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A Dancer’s Life Practice, Plié, Pointe, Pain, Practice, Plié. . . .
It is perhaps because ballet (and all professional dance) is so graceful that most people do not realize how physically demanding it is--how much strength, power and stamina are required. After all, bodies do not crash one into another as with American football, and there is rarely blood spilled as in boxing. Instead of body-to-body contact, a dancer hits the floor, and all she has to absorb the blow is ball-arch-heel of foot, joints and discs. Add to that, the stresses on ligaments and tendons placed by the rigor of daily workouts and performances, and we begin to realize the physical beating the body of a professional dancer takes. According to Elaine Machleder (a writer for Dance Spirit Magazine),50 percent of the dancers in large ballet companies will miss performances due to injury, and 40 percent of those in small companies (2). If you have danced for any length of time, you probably know those statistics by experience rather than by data point. What’s interesting about that statistic is that it says, “serious enough to miss performances,” as if acknowledging the reality that dancers (like many athletes) perform while injured. The problem with working through an injury is that your body compensates for weakness or pain by making another body part do more work (as you unconsciously change your form to accommodate the pain). Dance with Your Whole Body – Inside and Out You recognize that you dance with your whole body—not just your feet and legs. Your body is a single, powerful, artistic entity. And when one small part of a move or pose is off, it affects the whole move. That is true of the structure of your body, as well. For example, when you begin to feel pain and pressure in your all-important big toe and notice that it is turning in slightly (in medical terms this is called Hallux Valgus and Bunion), it usually indicates that there is something larger going on. Perhaps you suffered an injury months ago, and to compensate you modify your relevé only slightly. That slight change, however, put more pressure on your foot and toe. In turn you began to pronate (or roll your foot inward) while turning out. And so on, until today, you are feeling excruciating pain in your big toe. Align Your Body – Improve Your Performance The point of that example is to highlight the fact that your body is not only connected on the outside, it is completely connected on the inside. And when you have an injury—whether it is to your toe or ankle or back—ice and stretching may help alleviate the immediate pain. But the cause of the problem still needs to be corrected, lest you tip the parts of your body out of alignment, one by one. Structural Integration is the only whole-body method designed to do so. Developed by Ida Rolf (a Ph.D. who studied Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry and Atomic Physics), the SI Rolf Method is a step-by-step process, grounded in science and designed to treat the immediate pain while correcting the internal structure that caused the pain. When treating pain in your big toe, for example, I would start by asking you what other injuries you have suffered in the last six months-to-a-year. Then I would examine the toe and foot with my eyes and with touch. Working upward, I would identify any associated problems with your knees and hips. And finally I would test the alignment of your pelvis and back. I might find that the protective sheath (called “fascia”) that covers the muscles and tendons of your hip is swollen and irritated. You learned to live with the pain months ago, but the fascia has tried to protect the muscles, tendons and nerves by tightening up around them like a fist. That fist is grabbing up muscle and shortening your left side--causing your body to pitch to the left. The same side where your painful big toe is located! The hip is the SOURCE of the pain. Your big toe is just an innocent bystander. To correct the problem, I would use my hands to soften the muscles and fascia of your hip. Then I would slowly, gently adjust them around bone, nerve and tendon. That one change would slacken the pull on the left side and free your foot and toe slightly. There would be more work to do to rid your body of pain and bring back strength and looseness. Layer by layer, we would work together to retrain your body, and recreate the symmetry you had lost. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com 1. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation; January 12, 2004 2. Avoiding Injury: It’s a Science, Dance Spirit Magazine; Elaine Machleder, 2000 |
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