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”