Pas de Quatre Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 However, Pups mum, working with the whole age range is one of the joys of teaching ballet. Watching the pre schoolers grow into young adults is a pleasure. Some go on to vocational training, some follow other paths, but their training and performances will always be an important part of who they are. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emma northmore Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 (edited) @Nico Kolokythaswhat I am trying to say is, I constantly think outside the box and push boundaries. I would love to help these young dancers. Therefore I would love for you to visit my school!! Each dancer has bespoke set of work......so all issues you mention are well covered. No one has said pilates is the only way....just that I personally feel its use is tremendously helpful. Some dancers need weights, others swimming....everyone is unique. I work out a programme per individual. But this discussion was on pilates (originally!) we have zero injuries, and 100%success rate to upper schools..... I have the luxury of the freedom to develop new theories of training without answering to a board and getting funding for it etc etc. I would love it if you 'studied' my approach so it can be a written up,a shared system to help. Just a thought for the greater good! I genuinely love the science of it all so would like to delve deeper on my unique approach. Edited July 17, 2020 by Emma northmore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emma northmore Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 (edited) @Pas de Quatre Don't misunderstand me. There is no replacement for a full course i totally agree with you. Sorry i am always in a rush so can't explain fully!! The original question was in regards to a 15 yr old so all my comments refer to working at 15 and over. I have 2 teaching qualifications, anatomy and child development!!! So coupled with yrs of dancing it's not a bad package😉 Take care Edited July 17, 2020 by Emma northmore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thecatsmother Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 I would imagine it would be hard to control for other variables like calorie restriction, training load, age, teaching style, rep of a company to make claims about changes in size being due to one or two variables only. What is all too apparent is that words of teaching staff etc stick in the heads of young dancers hence the need for huge care when addressing issues like this and a lot of appropriate steering from parents/carers when these type of messages are identified. Some pretend that eating disorders are no longer a problem in dance schools. This is simply not the case but some places are better than others at not driving it underground. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfDance Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Hi just to weigh in I am an exercise physiologist/S&C coach and have been working with/researching elite dancers for the past 30 years. The personal experience of one dancer is hard to transpose to another. The comments from the schools were very unhelpful and if this was their main issue, you daughter not getting in was probably a blessing in disguise. Body shapes vary widely in dance and even within genres. Genetics can't be altered and your daughter will be a mix of her parents/relatives body shapes - you can fight this, as historically has been the case within dance, but this just causes serious problems for your daughter later on. If she is prepuberty then it is only afterwards will you have an idea of what her "shape" will be (prepuberty children usually put on weight so they have the energy for puberty). There is a lot of practitioner wisdom on the benefits of Pilates but under research conditions they don't stack up. The exercises don't actually increase the length of a muscle; they do promote the use of slow twitch fibres as the movements are controlled and with a low load that might be seemed to result in "lean" muscles but are certainly the reason why few ballet dancers (particularly female) can jump. As others have said hyperextension can lead to muscle imbalance with more loading going through the quads. The development of the posterior chain (back, hamstrings, gluts, calves, etc) could be beneficial - this chain is often weak in dancers. Cross-training is becoming the norm for dancers now but finding a good knowledgeable trainer is difficult. Swimming is a nice recovery exercise but is not ideal for the development of cardiorespiratory fitness specific to dancers - running is better as long as the technique is good and appropriate shoes are worn. Running is often seen as a no-no but it is actually good as works the internal rotators, the posterior chain and improves jump height (a little) a good stretch afterwards is recommended. As others have said as a woman development of muscle is very very difficult so resistance training is fine and could be beneficial - there has been some nice research indicating the links with poor muscle strength and increased injury incidence. Hope this helps 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Hello Profdance and welcome to the Forum! