Teaching technique in children

Teaching isn't as easy as running through syllabus and expecting your students to catch on sooner or later, or it certainly shouldn't be. When you're teaching young dancers you are affecting their physical being - their posture, their muscle development, their bone strength, their body composition. They aren't going to know it, but their teacher has a huge responsibility for ensuring that they are taught safely and effectively.

Over-pronation of the feet

A degree of pronation is normal, as the foot needs to adapt to contact with the ground, however over-pronation occurs when the arch of the foot excessively flattens or 'collapses', the heel rolls inward and the soft tissues stretch. This is a common problem in dancers of many genres including jazz, modern and theatrical dance, but the problem is most pronounced in ballet dancers.

Periodisation Training and Dance

I came across periodisation training being used with dancers for the first time while I was studying for my Masters. My supervisor was really interested in it's application to dance and advocated it being used across various forms of dance training. It's used by coaches of pretty much every sport or physical activity you can think of and it makes perfect sense for dancers.

The physical abilities a dancer needs to possess are many and varied; we need power, strength, aerobic fitness, flexibility, agility, musicality... we need to possess all these at once and we need to perform at our highest levels according to specific schedules and deadlines. A training methodology that maximises peak performance, ensures constant physical adaptions are made and actively works to avoid burnout and overtraining would then seem a no brainer. It makes sense to use periodisation as a method of managing your supplemental training. You're always going to be in technique classes and rehearsals, but it can be used as a means of organising your training outwith the dance studio.

It means being seriously organised, and having the discipline to stick to your training plan but it's effectiveness has been repeatedly proven across a range of disciplines and if you're serious about performing at your best having a well thought out training schedule should be an absolute priority. This is a brief outline of the basic premise of periodisation and how it can be applied to dance training.

Managing your training

One thing almost everyone working within the area of dance science will push is supplemental training. I bang on about it constantly. It's important as exclusive dance-only training does not adequately prepare the body for the demands of performance. Class provides the training for technique and artistry, however for the required athleticism, you need to train your body in a range of areas so that when it comes to performance you are not only physically equipped to perform the choreography and therefore less likely to get injured, but you are also able to perform at your best.

Finding the time for this can be problematic. If you are lucky enough to be employed by a company that provides additional physical training you're in a very fortunate minority. For those who aren't, finding clear cut time for supplemental training can be difficult. For dance students, there is often the need to juggle practical training with course theory and part-time employment; for freelancers their is the balancing of rehearsal, performance, class and other employment, if you're working in an area such as hospitality to supplement your income your hours are erratic at the best of times and for those employed by companies full-time who do not receive supplemental training, it can be difficult to commit yourself to further training outside of the hours spent within in-company training. Out with all of that, you need to be careful not to overwork yourself.

Revisiting the basics - Warm up and Cool down

Whether you're a teacher, a choreographer or just leading a rehearsal, for your dancers to perform at their best you need to ensure their bodies are adequately prepared. One thing that has been missing from teacher training programmes for years is the provision for this. On the one hand 99% of it is common sense, on the other it can be easy to forget your own practice when you're leading others.

Staying hydrated

Hydration is a pretty obvious issue, everyone has a water bottle in class and it's a nightmare making it through when you've forgotten it. Even so it's easy to become dehydrated without realising it, and a tiny degree of dehdration can have a significant effect on your performance. Bare in mind your hydration needs are different depending on your training load. If you're just doing a couple of hours, water will do. However if you're in classes and rehearsals all day, you need to recognise you're going to be sweating all day, and that you need to replenish both your fluid and  salt levels. If you don't want, don't like, or can't face spending the money on sports drinks, you can easily make your own by adding diluting juice and a quarter teaspoon of salt to your water bottle.

Also, remember anything caffeinated dehydrates, so 5 cups of coffee and one bottle of water aren't going to cut it, even if you feel like you've been drinking all day. If you're dancing full-time or close to full-time, try to drink 2 litres of water throughout your training day to stay hydrated. That excludes whatever you drink at breakfast and after you finish at the end of the day.

Just because it's obvious, don't neglect to think about it, make sure you're drinking enough.

The Iron

Perhaps this isn't what you'd necessarily expect on a dance blog, and perhaps he seems as far removed from the field of dance as you can imagine, however it has a relevance that extends to any discipline of physical training - and as far as I'm concerned Henry Rollins has always been and continues to be, The Man. 

I stumble across this essay a couple of times a year, it's probably reproduced in nearly every fitness blog, website and discussion forum on the net, and for good reason. It's a reminder of why we should train our bodies, and what it can teach us about ourselves. It doesn't matter how you train, physical discipline is the same across the board. Your attitude to your training, to yourself and to others are all interlinked. Here's the article reproduced in full.

Strength Training - a note on pas de deux and partnering

This isn't specific to ballet - this is for anyone whose dance style incorporates lifts of any type, whether it's ballet, street, contemporary or lindy hop, ANY style where you are taking someone's weight increases your risk of hurting yourself if you're not careful. It should be pretty self evident that if you're lifting a person, you're going to need the strength to take their weight. You won't get that strength from practicing the lift a few times in rehearsal, you'll get it from strength training outside of the studio.

Aside from the concerns about bulking up, too many female dancers obsess over their weight, at the risk of their health, and avoid weight training themselves due to the worry that it will make them gain weight. Staying at 45kg isn't healthy for the average woman, ballet dancer or not. Too many female dancers control their weight through diet restriction. Get your body fat tested and despite being a size 4, you might be surprised to find it sitting around 20%. Average BF % for female ballet dancers is 17%, for contemporary dancers it's 20%. Compare that with female gymnasts (13%) and runners (14%); the reason it's higher on dancers than other athletes is the lack of strength training and the lack of adequate nutrition.