drdance

@Doing Dance 1 You can but try! @Aurora3 Strangely enough I don't know that saying. I actually believe that science does fit your body, but it perhaps doesn't fit your mind. The mind is a powerful thing. Science is very rarely wrong, actually, because of the rigorous procedures most scientists have to go through before publishing any findings. Things are checked multiple times, by multiple scientists, and the majority of scientists uphold a code of ethics and take this very seriously. And yes I am a dance scientist. I have published work in peer-reviewed journals and have worked with major ballet companies. I appreciate that you believe that the entire dance science knowledge base is not for you, and I respect your decision. I do hope you don't get injured and that you never require the services of a dance medicine or science specialist because as you say, science doesn't fit your body, so they'll be unlikely to help you. I wish you the very best.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1089313X241232446

I would hazard a guess at 'functional analysis of the body during dance' - ie anatomy and physiology of the dancer?

Just a note to say that flexibility and strength are not necessarily related in this way. Don't be confused with joint mobility versus muscular flexibility and muscular strength. Dancers with high natural levels of joint mobility may find it harder to control - so appear less strong, but often, individual muscles or muscle groups are strong. Conversely, weak muscles can feel tight too, so strengthening muscles often causes them to feel more flexible.

With childrens' 1st postition I usually go up a size and a half when fitting my pupils.

2 tickets for BRB Black Sabbath tomorrow at 1pm Seats Q37-38 in the circle. Cost £119 for both. Happy to take offers

No I wouldn't personally do that for high merit at Grade 3. I'd simply chalk it up to one set of results and move on. But the system is there and I'm not sure people know about it, and if the OP or her DD wants more information then they can do so.

My students have dropped marks over recent sessions and I'm now finding out that other local schools have had similar experiences. It seems as though even with childrens exams that 9's and 10's really are for perfection (impossible in my opinion) and Good to excellent children are lucky to get 8's for anything. And that's for live exams. Add into the mix the video element and marks seem to drop even more. I'm really disheartened by it at the moment. I still prefer the RAD syllabus to teach (over other exam boards) but the others seem to be much more generous in their marks which is very hard as a teacher, when parents naturally compare school to school either on social media or at the school gates etc. Many schools near me do BBO or IDTA and frequently announce marks above 90 on social media! Please reassure your DD that it is happening everywhere, and try and see it as a challenge to work towards improving for next time. You could always pay for a full detailed report from RAD, I did this once and it was very informative.

I'm always wary of these 'special programmes' run by ordinary dance schools. Essentially they are a way to 'poach' the best children from other dance schools because what happens is, like you've already considered, 'would it not be better to move her to the school where this strengthened ballet programme is?!'. I think that at age 9, two ballet lessons a week with a good teacher is plenty. I'd only add to this if the teacher or programme was something like Royal Ballet School or Elmhurst, where the curriculum and classes are age appropriate and work with your DD's current teacher. My pupils do back to back classes without any problems although this is on Saturdays and the classes are of different dance styles.

Eeeeek! Is my first thought! Hyperextension in the knees is not really something you should be prioritising. Pushing into it in an oversplit position and pushing down is especially risky as you can overstretch the ligaments in your knee, put pressure on the kneecap and cause instability in the joint putting it at risk of injury in the future. It sounds like you need to prioritise strengthening your knees and in particular, the VMO muscle. (vastus medialis). There are lots of things online that help with this.

The university dance scene has really exploded in the last few years - lots of unis now have dance societies and it can be very competitive. Something to consider in the hunt for that 'middle ground'!

The warm up I describe is the recommended warm up to prevent injury and to fully prepare the joints and muscles to be loaded and stretched for dance-specific movements. Lying down or non-weightbearing might feel lovely, but physiologically it does very little other than feeling like ballet. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it shouldn't be the only thing done. It should only be 5-10 minutes and it should be done AFTER the body is properly warmed up.

20+ hours a week sounds like an awful lot in my opinion. Is this all ballet? How old is your DC? (Feel free to PM me if needed). Stretching isn’t the only way to improve flexibility and joint mobility. Within the realm of “stretching” there are lots of different approaches; passive vs active, dynamic vs static, end-range focus, ballistic, PNF, dance-specific, etc etc. As others have suggested, it’s better to get an individualised programme. During the adolescent growth spurt flexibility decreases anyway so that’s a consideration, plus there’s the whole stress and tension element too - psychological or physiological stress can cause neural tension leading to what looks like poor flexibility. Once the person relaxes or the source of tension is removed, the movement becomes freer and flexibility appears improved. Lisa Howell has written / produced a fair bit of content on neural tension.

Several point(e)s here! The goal of a warm up (if done properly) is to get all major joints lubricated, to increase heart rate, breathing rate and to start progressively loading the joints. I don't think that PBT (which is often slow, controlled and with all or part of the body supported by the floor or a ball) actually achieves this. I would actually argue that most sports require refined co-ordination as much as strength. Ask a footballer / tennis player / high jumper / golfer / badminton player etc etc about accuracy, skill/technical drills and they'll tell you the same thing. The physiological demands (intensity, aerobic/anaerobic demands, accuracy and speed of skill etc) of a ballet performance are very similar to that of a football (soccer) match. The only difference is that dancers have to make it look artistic too. Happy to discuss this in more length - I wrote much of the original research on the topic...

Hi, great discussion! I know some ballet teachers who are massive fans of PBT and if it's used for the right purpose then it' great. PBT stands for Progressing Ballet Technique and it is exactly that. It is essentially another 'pilates' type form of exercise, working on strengthening and training the muscles required to do ballet correctly. It is completely dance specific. It is very good for developing ballet technique and helping students/dancers to work the muscles required for ballet technique (ie the 'right muscles'). What it ISN'T is cross-training. It will not prevent imbalances (some might argue it could lead to them if its the only form of additional training), it does not help develop aerobic capacity nor does it help strengthen against impact forces (landings etc) which are known to be predictors of injury. As with any form of training, I think it's always important to ask what the outcome goal is first, and then to choose a training method to meet that goal. No-one should be 'doing conditioning' to 'do conditioning'. While it's wonderful that people see the need for supplementary training, I still see a lot of people (mostly on social media though) doing various forms of 'conditioning' without really knowing or having thought about the ultimate goal. Something else to bear in mind when choosing conditioning - and it kind of ties in with the last paragraph - a dancers timetable is usually pretty busy. Therefore choosing what to spend time on is really important. It's no use just adding in more and more classes/exercise forms because the dancers body needs rest and nutrition in order to build the strength in response to the training. So is it really worth adding in another ballet specific class such as pilates or PBT when a dancer is already doing 5 ballet classes a week? If ballet technique needs focus then maybe substitute (shock horror!) one of those classes for PBT so that the overall training load isn't increased. If you look at sports teams or individual athletes and how they train, only a part of their time is given to sport-specific drills, or working on technique or playing the actual game. The rest is spent on overall strength and fitness development. So why do dancers spend so much more of their time (proportionally) on technique?