Taking an Extended Break from Dancing

One year when I was a student at Indiana University, we had a whole week off for Thanksgiving. The week we came back to school we had technical and dress rehearsals for The Nutcracker, which opened the very next weekend! My toenails felt bruised and every time I had to go onto pointe the pain was excruciating. Just putting my pointe shoes on after a full week off made me cringe. I felt like my feet had become bloated and soft in such a short amount of time.

After that experience I made sure to do certain things during any extended breaks from dancing.  Here’s a list of things you can do to keep from regretting time off, but still enjoy having that time off. Continue reading “Taking an Extended Break from Dancing”

Nutrition and Pain Relief for Dancers

I ordered a theracane from Amazon.com and really like it!  It’s great because you can reach trigger points without the aid of another person.  It can reach every trigger point in your body!  I highly recommend them.  I got one for my brother-in-law and he loves it.

Tomorrow I meet with my nutritionist who is going to give me meal plans!  Because I have fibromyalgia, she had me buy a water distiller (the $99 one that has stainless steel inside) and a nice blender so I can make smoothies, too.  Apparently this commercial blender will chop up avocado seeds and other seeds that hold a lot of nutrients.  Now I’ll be able to really start getting a handle on my nutrition and stop craving things I don’t need!  She said that eventually I will be able to go off some of the medication I take for chronic pain.  That would be wonderful!

Here are some nutrition tips she gave me:

  • Water instead of Sodas, Kool Aid, etc.
  • Eat at least 4 cups of cooked vegetables – include dark greens
  • Eat 2-3 servings of fruit daily – don’t count juice
  • Fish – 3 times a week (especially salmon and small fish)
  • Good fats – olive, safflower, nuts & seeds, avocado
  • Shop around the periphery of the grocery store
  • Go natural – minimize salt, sugar, additives, preservatives
  • Eat a variety of foods
  • Nibble instead of gorge
  • Stay away from foods that don’t rot or sprout
  • Eat nutrient dense foods
  • Choose high fiber foods
  • Eat enough protein (100 grams if you weigh 150 lbs)
  • Stay away from hard to digest foods
  • Avoid grilling
  • Keep bowels healthy – at least one bowel movement a day

At my first meeting with my nutitionist, she did say I should drink 2 cups of lukewarm distilled water first thing in the morning, before eating any food.  This gently awakens the digestive system.  She said to use skim milk instead of 2%, to eat two halves of a walnut everyday, to get Ezekiel bread, to drink water 15 minutes before a meal or 30 minutes after (but don’t drink during a meal!), to use coconut oil for stir frying, and that I should eat dates with grapefruit instead of alone as a snack.  Lastly, she said to eat two egg whites and one egg yolk for breakfast and that boiled or poached are best.  I didn’t know the protein was in the egg white and not the yolk!  I’ve been trying to do these things until I get my real meal plans from her on Thursday.

I hope everyone enjoys their holidays.  Maybe taking a look at my post about taking breaks would be helpful, since many dancers will be enjoying some needed time off this week and next!

How to Make Your Pointe Shoes Slip Free

Is the stage floor too slippery for your pointe shoes?  Is the stage crew opposed to using rosin on the stage and you are without the benefit of marley?  There are ways to make your pointe shoes slip proof!  If you know you are going to be dancing on a stage that matches this description, take your pointe shoes to a local shoe repair ahead of time.  They usually need a few days to do this, so don’t wait until the last minute.  All you need to do is ask them to put rubber on the platform and sole of your shoes.  Be sure to specify tan, because they may use black if you don’t!

Tell them to extend the rubber to the place on the sole where your shank needs to bend, so it will cover the platform and about 2/3 or 3/4 of the sole.  They can use the leather sole on your shoes as a guide, and have them bevel the edges so you don’t notice where the rubber ends and your shoe begins along the sides.  Then, have them put about a circle of beveled rubber on the very end of the sole where your heel is.  I used to tell them to make it the size of a quarter.

This works wonders when you must dance on treacherous, slippery surfaces.  Back when I was dancing, the shoe repairman would charge about $10 for a pair of shoes.  I have no idea if such establishments are even easy to find nowadays, or what kind of fee they would charge.  But it’s definitely worth looking into.  You’d be surprised at how normal the shoes feel, even with the rubber on them.

