From Deborah Vogel:
"I now have Anatomy Coloring
Pages for the young dancer available in the store. They are in a
pdf format that you do multiple copies of for your younger students.
The muscles that are included in the coloring pages are:
1. rotators (turnout muscles)
2. Quadriceps
3. Hamstrings
4. Iliopsoas
5. Adductor (inner thigh)
6. Abductor (lateral hip)
7. Abdominals
8. Soleus (deeper calf muscle that determines depth of demi plié)
9. Gastrocnemius
10. Deltoid (that lifts the arm)
Each page demonstrates the action of the muscle, has an insert of
what the actual muscle looks like, and at the bottom of each page
is a sentence describing the action in simple terms. Perfect for the
youngest (6 - 8 yrs) to begin learning about their body!
The price is right - only $9.95 so check them out!
Warm regards,
Deborah
“Education is the key to injury prevention”
Deborah has given ballet teachers a tool with which to train students anatomy they need to know....and I believe that those students who feel frustrated with "doomed with my body type", can learn how to get more flexible and improve safely.
What a wonderful teaching aid!
Showing posts with label bulked up muscles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bulked up muscles. Show all posts
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Friday, April 24, 2009
Doomed With My Body Type in the Dance World
Ballet students in general have two strikes against them when they start ballet. I have heard so many in the ballet world say:
(I chose that image because I'm not into body shaming dancers! You know what I mean...)
Some are correct. With the wrong proportions and genetically bulked up muscles, only a few awesome talents break the ballet body barrier. The second strike is that dancers are their own worst critic, regardless of genetic luck.
Anyone who has seen a few classical ballets, or modern ballets with dancers in white spandex unitards, has figured out what the favored ballet body type is:
*Small head***long neck***shortened torso***long, thin, lean (but slightly muscular)legs*
This is a matter of genetics plus training, and it is important for the dancer to have enough strength to control motion. In non-ballet fields, these proportions are not normal and may even be considered detrimental.
Turnout of the leg from the hip joint.
This would depend whether the natural angle of the thigh bone in the hip is angled outward or inward. Also, increasing the flexibility of the surrounding soft tissues must begin before the age of seven to significantly enhance the degree of turnout.
However, serious full time ballet training should NOT start at age seven. Well designed weekly classes with no rush on advancing from simple exercises (for instance the early Cecchetti or R.A.D. grades) is as complicated as training should get.
Slight knee hyper extension has become a pleasing line in ballet. The slight backward curve of the leg enhances the look of the arch curve outward (yet undermines the function of balance).
A dancer with hyperextended knees can be taught to hold them straight, that's one more of the zillion things to think about throughout a dance class. This ideally would be mastered before getting into pointe shoes.
Bowed legs is favored for the ballet dancer for both practical and visual reasons. External tibial torsion (outward rotation of the lower leg) is favorable in that it can increase turnout look of the feet.
Adequate mobility of the ankle and foot so that the body can be stacked up from a demi pointe or full pointe position. A less flexible ankle especially would have the dancer's weight slightly back. Hypermobile feet are the fashionable shape, a highly domed arch. This is something you are born with, or not. However, ankle flexibility can be increased with gentle stretching, over time.
The hypermobile foot is not the best functional foot for ballet. Until it is strengthened sufficiently, pointe shoes will break quickly and the dancer will not have good control.
Some talented dancers with lesser-favored proportions and muscle shapes rise in the ranks to become soloists and character performers in classical dance companies.
Hard work, a winning personality and acting ability all help contribute to the success of a dancer like this.
Yet body type has nothing to do with the love of dance or performing talent. If a dance student realizes that she/he is struggling to accommodate ballet positions, let them keep struggling.
And also investigate other styles of dance where success is more likely.
Hitting the ballet body barrier never has to be a negative. It may propel a young person toward a different area of performing.
And this person will have gained dance technique, discipline, ability to work hard, and they will be no longer doomed with their body type in the dance world.
If you feel that you are struggling in ballet class, take advantage of the amazing dance education available from expert educational material such as The Perfect Pointe Book and The Body Series books and DVDs.
 | |||
| source. |
(I chose that image because I'm not into body shaming dancers! You know what I mean...)
"I am doomed with my body type".
Some are correct. With the wrong proportions and genetically bulked up muscles, only a few awesome talents break the ballet body barrier. The second strike is that dancers are their own worst critic, regardless of genetic luck.
Anyone who has seen a few classical ballets, or modern ballets with dancers in white spandex unitards, has figured out what the favored ballet body type is:
*Small head***long neck***shortened torso***long, thin, lean (but slightly muscular)legs*
This is a matter of genetics plus training, and it is important for the dancer to have enough strength to control motion. In non-ballet fields, these proportions are not normal and may even be considered detrimental.
Turnout of the leg from the hip joint.
This would depend whether the natural angle of the thigh bone in the hip is angled outward or inward. Also, increasing the flexibility of the surrounding soft tissues must begin before the age of seven to significantly enhance the degree of turnout.