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nico Kolokythas Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 On 17/07/2020 at 23:18, Emma northmore said: @Nico Kolokythaswhat I am trying to say is, I constantly think outside the box and push boundaries. I would love to help these young dancers. Therefore I would love for you to visit my school!! Each dancer has bespoke set of work......so all issues you mention are well covered. No one has said pilates is the only way....just that I personally feel its use is tremendously helpful. Some dancers need weights, others swimming....everyone is unique. I work out a programme per individual. But this discussion was on pilates (originally!) we have zero injuries, and 100%success rate to upper schools..... I have the luxury of the freedom to develop new theories of training without answering to a board and getting funding for it etc etc. I would love it if you 'studied' my approach so it can be a written up,a shared system to help. Just a thought for the greater good! I genuinely love the science of it all so would like to delve deeper on my unique approach. Not sure if I replied here! I understand that you are doing your best for your students @Emma northmore, and I am not doubting your knowledge and experience. Zero injuries is an achievement and you need to be proud of yourself. I am happy to discuss further in order to understand how many hours per day/week do your students dance so that I can get perspective. You mean Upper Schools in the UK or your Upper School? I agree Pilates may be helpful but not enough for the young body to develop. Swimming is an non-weight bearing exercise so it's good for recovery but a lot of use for strength development in dancers. I am more than happy to discuss this further so feel free to DM me on facebook if you wish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DD Driver Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 8 hours ago, ProfDance said: There is a lot of practitioner wisdom on the benefits of Pilates but under research conditions they don't stack up. The exercises don't actually increase the length of a muscle; they do promote the use of slow twitch fibres as the movements are controlled and with a low load that might be seemed to result in "lean" muscles but are certainly the reason why few ballet dancers (particularly female) can jump. ProfDance, what exercise might be beneficial for the lengthening of muscles and what can improve a dancers jump? I am sure that we can learn from high jumpers and basketball! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 I'm not sure we can learn much from high-jumpers: the technique of performing a Fosbury flop or whatever it is they do these days is so different from ballet jumping that I'm not sure it would help much. I mean, you almost take off backwards, and getting over the bar is almost as much about arching your back and legs to get them over the bar at the appropriate moment. I'd perhaps be looking more at the gymnasts (having just re-viewed how astoundingly high Simone Biles can jump today - but then of course her body shape is so different from that deemed ideal for ballet dancers that again I'm not sure how helpful it would be). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DD Driver Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 Alison, that just shows how long it has been since I did school athletics! I do think basketballers are interesting as there are some incredible jumpers there. I think their training involves squats etc to work the whole leg and gluteal muscles. Hence Sara Mearns at NYCB and her squats https://www.instagram.com/saramearns/. My DD was involved in gymnastics until she was 11 years old. There was a lot greater focus on 'whole body' strength and cardio compared to ballet training e.g. at least 20 minutes warm-up including planks, walking hand stands, rope climbing etc. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pas de Quatre Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 Please can you be more specific when you refer to your students Emma, are these the Associates you teach once a week (who get most of their training elsewhere) or are they students who are full time with you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tulip Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Please, as a mother of a now professional dancer, don’t allow your daughter to fixate on her body. Show her how strong her legs are and what they are capable of. Her teacher should be key to giving your daughter correct exercises to lengthen muscles. The dance world can be cruel , there are so many people out there that will be nasty, such as the feedback your daughter received. 15 is such an impressionable age, be careful, it would be awful if your daughter was to hate her beautiful legs. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdance Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 On 24/07/2020 at 00:13, DD Driver said: ProfDance, what exercise might be beneficial for the lengthening of muscles and what can improve a dancers jump? I am sure that we can learn from high jumpers and basketball! Your two questions will lead to two different outcomes. In my opinion it’s rare to have a form of exercise that gives an aesthetic of “long muscles” and a high jump. I don’t really feel equipped to answer your first question other than to say the following: You can’t make a muscle longer than it is, so all you can do is to reduce the muscle girth in order to give the look of being long. Exercise types where movements are low intensity, fluid and slow, like pilates, are often cited as “creating long muscles” because they don’t put sufficient demand on the muscle to increase or maintain muscle girth, but this has repercussions in terms of the amount of force or power a muscle (group) can generate. In order to improve dancers jump we do need to look at the power training used in sports. Power is the combination of strength and speed, and is what is needed for explosive movements such as jumps, leaps, kicks etc. Power must be trained specifically so slow controlled exercise types won’t help here (in the same way you wouldn’t expect a tap dancer to suddenly be doing the rose adagio on pointe!) Plyometrics can be very effective especially if delivered by someone who knows and understands how it works (knowledge of the stretch-shortening cycle, optimum number of foot contacts to elicit a response, when best to put it into a session to avoid neuromuscular fatigue etc). