Tips and Benefits

Featuring Terry Hyde MA, MBACP

Lately I’ve noticed that mindfulness has been the buzzword on social media. People constantly posting articles about how to live a mindful life, eat mindfully, work mindfully, and advertising their services as mindfulness coaches. But what does mindfulness mean? And should we be jumping on this mental health and life awareness craze?

“Mindfulness is not something new. It’s a practice that has been around for thousands of years,” says Terry Hyde, psychotherapist and former dancer who counsels dancers. “The essence of mindfulness is just being in the moment. Not worrying about the past or the future”.

Hyde sees a lot of general anxiety when working with dancer clients, for which mindfulness is the key coping method. Anxiety is separated into two types: situational and chronic. Situational anxiety is when anxiety only appears in isolated situations such as performances and auditions. Chronic anxiety is always present at a low level.

During your training as a dancer, you are corrected every day being told: “That’s not good. You’re not right.” These corrections can develop into: “I’m a failure if I don’t get this,” “I’m not good enough,” and other negative thoughts.

Hyde works with his clients to help them realize where these thoughts and anxieties come from. “When you realize you can change something, you can control it,” says Hyde. This often helps dancers because “dancers need to be in control all of the time.” Working on mental or thought control is a form of mindfulness.

When explaining mindfulness to clients, Hyde provides the example of cleaning the dishes: “Using mindfulness you just think about what you are washing up. You’re not worried about the next meal you’re going to use with the dishes. ”

As humans, worrying is our default. Naturally, dancers have many things to worry about. “We dwell on the past: was that performance good enough? And we fret about the future: worrying about auditions, getting a contract, and upcoming performances. Sometimes it feels that our brains are going a mile a minute with all of these thoughts and worries. It’s our own noise in our heads that prevents us from being mindful,” says Hyde.

He explains the stream of a dancer’s conscious as: “I use the analogy of a freeway. The cars are your thoughts. If you walk on a freeway you get run over. [To be more mindful] Don’t interact with the cars/your thoughts. Allow them to go past and acknowledge them.”

“We can’t stop our thoughts,” continues Hyde. But he did tell me several ways to better interact with our thoughts and become more mindful.

There are several apps that can help dancers decrease stress and increase mindfulness. Hyde recommends using Headspace to learn mindfulness meditation (the app offers the first 10 meditations free and then a subscription is required for longer meditations and other mediation courses).

Calm is another app that he recommends to clients. Calm (which is free but after 7 days you have to pay for a subscription) is an app that helps clients reach their mental health goals such as: becoming more mindful, reducing anxiety, managing stress, getting a better night’s sleep, increasing self esteem, and teaching gratitude. It offers guided meditations, stories to guide you into sleep, calming music, lectures, and more.

Many dancers think of yoga as a method of cross training, but it can also be a way to increase your mindfulness. Dancers have a tendency to gravitate towards the more physical classes such as heated yoga or Vinyasa yoga where you’re moving your body through poses the entire class and sweating buckets. For mindfulness, Hyde believes: “Hatha Yoga – breathing yoga, is better than hot yoga because it teaches you breathing techniques.”

Hyde believes that breathing is such an important coping method. He instructs clients in his 4-8 breathing method:

1. Breathe in through the nose for 4 counts
2. Breathe out through the mouth with control using pursed lips for 8 counts
3. Breathe 4 shallow breaths
4. Repeat this cycle 4 times

Breathing slows down the heart rate, in turn reducing the fight or flight feeling that anxiety can bring on. You can use this breathing technique whenever you feel your anxiety increasing such as before or during a performance or audition.

If you feel that you need more guidance in becoming mindful and coping with anxieties, do not be afraid to reach out and work with a mental health professional such as a psychiatrist or therapist. When searching for a mental health professional to work with, Hyde recommends finding: “one who has dealt with dancers, ice dance skaters, gymnasts or athletes, as these have an understanding of what continuous training and performance stress they go through. Even better, one that was a dancer, ice dance skater, gymnast or athlete, who has a true understanding of what their client is going through.” 

You can find these mental health professionals by “looking for performing arts medicine organizations in your country as they may have lists of psychotherapists/counsellors who have a history of treating performers,” says Hyde.

To learn more about Terry Hyde, you can visit his website: www.counsellingfordancers.com for further information.

The post Mindfulness + Mental Health Considerations for Dancers appeared first on The Whole Dancer.

“Send you knees over your toes in plie.”

“Hips stacked on top of your knees, stacked on top of your toes.”

“Don’t let your knees roll in.”

How often have you heard teachers say these phrases (or something similar) during class regarding lower leg alignment? All the time. Teachers spend so much time teaching their students the importance of proper alignment, not just for proper classical ballet technique, but to prevent injury.

For classical ballet, or any dance for that matter, knees must track over the toes while in plie. Your feet cannot be more rotated that your knees.

