1-4 pm)"
So the contacts are above for more info.
Ballet tips - my recipe for a multi-mineral homemade electrolyte drink here. It's fantastic for keeping the blood balanced and the strength up:
Freshly squeezed lemons (probably about 6 per 4 quarts of water)
Maple syrup to taste
Pinch or so of cayenne pepper (that's where the minerals are)
Filtered water to dilute to taste.
Dancers tend to disregard recovery time for muscles and summer is especially intense. Please eat good lean proteins and fresh foods - minimize junk food.
For muscles soreness and cramps try "A to B Calm", a calcium-magnesium powder you dissolve in hot water. It tastes chalky so you can cool it with fruit juice. The so-so taste is really worth the relief from pain. You will find it at a health food store.
Get the most out of your ballet summer intensives with the best info from a ballet dancers guide.
This summer there are some extra workshops scheduled for any teacher or dance student interested in functional anatomy - "FUNctional Anatomy" is Deborah Vogel's title of her book series (with co-author Anneliese Burns Wilson).
I remember that nothing felt as good as the progress a summer intensive created. Several classes a day, 6 days a week. Exhaustion, hot and humid weather, but no academic school. Complete focus on ballet, and then running off to extra modern dance classes in the evenings too. (Gosh, how did I do all that?!!!)
The evenings at the school residence were spent sewing all pointe shoes we needed for the summer intensive, and getting ready for the next day.
Deborah Vogel is a dancer, author, and master teacher who conducts workshops across the U.S. for both student and professional dancers. From a recent e-mail:
"Announcements
The venues have been set! Here is the listing of the cities and contact information
of my summer workshop tour. The full workshop information will be posted online
soon - and I will send a notice out when it is viewable. Contact the sponsors ASAP
to save a slot, as registration will be cut off at 25 participants per workshop!
7/07/07 Santa Fe, NM, Contact: Audrey Derrell, charismatopia@aol.com (10 - 1pm)
7/08/07 Albuquerque, NM, Contact: Cecelia Jaramillo, cjlamesa@swcp.com (1-4pm)
7/12/07 Paso Robles, CA, Contact: Cheryle Armstrong, classactdancepasorobles@yahoo.com
(5-8pm)
7/14/07 Berkeley, CA, Contact: Elizabeth Godfrey, berkeleycityballet@sbcglobal.net
(9am - noon)
7/14/07 Berkeley, CA, Contact: Karen Olson, idance@berkeleyballet.org (2-5 pm)
7/18/07 Elko, NV, Contact: Yong Pratt, dance_elko@yahoo.com (1-4 pm)"
So the contacts are above for more info.
Ballet tips - my recipe for a multi-mineral homemade electrolyte drink here. It's fantastic for keeping the blood balanced and the strength up:
Freshly squeezed lemons (probably about 6 per 4 quarts of water)
Maple syrup to taste
Pinch or so of cayenne pepper (that's where the minerals are)
Filtered water to dilute to taste.
Dancers tend to disregard recovery time for muscles and summer is especially intense. Please eat good lean proteins and fresh foods - minimize junk food.
For muscles soreness and cramps try "A to B Calm", a calcium-magnesium powder you dissolve in hot water. It tastes chalky so you can cool it with fruit juice. The so-so taste is really worth the relief from pain. You will find it at a health food store.
Get the most out of your ballet summer intensives with the best info from a ballet dancers guide.
Ballet Classes - Release Muscle Tension
Click on the link here to get a DVD to learn to release muscle tension with a pinkie ball outside of class, in addition to relaxing your muscles as you do class.
Muscle function depends on both strength and flexibility. Clenching any one muscle or set of muscles continuously during a class does not create strength. I remember several ballet teachers who paced a class so that the students could not relax their legs and feet at all between barre exercises. This was a challenge we met, but suffered from ultimately. A widely perpetuated method of the time....
It only takes a few seconds to have everyone shake out their legs, stretch their calves, turn in, and roll their shoulders a little before starting the next exercise.