However, serious full time ballet training should NOT start at age seven. Well designed weekly classes with no rush on advancing from simple exercises (for instance the early Cecchetti or R.A.D. grades) is as complicated as training should get.
Slight knee hyper extension has become a pleasing line in ballet. The slight backward curve of the leg enhances the look of the arch curve outward (yet undermines the function of balance).
A dancer with hyperextended knees can be taught to hold them straight, that's one more of the zillion things to think about throughout a dance class. This ideally would be mastered before getting into pointe shoes.
Bowed legs is favored for the ballet dancer for both practical and visual reasons. External tibial torsion (outward rotation of the lower leg) is favorable in that it can increase turnout look of the feet.
Adequate mobility of the ankle and foot so that the body can be stacked up from a demi pointe or full pointe position. A less flexible ankle especially would have the dancer's weight slightly back. Hypermobile feet are the fashionable shape, a highly domed arch. This is something you are born with, or not. However, ankle flexibility can be increased with gentle stretching, over time.
The hypermobile foot is not the best functional foot for ballet. Until it is strengthened sufficiently, pointe shoes will break quickly and the dancer will not have good control.
Some talented dancers with lesser-favored proportions and muscle shapes rise in the ranks to become soloists and character performers in classical dance companies.
Hard work, a winning personality and acting ability all help contribute to the success of a dancer like this.
Yet body type has nothing to do with the love of dance or performing talent. If a dance student realizes that she/he is struggling to accommodate ballet positions, let them keep struggling.
And also investigate other styles of dance where success is more likely.
Hitting the ballet body barrier never has to be a negative. It may propel a young person toward a different area of performing.
And this person will have gained dance technique, discipline, ability to work hard, and they will be no longer doomed with their body type in the dance world.
If you feel that you are struggling in ballet class, take advantage of the amazing dance education available from expert educational material such as The Perfect Pointe Book and The Body Series books and DVDs.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Ballet Shoes and Pointe Shoes - Increase Ballet Turnout
To increase your ballet turnout, first try a truer test for turnout than the butterfly or frog position, where your hips are flexed and turnout will look like more than it really is.
Lie on your stomach with your legs straight. Here your hips are in an extended position. Bend one leg to a 90 degree angle.
If your hip comes of the floor, then you need to stretch out your quadriceps and iliopsoas muscles, as in doing a runner's lunge. Demonstrated in this post.
You could have someone gently hold your hip down on the floor if you like. Then allow your bent leg to angle down toward the straight knee.
Where the leg stops, this is the correct degree of your turnout. This image show the dancer pressing down on a ball, to strengthen the rotator muscles.
Doing the frog position on your back or stomach is not good for your knees even if you are flexible.
Now more importantly, how to hold the turnout that you do have....If you watch dance movies carefully you will see that the most brilliantly artistic dancers in the world are not necessarily born with a lot of turnout - and it doesn't matter! They are still brilliant.
Your lateral rotator muscles are your prime turnout muscles, specifically:
These muscles lie underneath your gluts. When they contract your thigh rotates. If your leg is behind you, the gluts and hamstring muscles also help to hold the rotation.
The balance and tone of any muscle comes from its ability to work, and its ability to relax when not working. So having lateral rotators that clench to rotate, and don't relax in between exercises, do not have the strength they could have.
Turning in during class, in between exercises, is a good habit to have. It relaxed and stretches the turnout muscles.
Don't Clench Your Gluts
For example, when you tendu devant, if your hips remain in placement and your thigh is moving freely on its own, you should be able to rotate to your full natural turnout, even if you cannot always hold it.
Practice this with your gluts released, to isolate the rotator muscles. Gluts don't increase your turnout.
If you sit on the floor, legs straight out in front of you, relax your gluts on the floor. Then just engage your rotator muscles and turn your thighs out without your gluts working.
This will help you isolate the rotators.
If you can raise the legs, one by one, an inch or two off the floor, and hold this turnout, you'll feel the rotators holding against the flexion action. If your hip comes up too, then you are not isolating the leg from the hip completely.
Standing in first position, you want to open the legs by contracting the rotator muscles, but not clenching the gluts at this point. It's good to be able to tighten and hold the gluts when you need to, but not at this moment.
Whatever position you end up in, that is your turnout. Same for fifth, with the extra challenge of having one leg slightly behind your pelvis and the other in front. This requires more strength.
Third Position Is Good Sometimes
While many teachers would not allow this, I would encourage them to have many students working in third position for much longer than they usually feel is "normal". It's not that far to fifth position once the muscles are strengthened.
Advanced students and professionals do different things to compensate for not having that perfect fifth position. If they have good teachers, they learn to do this minimally and without injury. But they are doing it deliberately.
Hip Socket Shape And Tibial Torsion
Some people's thighs are in a different position in their hip sockets, that allows more turnout. This is the way they are born. So don't look at anyone else and compare.
Also some people have tibial torsion, which means their leg from the knee down is rotated outward. It can lead to other problems, but will give their feet a turned out look, while their knees and thighs may not be able to achieve the same turnout.