If the stage crew isn’t opposed to using rosin, in addition to having a rosin box backstage for dancers to step into, you can take small chunks of rock rosin and spread them around the stage.  Have several dancers or stage crew members help you step on them and spread the rosin around the stage to get the best coverage possible.  Then, take a broom and sweep away the excess.  This works pretty well if you aren’t able to put the rubber on your pointe shoes.  Good luck!

How to Make Pointe Shoes Last Longer

348052_old_ballet_shoes_1 Dancers are always trying to extend the life of their pointe shoes.  It’s especially important for students who are buying their own shoes to get the most out of them, because we all know they aren’t cheap!  There are several things you can do to extend the life of your pointe shoes.  I would say the ideal way to go if you can afford it, would be to always have at least two pair on hand that you can switch between.  The longer your shoes can rest between wearings the better they are able to air out and harden back up.

Another important thing to do is to keep them in a net bag or something where air can get to the shoes, rather than dumping them into your dance bag with sweaty ballet slippers and leotards.  These bags are available at dancewear stores and online.  The Ballet Boutique sells them online here.  If you can wear tights I think that helps, too, although I remember liking to sometimes dance in my pointe shoes with bare feet—but if you’re trying to make them last longer that probably isn’t the smartest thing to do.

We always cut the satin off the tips of our shoes before wearing them as well.  The satin tends to rip up anyway.  I’m not sure it’s a good practice, but we also used shellac or floor cleaner like Mop & Glo floor cleaner and put a capful into the box of the shoe.  Set them up on the toes to dry overnight, first getting any excess out of the tip of the shoe with a paper towel.

Some of my friends used to put their shoes in the oven, but I never did this and am not sure how it made them last any longer.  Any other dancers have tips on extending the life of pointe shoes to share?  Please leave a comment!

Dancers and Conditioning

ist1_4403445-joyI’ve often wondered how common it is for a dancer to suffer from chronic back pain during and after their dancing career. I personally had a lot of issues with low back pain while I was dancing, and I attributed much of it to the repetition of particular moves in choreography and to the fact that I have a long torso (which in my mind was not conducive to dancing ballet). Now that I’m suffering the long term effects of chronic back pain and getting older, I’m realizing that there were things I should have been doing to supplement my core strength in order to counterbalance the excessive flexion that dancing demands. It never occurred to me that dancing ballet six or more hours a day was not enough.

I knew that if I did crunches and stretched out before class that I would perform extensions and hold balances better, but I didn’t focus enough on really strengthening my abdominals, my back, and stretching out my hamstrings the way I should have. Not only that, I have since learned that aerobic or cardio training could have helped my dancing as well. An article from the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries web site states, Aerobic fitness can increase blood flow and oxygenation to all tissues, including the muscles, bones, and ligaments of the spine. Dancers should be encouraged to cross-train year round to maintain aerobic fitness.”

Sean Fyfe is a physiotherapist working with Metis Physio Centres in London, a multi-disciplinary clinic and he works with elite dancers and theatre performers. From an article at sportsinjurybulletin.com, he says, “Dancing alone doesn’t ensure abdominal strength, good activation through glut max or activation of segmental stabilisers. In that respect, dance is no different from any other sport: its performers have to put aside the time to do specific body maintenance, in conjunction with regular screening, to give themselves the best chance of remaining injury free.”

I have begun taking yoga classes and wish I’d known the value of yoga and Pilates back when I was dancing. The mindfulness (or meditation) that comes out of practicing yoga is giving me tools that allow me to be a calmer, happier person—more capable of administering to the needs of my my family or coworkers and simply being able to breathe and be in the moment. Meditation doesn’t have to be something you hole up alone in a quiet room to do; it can be done just by being mindful and living in the present. Visualizing breath as it enters and leaves the body, noticing the state of your body at any moment in time, using your senses fully to take in the world around you—any of these can be a form of meditation.