“Weakness in the hip and lower abs show in the lower leg,” says Sarah Edery-Altas, DPT at the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital in New York City. This weakness is found in dancers who force their turnout from their ankles instead of the initiating turnout from the rotator muscles (Gluteus Medius and Gluteus Maximus) in the hip.

Since this is common issue in the ballet world, I talked to Edery-Altas to ask her how she helps dancers rehab from lower leg injuries and how to improve leg alignment.

Of the patients that Edery-Altas sees at the Harkness Center, a majority of the injuries she sees are the lower extremities. Of the majority, half of them are knee and ankle issues. Many of the chronic injuries she sees are from improper alignment.

“Many dancers have difficulty with 20-25 repetitions of releve on a single leg, which is an objective measure that is expected in order for a dancer to return in full to dance,” says Edery-Altas. “In addition to those weaker stability and rotational muscles (gluteus maximus and medius, deep external rotators, posterior tibialis, and foot intrinsics) many times the planarflexors tend to lack the strength required for the load many dancers are asking of themselves.”

When Edery-Altas starts working with new patients, often she starts with hip exercises. “The hip controls the foot and the foot informs the hip what is happening.”

She likes to start with a Sarhmann Progression exercise that she calls: hip drop and recover with ball on wall.

1. Start perpendicular to the wall with the exercise ball pressing into the hip closest to the wall. The leg closest to the wall is extended in front, just off the floor.
2. Drop the hip closest to the wall down as far as you can go.
3. Pressing into the floor with the standing foot and lengthening the trunk of your body, relevel pelvis back to the original position.
4. Do three sets of 10.
5. As you advance, you may add releve to the exercise.

This exercise reteaches dancers how to use the tripod of the foot: putting equal pressure on the medial(towards the midline) and lateral (away from the midline or on the outer side of the body) sides of the ball of the foot and the heel. Putting equal pressure on the tripod of the foot prevents from rolling in.

“You can see through bunions that the foot takes so much force and shows the weakness of the foot. [You can see] Where the load is going with [while wearing] pointe shoes or LaDucas,” say Edery-Altas.

Sarah also has patients work on foot doming to make sure foot alignment is correct. “When you cheat your turnout from the feet, you pronate or roll in to maintain an arch. Foot doming teaches dancers to use the short toe flexors tendons instead of overusing the long toe flexors such as the FHL [Flexor Halitus Longus, the tendon that controls the flexion of the big toe.].”

To strengthen your legs for better knee and ankle alignment, Edery-Altas gives deep external rotator exercises using turnout disks.

1. Stand on the disks (one foot on each disk) in parallel
2. Initiating from the hips, rotate your legs to first position
3. Return to parallel

Repeat with variations of plie:

1. staying in the plie the entire time
2. plie in parallel, turnout, straighten legs, plie, return to parallel
3. Once you’ve become strong enough, you can do all these exercises with one leg.

If you do not have access to turnout disks, you can do the exercises lying on your back with your feet in the air.

Clamshells are another exercise given to strengthen the rotator muscles. Edery-Altas has patients focus on keeping the heels together during the exercise. The exercises can be done with the legs at different lengths- one set with a longer knee bend and one set with a shorter knee bend. This allows you to work different muscles in the glutes.

Sarah includes squats in the progression of improving lower leg alignment and increasing strength as the patient advances. She likes to give squats because they directly correlate to jumping class or rehearsal. Single leg squats translate into single leg jumps in petite and grand allegro. “You want to relax the foot in plie to absorb force and then dome the foot to push off [in a jump or squat].”

The big thing Edery-Altas stresses when either recovering from an injury or building strength: “Focus on progressing slowly and smartly.” Later adding, “Focus on working on your deep limitations instead of practicing something you’re already good at.”

About Sarah Edery-Altas

Dr. Edery-Altas received a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and a doctorate in physical therapy from Columbia University. She is a former professional ballet dancer, who danced as a member of both the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Boston Ballet.

The post Knee and Ankle Alignment in Ballet appeared first on The Whole Dancer.

The competitive nature of dance is undeniable. Whether you’re a competitive dancer or you’re vying for your next professional job, you’re bound to face competition and with that comes stress.

In order to combat that stress you need to have practices in place in the areas of food, body, your progress and lifestyle. These pieces are all essential to perform at your best. They’re key components to dancer “wellness”.

It might be easier to tell yourself that to perform your best, all that matters is the work you put in when you’re in the studio. 

The truth is that when you take care of yourself outside of the studio and prioritize your health – mentally and physically you will be more resilient in dance.

To make practical shifts, consider both your mindset and practices in the areas of food, body image, progress in dance and lifestyle.

The mindset is how you think about each of these areas. Are you prioritizing them? Do you see the importance in eating well, seeing yourself in a positive light, being ambitious and realistic in your progress and balanced in lifestyle?

