Flexibility training for dancers

The core of flexibility training for dancers has never been about hard pressing and breaking of "the more painful, the more effective", but the synergistic effect of joint mobility adaptation, muscle eccentric control, and nerve relaxation. There is no unified training plan that is suitable for everyone. It must be dynamically adjusted based on the needs of the dance type, one's own physical condition, and the training stage.

You must have seen the basic training room of the dance school at 6:30 in the morning. The little girl in pink dance clothes put her legs on the barre. The teacher pressed down on her lower back. Her cries mixed with the squeaking sound of the barre shaking for half a floor. Many people's impression of flexibility training for dancers stops here, but anyone who has actually practiced for five or six years knows that this kind of "devil training" is no longer the only answer in the industry.

There are always two voices in the industry that are very demanding. Most of the older generation of choreographers and basic training teachers believe that "what is pressed out is your own." A national first-class classical dance performer I talked to before said that when she was a child, she practiced crotch, and the teacher directly sat on her crotch. She sat up for 15 minutes and the toes of her dance shoes were so painful that she bit them to pieces. Now she is in her forties and dances the rebound pipa in "Flowers on the Silk Road", and her shoulder and hip openings are still as high as those of a twenty-year-old actress. However, she also admitted that it is common for her hip joints to hurt so much that she can't sleep on rainy days. On the other side are young teachers and dance rehabilitation practitioners who have entered the dance industry in recent years. They mainly promote "painless flexibility training". A modern dance choreographer I know never allows students to passively press their legs. He relies entirely on dynamic leg swings, PNF stretching, and core activation. Although the students' openings after two years of practice are not as good as those achieved by hard pressing of boy's skills, no one has ever suffered from problems such as muscle strain or synovitis. The dynamic flexibility required to dance modern dance is more outstanding.

Two years ago, I contracted synovitis from stepping on my crotch. It took me three months to recover. After that, I learned to behave and no longer competed with others about whose legs could carry the weight of the teacher. Before each flexibility practice, you should spend at least 20 minutes warming up. In winter, you need to add another 10 minutes. You can either jog twice around the classroom or jump to the music for a while until your body is slightly sweaty and the synovial fluid in your joints is activated before you touch the barre. Many people hold their breath when they press their legs. They clench their fists and their faces turn red. Their nerves are as tight as a stringed bow. How can they possibly pull it apart? I used to take care of a student who took the art exam, and the cross was 10 centimeters apart and she couldn't get it off. Later, every time I pressed it, I asked her to stop holding it in and hum her favorite pop songs along with the accompaniment. After she relaxed, she got rid of it within a week, and she was confused.

I really don’t want to scare people. Many people think that the more painful the pressure, the better the effect. In fact, the sharp pain like a needle prick is a sign of strain. Only the pain of soreness and swelling is the state of effective stretching. There are also people who only focus on leg training and don’t care about their shoulders, back, waist and hips. In the last performance, there was a junior girl whose front legs could directly touch the back of her head. When doing classical dance, she could do a hand-holding movement, but her shoulders couldn’t be opened and her arms were raised like she was holding a wok. The teacher in the audience burst into laughter. When she came down, she felt aggrieved and said that she couldn’t dance well even though she pressed her legs every day. Isn’t this just a waste of practice?

Moreover, different dance types have completely different requirements for flexibility. Ballet requires outward flexibility. When pressing the leg, the toes must be rotated outward to 180 degrees. If you buckle the foot press, even if you can lift the leg over your head, you will still be crooked when doing an arabesque during ballet. Kids who are breaking don't have to compete with classical dancers to cross-cross. The most important thing you should practice is the dynamic flexibility of your waist and wrists. Do more exercises of swinging your waist and alternately supporting the ground. Otherwise, if your waist flashes when doing the Thomas Full Spin, it will be a lifetime thing.

In fact, to put it bluntly, flexibility training is for dancing, not an indicator for comparison. I've seen girls who can't move their crossbars down but are very spirited in folk dances, and I've also seen talented students who have perfect scores but dance like they're doing exercises. There's no need to force yourself to be in line with others, find a method that suits you, don't get hurt, you're better than anything else.