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora3 Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 DrDance, so it is impossible to learn jumps if you have "long, lean muscles"? I have them by nature and absolutely prefer Adagio to Allegro, but I always think most classical female dancers have such muscles and they can jump all the same... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdance Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 @aurora3 no I didn’t say it’s impossible! Not at all - but don’t forget that people have different proportions of muscle fibers (type 1 vs type 2) which make them genetically predisposed to preferring certain ways of moving. Just like some people are better at sprinting than long distance running. I don’t believe that all classical ballet dancers have such muscles, and I also don’t believe they can all jump the same. But I am not alone among dance scientists in believing that ballet dancers don’t have a particular high jump compared to other athletic populations. A lot of the professional dancers look like they are jumping very high because their legs lift (like a split leap) but if you actually measure how far their torso moves it’s not as far as it seems. Optical illusions as it were! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora3 Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Maybe! But ballet is an art form, not a sport, so if the jump is beautiful, everything is fine! For the type 1 and 2 fibers: Do type 2 fibers look more bulky then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdance Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 3 minutes ago, Aurora3 said: Maybe! But ballet is an art form, not a sport, so if the jump is beautiful, everything is fine! For the type 1 and 2 fibers: Do type 2 fibers look more bulky then? If the jump is beautiful and everyone agrees then that’s fine - but do they?! I don’t know. Plus there’s the durability/injury risk element to consider. Regarding muscle fibres, it’s not really a look thing, it’s to do with how fast they contract and force production. A good resource is https://blog.nasm.org/fitness/fast-twitch-vs-slow-twitch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nico Kolokythas Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 45 minutes ago, Aurora3 said: Maybe! But ballet is an art form, not a sport, so if the jump is beautiful, everything is fine! For the type 1 and 2 fibers: Do type 2 fibers look more bulky then? An art form that involves jumping therefore physiology is...physiology. A muscle doesn’t care if you walk, run, dance, jump, a muscle simply contracts and relaxes. Bulky muscles come from specific type of training that dancers do not need to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora3 Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 @Nico: Thank you very much for the link! @dr.dance: I didn´t mean all dancers can jump equally well, I meant they all are able to jump despite having long muscles... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate_N Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 23 hours ago, drdance said: A lot of the professional dancers look like they are jumping very high because their legs lift (like a split leap) but if you actually measure how far their torso moves it’s not as far as it seems. Optical illusions as it were! Isn't part of the 'optical illusion' to do with upper body, arm & head carriage? If your chest and head are up, and arms stretched, you'll look higher, longer, leaner, than a sportsperson. This is why we tend to think of ballet as - ultimately - art rather than sport. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nico Kolokythas Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 46 minutes ago, Kate_N said: Isn't part of the 'optical illusion' to do with upper body, arm & head carriage? If your chest and head are up, and arms stretched, you'll look higher, longer, leaner, than a sportsperson. This is why we tend to think of ballet as - ultimately - art rather than sport. It’s an art form and not a sport but even as an art form there are physiological rules. The problem is the belief that these rules don’t need to be followed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate_N Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Oh, I don't disagree @Nico Kolokythas I was just thinking about @drdance's comment about dancers not actually jumping very high, but giving the illusion of height. But it's clear to most relatively ballet-knowledgeable spectators that for example, the men who can really jump have obvious thigh & glute muscle development. It's tougher for women, who are supposed to have bodies with longer elegant lines (not that male dancers aren't expected to have that as well!) And dancers tend to know that the long-legged tall dancers (of both sexes) find fast jumping more of a challenge. It would be interesting to have some research investigating whether there's a correlation between the muscle types @drdancewas talking about, physique, and perceived levels of speed & height in professional classical dancers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate_N Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 I just wanted to add how much I m learning from this discussion - I'm particularly interested in Ms Northmore's experience of remaking her body & her day to day experience of teaching, in relation to the scientific knowledge of other posters. I'm interested in this partly because I notice quite a difference in teaching approaches between the UK and the USA - I've taken class with some amazing teachers in the US who have a very scientific and body mechanics approach to ballet - it's a different mindset to many teachers in the UK. Both have their virtues and - as a permanent ballet student 🤣 - I learn from each. