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Over splits


tomuchtallent

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Should dancers that are flexible do extra stretching to achieve over splits or is this getting to gymnasticy?

 

My dd is flexible and i have noticed in the lessons that they are working on over splits on both ways.Will this help with anything or is it more of a show off thing?and is it nessasary?

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Having oversplits allows dancers to get to 'splits' or near splits in movements like leaps and penchee arabesques more easily. There are 2 types of flexibility - active and passive. Passive involves using the floor, or a hand or a friend to help and often dancers can get into splits this way but find it hard to actually 'use' their splits in an active way. Active flexibility is the flexibility you can use yourself eg using your own strength to developpe into split or hitting a split in a leap. There is always about 30 degrees less active flexibility than there is passive. So if a dancer can get 30 degrees past a straight split passively, it's more easy to get a straight split in other movements.

 

Does that make sense?!

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There is always about 30 degrees less active flexibility than there is passive. So if a dancer can get 30 degrees past a straight split passively, it's more easy to get a straight split in other movements.

 

Does that make sense?!

 

Thank you for that explanation. I was also wondering why oversplits were practised and now I understand :)

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It has always been my understanding that over splits a unnecessary and dangerous! I know some people are naturally very flexible but, personally, I don't think it is worth the risk of injury to achieve them! far better to work on the strength to use what flexibility you have!

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It has always been my understanding that over splits a unnecessary and dangerous! I know some people are naturally very flexible but, personally, I don't think it is worth the risk of injury to achieve them! far better to work on the strength to use what flexibility you have!

 

I agree with this. The problem of trying to attain an oversplit - even passively - is that it shows up in performance. (I'm not sure I like the word "passive" - since I see dance as dynamic - even in practice as dynamic.)

 

We are seeing more and more pictures of dancers in performance oversplit in the air - an....er....uh....that's a crotch shot. Sorry, that's what it looks like.

 

The original beauty of a grand jeté was not a split - but ballon - how it floated - hovered. I don't really want to see an oversplit hover and I don't see any beauty in it - nor do I see any meaning in it - or musicality.

 

I think such stretching is beyond the ballet structure and I'm sorry to see it used and/or practiced. The body was not meant to do this - and I was not meant to watch it.

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Anjuli I agree that dance is dynamic - but there is nothing dynamic about sitting in the splits!

 

Well, I see that as dynamic too - silly me!

 

If something is happening - good or bad - then it is dynamic. I know that's not scientific - but I am not a scientist! :)

 

One sits in a split so that something will happen. Actually, I'm not sure I like the word "sit" - a split is not a sit - it is a done so that something will happen.

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You're not silly! But the 'technical' term for flexibility where there is an external 'thing' or 3rd party applying the force is 'passive' versus active. Just sayin'!

 

I divide ways of stretching into three groups:

 

1. The body against itself - example - if you stretch your arms up in the air - or stretch out your foot in pointe or a heel in hand.

 

2. The body against an inanimate object - example - body against the floor such as brushing out the foot with weight on the foot against the floor - isometric - or such as going down into a split or stretching the leg along the barre.

 

3. An object moving the body - example - such as someone pushing you down into a split.

 

I see the first method as a safest. The second a bit less so - and the third as the most precarious.

 

I think that the body should always have an escape route - the first provides that, the second a bit less so, and the third the least.

 

Another factor is whether the body is bearing weight whilst stretching. Asking the body to bear weight while also asking it to stretch is a bit more complex than asking the body to stretch while not bearing weight.

 

Example: if one is going down into a split with a hand on either side to help catch the weight, should something occur -- a sudden pain/twinge that feels like trouble - the hands are there to help and the weight can be divided up between two legs and two hands. Also the floor is close by and this limits the "fall."

 

But if you take that split stretch and do it where one leg is run up a wall - the body is being asked to bear all its weight on one foot - the floor is a longer way down and the hands not in as good a position to help.

 

But - that leg up the wall has wow factor - so people do it. What's to be gained?

 

As you can see I don't do much with technical terms - just as old ballet teacher who made up her mind in 40 yrs of teaching she would try to do no harm.

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I agree with everything you have said Anjuli.The only problem is that ballet seems to get harder and harder and demands more of the dancer and being more flexible is one of them.If you want to be a professional dancer these days, to be the best you have to keep up with the joans!!

Today i think there are more people that like to watch higher legs, more turns,nicer feet,great flexability and that seems thats what the schools are looking for too.

Just doing normal splits seem not enough these days!And with youtube ect more people are in competition with eachother and feel they have to acheive the same to stand a chance of success.

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I'm not sure that you tube plays a great part in the selection of dancers. It seems to be that the very vast majority of clips on there are posted because the dancer wants to show off. It is the same with Facebook. The profile pictures of so many student dancers show them in positions of extreme flexibility and I am not sure that that demonstrates a particularly accurate understanding of the art.

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We are seeing more and more pictures of dancers in performance oversplit in the air - an....er....uh....that's a crotch shot. Sorry, that's what it looks like.

 

The original beauty of a grand jeté was not a split - but ballon - how it floated - hovered. I don't really want to see an oversplit hover and I don't see any beauty in it - nor do I see any meaning in it - or musicality.

 

Ugly, ugly, ugly, and shouldn't be encouraged, in my book. And made worse by the fact that the general impression given is that both legs curve upwards in a flattened "w" shape. It turns my stomach most of the time.

