Common Dance Cues That Screw You Up (Part II)
2) “Push into the floor with your feet to keep your supporting leg solid”
This makes perfect sense. In theory.
Again, because dancers have very facilitated quads (meaning they tend to do way too much work, leaving other muscles to chill out in an inhibited, lazy state), this cue can be hit or miss. Sometimes it will help the dancer. For some, and if you’re like me, it can screw you up more often than not. Here’s why.
You can accomplish the feeling of pushing into the floor in a few ways. One, by way of the glutes (medius especially) and other stabilizers of the hips. Or, two, by locking the quads, hyperextending the knee and gripping with your toes into the floor. The first way is far more efficient and effective, but remember how most dancers have over facilitated quads and grossly under-achieving glutes? Due to this imbalance, the knee-locking situation tends to happen more often than not, which is not super effective.
The glute med in particular plays an important role in stability of your supporting leg, and so it’s super important to have functional to keep your dancing on pointe. Ha. Get it? Sometimes I’m funny. I swear
In the picture above from Mike Reinhold’s site you can see how the dude on the right has poor ability to control his hips due to perhaps a dysfunctional (LAZYYY) glute med. You can also see how this would affect how high the gesture leg will be able to lift, and what other compensations might occur. Not pretty.
2) “Push into the floor with your feet to keep your supporting leg solid”
This makes perfect sense. In theory.
Again, because dancers have very facilitated quads (meaning they tend to do way too much work, leaving other muscles to chill out in an inhibited, lazy state), this cue can be hit or miss. Sometimes it will help the dancer. For some, and if you’re like me, it can screw you up more often than not. Here’s why.
You can accomplish the feeling of pushing into the floor in a few ways. One, by way of the glutes (medius especially) and other stabilizers of the hips. Or, two, by locking the quads, hyperextending the knee and gripping with your toes into the floor. The first way is far more efficient and effective, but remember how most dancers have over facilitated quads and grossly under-achieving glutes? Due to this imbalance, the knee-locking situation tends to happen more often than not, which is not super effective.
The glute med in particular plays an important role in stability of your supporting leg, and so it’s super important to have functional to keep your dancing on pointe. Ha. Get it? Sometimes I’m funny. I swear
In the picture above from Mike Reinhold’s site you can see how the dude on the right has poor ability to control his hips due to perhaps a dysfunctional (LAZYYY) glute med. You can also see how this would affect how high the gesture leg will be able to lift, and what other compensations might occur. Not pretty.
3) “Suck in your gut/ Pull-up!”
Who HASN’T been told to “suck it in”, or “pull-up”, or the elusive “engage your abs”? There are a few issues with these cues.
Issue 1: While dancers may seem to have very strong abdominals, they often can’t fire them properly, or lack the neuromuscular control to actually do it while dancing. This can be trained, but it takes time, persistence and patience.
Issue 2: Being told to suck in your gut is a very negative, damaging thing to hear, and the cue itself is not even the most effective in correcting what is really an alignment issue.
Dancers, and gymnasts too, who appear to have a distended belly and lots of lower back arching often have a hard time “pulling-up” because they lack the neuromuscular control to engage their abs. Many dancers, after hearing this comment will turn to dieting or disordered eating habits to control what they understand to be an aesthetic problem.
Rather, it is an alignment issue. The extreme lordosis is actually pushing the contents of the abdominal cavity forward, and though the dancer is thin, she may appear to have a slightly protruding belly.
Instead of saying “suck it in” or something to that effect, a better method is to educate the dancer that she has an alignment issue that can be addressed with supplemental exercises and improving body awareness, which will increase her neuromuscular control to the abdomimals and other core muscles.
From personal experience, hearing that I needed to suck in my gut had very damaging long term effects, making me feel fat and self conscious and adding extra tension to my dancing. It is only recently that I realized that sucking in my gut (or trying to “hollow my abdomen”) without attempting to resolve the root of the issue (the underlying spine and pelvic alignment issues) was only making the matter worse.
Who HASN’T been told to “suck it in”, or “pull-up”, or the elusive “engage your abs”? There are a few issues with these cues.
Issue 1: While dancers may seem to have very strong abdominals, they often can’t fire them properly, or lack the neuromuscular control to actually do it while dancing. This can be trained, but it takes time, persistence and patience.
Issue 2: Being told to suck in your gut is a very negative, damaging thing to hear, and the cue itself is not even the most effective in correcting what is really an alignment issue.
Dancers, and gymnasts too, who appear to have a distended belly and lots of lower back arching often have a hard time “pulling-up” because they lack the neuromuscular control to engage their abs. Many dancers, after hearing this comment will turn to dieting or disordered eating habits to control what they understand to be an aesthetic problem.
Rather, it is an alignment issue. The extreme lordosis is actually pushing the contents of the abdominal cavity forward, and though the dancer is thin, she may appear to have a slightly protruding belly.
Instead of saying “suck it in” or something to that effect, a better method is to educate the dancer that she has an alignment issue that can be addressed with supplemental exercises and improving body awareness, which will increase her neuromuscular control to the abdomimals and other core muscles.
From personal experience, hearing that I needed to suck in my gut had very damaging long term effects, making me feel fat and self conscious and adding extra tension to my dancing. It is only recently that I realized that sucking in my gut (or trying to “hollow my abdomen”) without attempting to resolve the root of the issue (the underlying spine and pelvic alignment issues) was only making the matter worse.
If you are familiar with “lower crossed” syndrome, then you know that this is a postural dysfunction that can be corrected through strengthening, soft tissue work, mobility drills, and postural re-education. Which takes longer than saying “suck it in!”. If you are not prepared to help your students appropriately, refer them to someone with the skills to help.
Oh well. Live and learn! Please stop telling your dance students to suck in their guts. It is more damaging than helpful.
I guess if I had to choose a moral for this post it would be, “Don’t get too hung up on genetic factors- Your ex-professional ballet teacher is a different kind of human being.” We all have different genetic potential, and your dance teacher’s job is to help you live up to yours, not regurgitate the same corrections they received and hope they stick.
Or as the dude from P90X says, “Do your best and forget the rest!”. If it rhymes, it must be legit.
Got any other good dance cues that make no sense? What cues do you hear from dance teachers that are more confusing than helpful?
Article by The Dance Training Project(DTP)
Oh well. Live and learn! Please stop telling your dance students to suck in their guts. It is more damaging than helpful.
I guess if I had to choose a moral for this post it would be, “Don’t get too hung up on genetic factors- Your ex-professional ballet teacher is a different kind of human being.” We all have different genetic potential, and your dance teacher’s job is to help you live up to yours, not regurgitate the same corrections they received and hope they stick.
Or as the dude from P90X says, “Do your best and forget the rest!”. If it rhymes, it must be legit.
Got any other good dance cues that make no sense? What cues do you hear from dance teachers that are more confusing than helpful?
Article by The Dance Training Project(DTP)