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pas de Quatre Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Are we re-inventing the wheel here? In the 18th Century the renowned teacher Noverre identified the two types of legs, arqué and jarretté, and the way they affected technique. Arqué means bow legged, normally a tighter tendon and muscle formation which gives rise to great jumps. Jarretté is more difficult to translate, but in effect means knock kneed and ankles that roll in. Much looser leg structure, which allows more flexibility, but is a physique that finds it harder to jump. The first type tend to be shorter and the second type taller, but not always so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nico Kolokythas Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 13 minutes ago, Pas de Quatre said: Are we re-inventing the wheel here? In the 18th Century the renowned teacher Noverre identified the two types of legs, arqué and jarretté, and the way they affected technique. Arqué means bow legged, normally a tighter tendon and muscle formation which gives rise to great jumps. Jarretté is more difficult to translate, but in effect means knock kneed and ankles that roll in. Much looser leg structure, which allows more flexibility, but is a physique that finds it harder to jump. The first type tend to be shorter and the second type taller, but not always so. Definitely not re-inventing but surely progressing the wheel and trying to make the environment safer for the dancer, especially for the younger dancer. A documentary about the Russian academy recorded the director saying “he has Japanese muscles”, these are the things that may be dangerous in my opinion. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdance Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Here's an interesting piece featuring students at Elmhurst - listening to them talk shows they have an awareness of a strong healthy body but that they're still worried about look. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-53385004 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora3 Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 If you compare ballet to basketball: I have never heard anyone complaining about small people being excluded from a career, so why the complaints about ballet favouring a certain body type? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdance Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 59 minutes ago, Aurora3 said: If you compare ballet to basketball: I have never heard anyone complaining about small people being excluded from a career, so why the complaints about ballet favouring a certain body type? Because 1) in basketball the better players are taller, because they score more points, which is the aim of the game. In ballet the aim is more subjective, so it’s not as easy to say what is and isn’t desirable. Is the aim to dance beautifully and move audiences? In which case does body type matter? 2) People cannot change their height. So anyone who struggles to get selected for a career in basketball for this reason accepts this reality and seeks a different career, and plays for fun. Many dancers are told to change their body shape (which isn’t actually easy) so end up having issues with this which may be dangerous. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora3 Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 To the last point: I fully agree. It is hardly possible to change the genetic body shape! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora3 Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 @Niko Kolokythas: Can you tell me something about the difference between jump and pointework? Do jumps require more Type IIX fibres than pointe? Or is it just another coordination? I´m pretty sure there must be a difference - I´m much better at pointework than jumps and I also see on other people that most have one which is better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nico Kolokythas Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 11 hours ago, Aurora3 said: @Niko Kolokythas: Can you tell me something about the difference between jump and pointework? Do jumps require more Type IIX fibres than pointe? Or is it just another coordination? I´m pretty sure there must be a difference - I´m much better at pointework than jumps and I also see on other people that most have one which is better! Think of it more like jumps need strength and the ability to “express” strength fast. Maybe you simply haven’t trained power and therefore you don’t feel as confident. Anecdotally I will tell you that girls who jump less than 25 cm feel they can’t jump (and they can’t really:)) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate_N Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 I was thinking about this thread in the gym yesterday. I work out with a personal trainer (have learned to lift quite heavy weights - it’s a revelation!) and he was getting me to do box jumps onto a plyo box. I’d guess it was about 50 cm. The aim is to jump up to the top from standing and to try to land on top of the box as silently as possible. So that means i have to really lift up my knees and control my landing. I land in a fairly deep squat to do this, so it’s not pretty! But my trainer was saying that box jumps are one of best core exercises around, as well as good for glutes. I was definitely jumping higher than 25cm! (and in a set of exercises over about 25 minutes I probably did around 200 jumps). But the main thing that I struggle with on the first few is not the height, but the fear - of falling, of tripping up. Weird ... but it certainly trains my jumping - I notice in ballet class that I can access much more push - not that Zoom classes contain much jumping at the moment. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna C Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 Plyometrics fascinates me; I first came across it on Matthew Ball’s Instagram page during lockdown. Is it quite new, or only new to me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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