Take it Slow, Dancer

Dancer, you’ve been doing good work through this pandemic. You’ve been taking barre holding on to the kitchen counter top. You’ve been gingerly doing steps “across the floor” while trying not to kick over the lamp in your living room. You’ve been turning *on carpet*. Thank you Zoom, Google Meets, and YouTube for keeping us from complete dance-withdrawal!

But now, slowing and cautiously, many studios are opening back up. As you don your mask, apply your hand sanitizer and safely keep your distance, let’s consider another way to stay safe as you step back into the studio.

Take it slow, Dancer.

We are all itching to get back (remember grand allegro and moving across the floor??). Before whole-heartedly jump back (pun intended) into things, consider the following:

It’s been a while. Even with all of your efforts to dance from home, you haven’t moved full out in a long while. Have you ever heard of the “reversibility principle?” Basically, it states that our physical fitness improvements will gradually decrease after we stop doing the activity. In other words, if we don’t use it, we lose it!

Most dramatically affected by the reversibility principle is our muscular endurance: our muscles’ ability to continue to contract without getting tired. Muscular endurance is really important for our posture, dancing en pointe, jumping, and so on. Many of the muscles that we rely on to help us stabilize our bodies while we dance require a great amount of muscular endurance.

Dancer, don’t assume you can jump back into dancing exactly where you left off! Give your body the time to rebuild your muscular endurance and stability. Being away from the studio has been HARD, I know. But imagine how much harder it would be to sit out injured just days after you get back! So take it slow and give yourself grace - be patient with your progress back to your former awesomeness.

“Slow and steady” won the race for the tortoise and slow and steady return to dance will keep injury at bay.

Stay tuned for our next blog post where we have some home conditioning ideas for you!

XO,

Dancer, 360°