An essential element of the mindset for success truly is belief in yourself.

Sports psychologist Stan Beecham says, “If you think of people who consistently win, you would say, ‘Well, they win all the time because they want to win, right? They want it bad enough.’ The reality is that’s not true at all. It’s that people that win and succeed at a high level, they don’t actually think about winning. They simply believe they’re going to do well.”

Let’s break these pieces down…

Food – The Mindset

The food you put into your mouth is going to impact your performance. There’s honestly no question that the fuel you choose can either harm or enhance how you dance. If you’re fueling a sports car are you going to fill it with regular or premium gas? Your body should be treated the same way.

Food is your fuel and it should also be enjoyed. You need to create a healthy relationship with food and not see any foods as “bad” or “off limits”. When you make some foods “bad” and others “good” you usually end up feeling guilty when you eat the bad foods.

You also can fall into the trap of thinking the good food is all tasteless and bland. Healthy food needs to be delicious. When you view all the food you eat as food, fuel and something you should enjoy, you’ll create a positive approach to food.

Food – The Practice

When you create a food plan it’s important to think about what your day looks like. When do you have breaks? How many hours will you be in class, rehearsals, cross-training?

Then, think about how you’ll get in lots of vitamins and minerals – eat a rainbow of colorful foods. Make sure you’re consuming greens, fruits, colorful vegetables – disease fighting, health promoting foods.

Body – The Mindset

As a dancer, when you look at your body in the mirror the typical response is to pick out what’s wrong. How can you improve? How can you make your body better – implying that it’s not all that it could or should be.

To be a confident dancer, you need to support and love your body as it is. Your body shape is pretty set. Yes, you can make shifts but some things are predetermined. When you get to a place of self acceptance you’re going to be a more confident person and dancer.

Try to view your dancing without tearing your physical body apart. Just because you have bigger thighs or calfs or arms or a butt doesn’t mean you can’t dance beautifully and to your full potential. When you focus on your capabilities instead of your body parts you’ll progress at a quicker rate and increase your confidence.

Body – The Practice

Positive self talk and a positive body image is all about practice. Whatever messages you reinforce for yourself on a consistent basis are the ones you’ll start to believe. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that you are enough. You have unique gifts. You can succeed in dance.

Care for your body outside of the studio with massage, foam rolling, epsom salt baths, supportive cross – training and alternative therapies.

Progress – The Mindset

It’s important to see your progression in dance as a journey. There will be peaks and valleys. There will be times when things come more easily and other times when there’s a greater challenge ahead of you.

It’s said that successful people are not successful because things come more easily to them but because of how they respond to setbacks or perceived failures.

Progress – The Practice

Do you write goals and keep notes on corrections, technique and choreography? Have you created a vision for your life and dancing and thought about where you’d like it all to take you?

When you dream and envision a bigger outcome for yourself you’re more likely to reach it.

Lifestyle – The Mindset

The way you craft your life outside of the studio will have a direct impact on your ability to perform in the studio. If your life outside is chaos and there’s no planning or structure you’ll likely lack the focus and drive needed to succeed in dance.

It’s beneficial to have a  life outside of dance in order to have relationships and experiences that can feed your dancing. With a greater breadth and depth you’ll bring so much more to the roles and choreography you perform.

Lifestyle – The Practice

Support your dancing with what you do outside of dance but don’t forget to give yourself moments fully away from dance. How can you connect to your soul? How can you find peace and calm in your home environment or the outdoors? 

Every year when a new season of So You Think You Can Dance amps up we’re given a new group of dancers to relate to, empathize with and root for. This Season, SYTYCD has put a focus on Dancer Wellness which I’m thrilled about! At The Whole Dancer the health and wellness of dancers is fundamental part of my mission.

I’m so inspired that SYTYCD has recognized the need for more focus on the wellbeing of dancers and I can’t wait to tune in this season!

I’m curious – what would make you feel more supported on your dance journey? Comment below!

So You Think You Can Dance choreographer Mandy Moore Shares her thoughts on “Balance”:

1. How do you stay “balanced” as a dancer/what does balance mean to you? 

For me, balance is about making sure that I continue to experience things outside of dance. I love to snowboard and camp to spend as much time outside in nature as possible. Every time I spend time away from dance, I love it even more when I get back in the studio. I think balance is essential in any part of life. In order to be a great dancer, you have to also be a great human.

2. How do you cross – train? 

I love to hike and play sports. I have never been a big gym person, so being outdoors if important for me.

3. What’s your go – to healthy dance fuel (snacks, meals, food, etc.)? 

Almonds! I love a poke bowl w/ rice, fish and veggies! Lots of water!

Season 15 of So You Think You Can Dance premiers Monday, June 4th 2018 at 8/7c on FOX!

Photo Credit: Adam Rose/FOX

The post The Keys to Balance and Wellness in Dance appeared first on The Whole Dancer.