Dancers are focused so much on their bodies, and I personally think it would do a world of good for them to also nurture their minds and spirits in a holistic way. We used to make fun of the modern dancers and called them “granola” people for the way they utilized breath and didn’t attempt to hide the effort in their movements. Now I see that they were really onto something that ballet dancers would do well to heed, too. Not that ballet dancers will ever want to enunciate their breathing on stage, but I think it would be great if teachers taught their students to breathe in and out with the counts during class, much like they do in yoga. With age cometh wisdom, and hindsight is always 20/20, right?

Here is a great book for dancers about anatomy and kinesiology.

Passion for Dancing

Why do dancers dance? Ballet class is rigorous, not to mention expensive, yet thousands of people send their children to ballet. As a dancer, I know that what keeps bringing us back to the barre, day in and day out, is passion. And I know as a parent (whose children lacked such passion) that it was easier to save my money and pull them out of ballet than to hear them whining and complaining that “ballet is boring”.

When I was ten years old, the girl next door showed me her tap and ballet shoes and introduced me to a few steps. For me, that was it. I practiced those steps everyday on my front porch and pretended my black patent leather shoes had taps on them. For reasons I couldn’t understand, I had to wait until school was starting the following year to begin lessons at the local studio with Debbie Wilkerson. It felt like an eternity! My mom said that she knew from my fervent activity in the womb that I was destined to either be a dancer or a football player. When my lessons finally started, I was hooked and couldn’t get enough.

The studio was three short blocks from my house, so I was allowed to walk there by myself. It was downtown in the upstairs of an old building. There was one huge studio and one smaller one, plus an office, waiting area, and a long room full of costumes that you had to walk through to get to the restroom. My teacher, Debbie, had lovely leotards and wore her long hair in beautiful braided buns. There was a raised area in the corner of the large studio where she had her record player, and I always dreamed of one day being the teacher so I could stand there, too. My dad helped me put up a barre and some mirrors in our attic and I had my own little studio up there, where I spent hours upon hours dancing and making up my own choreography.

If most dancers are like me, then they dance because they must. They can’t stand the thought of life without dance. Sure, they take the occasional break and vacation, but dance is always there on the horizon waiting for them to pick up again. Debbie was a special teacher, because she recognized my passion for ballet and encouraged my parents to send me to the Jordan Academy of Dance in Indianapolis where I could get more intensive training than she offered at her studio. I went there on Saturdays and dreaded it every single week. Looking back, I’m grateful for my parents’ diligence in making me go, because from my contacts there I was able to apply to Butler University’s early enrollment program as a high school student.

At Jordan Academy all the girls knew each other and took class several times a week together. I came in only on Saturdays and was too shy to make friends with anyone. They did a lot of steps that I’d never seen before, too, so I was confused a lot. And I simply hated grand allegro, when we had to dance across the floor two at a time and I almost always had no idea what to do. Still, I loved dancing at Debbie’s studio, and when I was accepted as a student at Butler my sophomore year in high school, I loved that as well. My teacher at Jordan Academy, Peggy Dorsey, warned my father that it could be tough at the university (where she also taught) and that there was a lot of competition among the girls. However, since I went there everyday I was able to make friends with many of the girls in my classes, and my dancing improved by leaps and bounds (pardon the pun!).

When I became the mother of two young girls, they enrolled in dance at the studio where I taught in Paris, Kentucky.They had a cute class for two year olds called Jack Be Nimble, and my girls both loved that.Then we moved to North Carolina and I stopped teaching so I could work at a job that would give our family benefits and enough pay to live on until my husband found work.We enrolled them in creative movement and they enjoyed it, for the most part, but to be honest they would rather be at home playing in mud or riding their bikes.They took a break from dance, since they were still rather young, I thought, to be expected to have a spark of passion for it yet.When they came back to it a few years later it was drudgery getting them to class.I could see that they were the ones who were left out of the cliques made up of girls who were there several days a week, and they just didn’t love it as I’d hoped they would.

I didn’t have dreams of them becoming professional dancers. I just wanted them to have something they could love doing, as I had when I was their age. But it wasn’t meant to be. And I realize that the kids who show up and are eager to learn new steps and tricky combinations are the ones who are passionate about dancing. They are the ones who can’t imagine life without dance. As a side note, my girls are now teenagers who play soccer, piano, guitar, and violin. They are also whizzes on the computer. I’m not sure either of them has found their passion in life, but I still hold out hope that they will. There’s nothing quite like it, is there?