Failing to do so creates muscles that are in constant spasm and therefore are functioning at a decreased strength and flexibility.
I remember taking my first work-out class. I chose it because the studio was near my home, open on Sunday, and I had missed a couple of days of ballet class in the previous week. Was I in for a surprise. Used to ballet classes that were carefully composed to warm up groups of muscles, alternating the emphasis of the muscle groups (say from grand plies to footwork and back again), I was astonished at the "burn baby burn" routine. Isolate one muscle, burn it out, go on to another one. And I had no idea how sore I would be the next day! Talk about a Monday morning....
Not every work-out class uses that method but I recommend viewing a studio beforehand. I broke my own rule, following reputation and availability. The studio was famous, but used student teachers to fill in those Sunday schedules!
Ballet does not follow the rules for optimum muscle work - such as resting at least a day in between heavy work-outs. That would turn professional training into 20 year stints - or so we suppose.
My heaviest class schedules would be on a Saturday or in summer intensive. Three to four classes, a couple would be character or a barre a terre, less heavy work. Character was just pure dance and a relief, and the floor barre was a warm-up and extreeeeeme stretching based on a routine that Roland Petit taught the National Ballet of Canada many years ago when he staged a work for them, and found the dancers' flexibility lacking. It got passed down to the school, and we loved it.
So given that professional training requires daily classes, what can we do to relieve our muscles? Deborah Vogel says on page 111 of "Tune Up Your Turnout" ...release the tension, stretch the muscles, and strengthen them. It's a three-tiered approach.....Too much tension in a muscle, it will lose its tone. Too much flexibility without the muscular strength to support it is not good. Too much strength and tension without the flexibility is also not good."
Turn in and relax at every opportunity in class, and relax any aching or hurting muscle as much as you can while waiting to begin the next exercise.
Have a variety of ice packs at home, and use especially after a hot bath or shower. Ice the sore spots while resting, doing homework, etc. 15-20 minutes max, don't lie on them or fall asleep on them!
If your studio has a fridge with a freezer, take ice packs to use for long rehearsal days, or take a cooler and use them as long as they will stay cold.
Nutrition, hydration and warming up are 3 essentials. You want to repair muscles as quickly as possible, with good proteins and vegetables, hydrate by sipping all day (water, not other beverages like the popular sweetened, neon-colored, minimally mineralized sports drinks), and warm up before every rehearsal if you have had a break since class. Deborah elaborates on that on page 121.
I would also add real sea salt, the Celtic type that contains all 12 bioplasma minerals, and eliminate the useless table salt from your diet. "All 12" and Bioplasma homeopathic tablets are easy to carry in the dance bag too! Dissolve under the tongue. They are a little expensive unless you find a discount health food store that sells the huge bottles, which you can use to refill a smaller bottle as you use them up.
When I was rehearsing all day long in the hot Toronto summers fellow dancer-choreographer Marnie Cooke and I would prepare a large jug of water, freshly-squeezed lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper to keep everyone's electrolytes up. We'd all have a shot in rehearsal breaks. Judith our stage manager called it "kickapoo joy juice".
Back to myths, the frog position on one's stomach - really not a good stretch for hips or turnout, as there are better ones and it puts tremendous stress on the knee joints. Lying on your back and allowing the legs to stretch outward by their own weight is better - though there is still a chance that the knees will get strained. Holding the turnout that you have, and getting the stress out of the turnout muscles afterwards is more important.
Professional dancers get routine massages, and other body work to relieve the extremes of their daily work, or heal injuries. Students don't typically think about this care factor until they get an injury or find themselves in chronic pain.
It's not wimpy to start that kind of care early in your training. Go for gain with the least pain. In fact, soreness but no pain is attainable.Here is an easy to learn stretching guide to release muscle tension.
Muscle function depends on both strength and flexibility. Clenching any one muscle or set of muscles continuously during a class does not create strength. I remember several ballet teachers who paced a class so that the students could not relax their legs and feet at all between barre exercises. This was a challenge we met, but suffered from ultimately. A widely perpetuated method of the time....