Another exercise to strengthen the turnout is as follows: lie down on the floor on your back, feet in first position, flexed as though you were standing.
You may only be able to go an inch , - but you'll feel those turnout muscles! Do that ten times every day and you will be much stronger standing up and doing the regular class movements.
You won't regret investing time in this exercise. Be sure to turn in and relax the rotators afterwards.
Recently I enjoyed a movie of William Forsythe's company. He says in the initial interview "Well, ballet is not anatomically correct". No kidding!
If your focus is to get into pointe shoes faster, I recommend The Perfect Pointe Book.
William Forsythe choreography - enjoy!
Lie on your stomach with your legs straight. Here your hips are in an extended position. Bend one leg to a 90 degree angle.
If your hip comes of the floor, then you need to stretch out your quadriceps and iliopsoas muscles, as in doing a runner's lunge. Demonstrated in this post.
You could have someone gently hold your hip down on the floor if you like. Then allow your bent leg to angle down toward the straight knee.
 |
| source. |
Where the leg stops, this is the correct degree of your turnout. This image show the dancer pressing down on a ball, to strengthen the rotator muscles.
Doing the frog position on your back or stomach is not good for your knees even if you are flexible.
Now more importantly, how to hold the turnout that you do have....If you watch dance movies carefully you will see that the most brilliantly artistic dancers in the world are not necessarily born with a lot of turnout - and it doesn't matter! They are still brilliant.
Your lateral rotator muscles are your prime turnout muscles, specifically:
- Piriformis;
- Obturator Internus;
- Obturator Externus;
- Quadratus Femoris;
- Gemellus Superior;
- Gemellus Inferior.
These muscles lie underneath your gluts. When they contract your thigh rotates. If your leg is behind you, the gluts and hamstring muscles also help to hold the rotation.
The balance and tone of any muscle comes from its ability to work, and its ability to relax when not working. So having lateral rotators that clench to rotate, and don't relax in between exercises, do not have the strength they could have.
Turning in during class, in between exercises, is a good habit to have. It relaxed and stretches the turnout muscles.
Don't Clench Your Gluts
For example, when you tendu devant, if your hips remain in placement and your thigh is moving freely on its own, you should be able to rotate to your full natural turnout, even if you cannot always hold it.
Practice this with your gluts released, to isolate the rotator muscles. Gluts don't increase your turnout.
If you sit on the floor, legs straight out in front of you, relax your gluts on the floor. Then just engage your rotator muscles and turn your thighs out without your gluts working.
This will help you isolate the rotators.
If you can raise the legs, one by one, an inch or two off the floor, and hold this turnout, you'll feel the rotators holding against the flexion action. If your hip comes up too, then you are not isolating the leg from the hip completely.
Standing in first position, you want to open the legs by contracting the rotator muscles, but not clenching the gluts at this point. It's good to be able to tighten and hold the gluts when you need to, but not at this moment.
Whatever position you end up in, that is your turnout. Same for fifth, with the extra challenge of having one leg slightly behind your pelvis and the other in front. This requires more strength.
Third Position Is Good Sometimes
While many teachers would not allow this, I would encourage them to have many students working in third position for much longer than they usually feel is "normal". It's not that far to fifth position once the muscles are strengthened.
Advanced students and professionals do different things to compensate for not having that perfect fifth position. If they have good teachers, they learn to do this minimally and without injury. But they are doing it deliberately.
Hip Socket Shape And Tibial Torsion
Some people's thighs are in a different position in their hip sockets, that allows more turnout. This is the way they are born. So don't look at anyone else and compare.
Also some people have tibial torsion, which means their leg from the knee down is rotated outward. It can lead to other problems, but will give their feet a turned out look, while their knees and thighs may not be able to achieve the same turnout.
Another exercise to strengthen the turnout is as follows: lie down on the floor on your back, feet in first position, flexed as though you were standing.
- press the back of the legs into the floor and feel the rotators
- move the legs, feet still flexed, about half an inch toward second position
- keep pressing the back of the legs into the floor, and don't let your back arch
You may only be able to go an inch , - but you'll feel those turnout muscles! Do that ten times every day and you will be much stronger standing up and doing the regular class movements.
You won't regret investing time in this exercise. Be sure to turn in and relax the rotators afterwards.
Recently I enjoyed a movie of William Forsythe's company. He says in the initial interview "Well, ballet is not anatomically correct". No kidding!
If your focus is to get into pointe shoes faster, I recommend The Perfect Pointe Book.
William Forsythe choreography - enjoy!
Monday, May 21, 2007
Ballet Lessons And Relaxation Techniques
Click on the link here to get a DVD to learn relaxation techniques 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 for relaxation techniques? 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.
In "Tune Up Your Turnout", 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 relaxation techniques 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. Get your copy of "Effective Stretching The Ultimate Guide - the easy to learn stretching guide to learn relaxation techniques.
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 for relaxation techniques? 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.
In "Tune Up Your Turnout", 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 relaxation techniques 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. Get your copy of "Effective Stretching The Ultimate Guide - the easy to learn stretching guide to learn relaxation techniques.
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