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There is a difference between "desirable" and "eye catching." Eye catching doesn't mean it is positive - when someone falls it catches our eye. An advertisement is meant to catch your eye - not present an art form.

 

If my child had a ballet teacher who was stretching his/her body past a split - I would say "no."

 

Someone has to say "no."

 

Otherwise silence is assent.

 

Otherwise where does it stop? There was a time that all sorts of horrors happened in (regular/not dance) schools - especially in boarding schools. Until someone said "no."

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Sorry for the double posting, but there is one thing I would like to add....

 

There are a lot of young dancers on my FB page and they like to send me pictures of dancers dancing. Most are very beautiful and/or emotive of a role. However, they also send me pictures of exaggerated stuff like oversplits, etc. because they love the wow factor and they want to share it with me.

 

I always reply - and try to let them know that this type of thing is not ballet - it's not beautiful. I try to do it in a way that will inform - not castigate.

 

We all have opportunities to teach or at least let our opinion be known. I want them to be discerning - not to just accept everything as the norm. I want a youngster to question what is presented as "norm."

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Anjuli, I would love to have seen your face if confronted, as I was recently, with a young dancer "warming up" by doing the splits with her feet on two chairs, placed a "splits width" apart!! There were lots of even younger dancers in the room that thought she was so very clever, even when I tried to suggest that it was not something that they should be copying!!

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[

Has anyone seen the imagary on the new 'Royal Ballet' range of cosmetics currently being promoted by Dance Direct? One of them illustrates just this issue - it's not pretty.

I was just coming to post exactly the same thing as I had an advert for this in my inbox today. I thought these items might make a nice present for a young friend who has a birthday coming up, but that picture put me right off. I don't know a lot about the technicalities but I know what I like to see and I think overspilts and so on just look ugly. I can't believe it's good for the body either. I don't want to give or reinforce the idea that it's desirable to look like that by giving those pictures to an impressionable young girl. I definitely won't be buying these products.

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I dont think that positions in over splits looks nice either but it has crept up over the years and where will it stop!havent seen the new RB ad but it just goes to show you why young dancers want to achieve it.

 

And its true,its not ballet or beautiful or mean you can dance.

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I had never even heard of this until reading this thread. I went off and had a look at the Dance Direct web pages, and the pictures are truly shocking. :o

 

I've never seen anything so ugly in my life. Is this really what schools are encouraging now? I remember making a joke once to someone about six o'clock extensions would soon be seen to be too easy, and the dancers would strive to achieve five past six extensions. Somebody must have taken this seriously.

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I dont think that positions in over splits looks nice either but it has crept up over the years and where will it stop!havent seen the new RB ad but it just goes to show you why young dancers want to achieve it.

 

And its true,its not ballet or beautiful or mean you can dance.

 

It is sad that the gymnastic element of ballet has become a focus. If I wanted to watch gymnastics, I would go to the gymnastics events or the circus. Sadly all DDs friends try and copy the same pose that is on the RB product (before it came out) and they are more concerned with how high they can get their legs, how deep their splits etc than they are with whether they can dance or not. This isn't something they have just made up, it is influenced by the pictures they see on Facebook and the culture that comes from the companies downwards :(

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Corrrect placement also seems to go out the window with pupils who are intent on getting their legs as high as possible!

 

Speaking of correct placement:

 

In Celia Sparger's "Anatomy and Ballet" she discusses, along with pictures of x-rays, the movement of the hip - on pages 24, 25, 26.

 

She says - in the average person the leg can only attain limited height before the hip has to lift - and thus will be out of alignment:

 

60% to the front

40% to the side

15% to the back

 

Any greater height of the leg than that and the hip has to accommodate by tilting.

 

Now, I'm not suggesting that ballet dancers limit the lift of the leg to those percentages - but there is obviously a limit (even if the ballet dancer is beyond the "average person") to which the leg can be lifted before the body must accommodate.

 

There are a number of other things which we are taught in ballet class must not happen - but physically have to happen - tour jeté (grand jeté entournant entre lacé) is one of them. But, when exaggerated - the body then has to compensate even more and the "look of balance" - the symmetry - the use of positive and negative space - the shape of line and curve is corrupted.

 

When that happens the observing eye says - this is not beautiful.

 

Fokine predicted all this and thus created "Les Sylphides."

Edited by Anjuli_Bai
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Its probably not for me to say but I want to give another side to this argument. I think oversplits are very gymnastic but they are impressive and when doing a jete it gives a perfect straight line. The idea is to achieve a beautiful line and although it may go against the typical traditions of classical ballet it is a step forward. 100 years ago ballet dancers were nowhere near as flexible as they are today and the developpe was only supposed to go to 90 degrees or hip height (I saw this suggested on a video on youtube called degas dancers by the royal ballet if you wish to look it up). Now the developpe of a proffesional ballet dancer usually goes beyond this and it shows that as time has passed there is a need for something more impressive and the flexibility of dancers has had to increase. At the end of the day ballet is an art based entirely on aesthetics and therefore it must be interesting and impressive. This is where pointe shoes evolved and how ballet technique has moved on. Although achieving an oversplit may not be everyones 'cup of tea' it is visually striking to most people and a new way of grabbing the attention of an audience. An oversplit is extremley hard to accomplish and will make a dancer stand out at an audition if no-one else in the room can do it. It may not follow tradition but ballet is always changing and before long there will be another little trick. It isn't gymnastics and it never will be but it doesn't mean people shouldn't keep changing the art of ballet and making it more awe-inspiring for the audience.

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