It only takes a few seconds to have everyone shake out their legs, stretch their calves, turn in, and roll their shoulders a little before starting the next exercise.
Failing to do so creates muscles that are in constant spasm and therefore are functioning at a decreased strength and flexibility.
I remember taking my first work-out class. I chose it because the studio was near my home, open on Sunday, and I had missed a couple of days of ballet class in the previous week. Was I in for a surprise. Used to ballet classes that were carefully composed to warm up groups of muscles, alternating the emphasis of the muscle groups (say from grand plies to footwork and back again), I was astonished at the "burn baby burn" routine. Isolate one muscle, burn it out, go on to another one. And I had no idea how sore I would be the next day! Talk about a Monday morning....
Not every work-out class uses that method but I recommend viewing a studio beforehand. I broke my own rule, following reputation and availability. The studio was famous, but used student teachers to fill in those Sunday schedules!
Ballet does not follow the rules for optimum muscle work - such as resting at least a day in between heavy work-outs. That would turn professional training into 20 year stints - or so we suppose.
My heaviest class schedules would be on a Saturday or in summer intensive. Three to four classes, a couple would be character or a barre a terre, less heavy work. Character was just pure dance and a relief, and the floor barre was a warm-up and extreeeeeme stretching based on a routine that Roland Petit taught the National Ballet of Canada many years ago when he staged a work for them, and found the dancers' flexibility lacking. It got passed down to the school, and we loved it.
So given that professional training requires daily classes, what can we do to relieve our muscles? Deborah Vogel says on page 111 of "Tune Up Your Turnout" ...release the tension, stretch the muscles, and strengthen them. It's a three-tiered approach.....Too much tension in a muscle, it will lose its tone. Too much flexibility without the muscular strength to support it is not good. Too much strength and tension without the flexibility is also not good."
Turn in and relax at every opportunity in class, and relax any aching or hurting muscle as much as you can while waiting to begin the next exercise.
Have a variety of ice packs at home, and use especially after a hot bath or shower. Ice the sore spots while resting, doing homework, etc. 15-20 minutes max, don't lie on them or fall asleep on them!
If your studio has a fridge with a freezer, take ice packs to use for long rehearsal days, or take a cooler and use them as long as they will stay cold.
Nutrition, hydration and warming up are 3 essentials. You want to repair muscles as quickly as possible, with good proteins and vegetables, hydrate by sipping all day (water, not other beverages like the popular sweetened, neon-colored, minimally mineralized sports drinks), and warm up before every rehearsal if you have had a break since class. Deborah elaborates on that on page 121.
I would also add real sea salt, the Celtic type that contains all 12 bioplasma minerals, and eliminate the useless table salt from your diet. "All 12" and Bioplasma homeopathic tablets are easy to carry in the dance bag too! Dissolve under the tongue. They are a little expensive unless you find a discount health food store that sells the huge bottles, which you can use to refill a smaller bottle as you use them up.
When I was rehearsing all day long in the hot Toronto summers fellow dancer-choreographer Marnie Cooke and I would prepare a large jug of water, freshly-squeezed lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper to keep everyone's electrolytes up. We'd all have a shot in rehearsal breaks. Judith our stage manager called it "kickapoo joy juice".
Back to myths, the frog position on one's stomach - really not a good stretch for hips or turnout, as there are better ones and it puts tremendous stress on the knee joints. Lying on your back and allowing the legs to stretch outward by their own weight is better - though there is still a chance that the knees will get strained. Holding the turnout that you have, and getting the stress out of the turnout muscles afterwards is more important.
Professional dancers get routine massages, and other body work to relieve the extremes of their daily work, or heal injuries. Students don't typically think about this care factor until they get an injury or find themselves in chronic pain.
It's not wimpy to start that kind of care early in your training. Go for gain with the least pain. In fact, soreness but no pain is attainable.Here is an easy to learn stretching guide to release muscle tension.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
