Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / All About Anatomy For Competitive Dancers

Transcript

All About Anatomy For Competitive Dancers · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the table at a dance competition?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly what are the judges looking for anyway?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is Making the Impact, a dance competition podcast.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Each week we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Dancers learn technique, toys, and showmanship in dance class, but rarely do they get a full education on the science behind the movement.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: On today's episode of Making the Impact, we scratch the surface on anatomy, alignment, and the science of dance and give resources to learn more.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: Hey Dance World, welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Courtney Ortiz, and I'm here with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, Courtney.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: How is it going?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: It is going so well.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: It is fall over here in New York City.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: I am loving it.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you just got back from vacation.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I did.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: It was so needed.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: I was counting down the days to go on vacation, and I needed it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: So so glad to have a little reset, refresh, and now it's it's go time over here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of things going on in our world of making an impact right now.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there are.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: We are just straight in the middle of season six.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've got exciting stuff coming your way soon.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Courtney, you want to tell some people about that?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: So we are hosting a live podcast event in New York City this month.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: It is happening in just a few weeks from now.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: And we would love for you to join us if you haven't heard about it already.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: Our 200th episode is about to be here.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Can you believe it, Leslie?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is so many episodes.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: I you remember, do you remember the first season, and really the second season?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was constantly like, you know, I just think we're gonna run out of topics.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna run out of topics.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about everything.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And here we are in season six, 200th episode, not running out of topics, actually inundated with topics.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Too many topics to cover.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll be here for a while, but we want to celebrate episode 200 with you, live in person in New York City at the end of this month.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, we are so thrilled to make this possible.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: And we are going to host a live episode recording of our 200th episode in person in New York and also a dance class with me.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: So if you want to come out and experience Making the Impact live in person, we would love to see you there.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: We have all of the details on our websites for a QA with Courtney and Leslie, 200th episode recording extravaganza.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: Be there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: Learn more on our website.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Click the link in our show notes, RSVP, sign up because there is limited spots and it's gonna sell out.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: I can feel it.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: 100% going to sell out.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, please get there, get signed up as soon as you can.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: We will obviously release the episode as an episode because it's the 200th episode.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll be able to hear it no matter whether you can come or not, for our friends in other countries, in other states, people who are gonna be busy.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: We know life is busy for everyone, but this is an important event and we are excited about it.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So whoever can come, we're gonna welcome you there and have a great time.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and we also will be having some fun raffles from a lot of our sponsors live at the event and also available for people who aren't able to attend in person.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: So be sure to check out that on our website and sign up for one of our raffles.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, learn more on our website and we hope to see you at our 200th event.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we have a really cool episode today, actually, that we want to get to before the live event.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's in the future.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: We will wait to talk more about that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but today we have some really great guests to talk about anatomy for dance, which we don't get to talk about very often.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to learn a little bit more.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, can't wait to learn from our guests and learn all about our dancer body.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: But before we jump into this week's episode, let's hear from our sponsors.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Attention parents! Is your dancer contemplating a career in dance after high school?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Join Francisco Gela Dance Works Virtual College Prep Workshops for valuable insights on college applications, BFA options, and much more.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: These workshops will break down the audition and application processes into easy-to-follow steps.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Key upcoming sessions include crafting your artistic portfolio on October 20th and Collegiate Alumni Panel on October 27th.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: These virtual events are perfect for seniors and any dancer looking to get a head start.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: Parents are welcome to attend, and personalized consultations are available to assist you in navigating the college dance journey.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: For more details and to register, visit FranciscogellaDance.com.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: And don't forget to use our exclusive podcast promo code MAKINGTHEIMPACTINAS to save$75.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Moving through a competitive dance season comes with a lot of excitement along with top-level goals.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes, as you find yourself saying, straighten your knees or use your turnout, does it feel like the progress doesn't match the work?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me introduce you to relative motion.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Relative motion revolutionizes the way dancers understand their body in motion.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: With patented color block apparel, anatomy is brought to sight for the dancer, and their goals instantly become visible and measurable.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Relative motion simplifies the mind-body connection, so it's like turning a light bulb on to all your students' training.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's actually that instant.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the best part is the relative motion training program, which cues all their exercises with both anatomical terms and coordinating colors, so dancers of every age and level have access to understanding what the goal is and how to get there.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can access relative motion through their online teacher training programs, starting with Tiny Technicians, ages 3 to 8, the Total Technique Academy, ages 9 and up, and the Props Advantage, integrating prop training into your studio effectively.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Follow them on Instagram at Relative Motion Dance to see their program in action, and then head to relativemotiondance.com or download the Relative Motion Technique app in the Apple or Google App Stores to get started.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And exclusive for our listeners, use our podcast promo code IMPACT10 in all caps to receive an additional 10% off of any of their online training programs or$400 off your in-studio workshop.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're just one step away from your strongest season ever with RelativeMotion.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, everyone, we are jumping in to this week's episode, and this is going to be a fun one.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait to learn from our fabulous guests who are joining us today because we're talking about anatomy in dance and proper alignment in dance.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: What all does that mean?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: We need to understand our bodies as dancers because dance is a physical sport.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: It is a physical craft, and we use our bodies to get us through this beautiful dance world and having a better understanding of what actually is going on with different parts of our body, understanding the anatomy, the science behind it, what works, what doesn't, how, and in an alignment uh is a huge part of uh proper dance training and making sure we say stay safe in our training as young dancers and into our many more years as teachers and professionals.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: We have two brand new guests who are joining us on the podcast.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very excited to welcome them both.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: And first up, we have a new per a new guest that I'm meeting for the very first time right here, right now.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: We discovered them on Instagram because of the work they're doing there, sharing so much knowledge with our dance world.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: They are a company physician and medical director with the Oklahoma City Ballet, and they also care for the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City University Dance Departments.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_03: So they are very well versed in uh anatomy and alignment, and they're here to tell you all about it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to welcome Megan Meyer to the podcast.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Megan.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: I love the work that you're doing and how involved you are within the dance space.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I know that you can shed some light on this and get a little into the scientific roots of what all goes down when it comes to alignment and proper training.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure we're going to dive into injuries as well at a point in this conversation.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for the work that you're doing.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, we're excited to have you here.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: So if you wouldn't mind sharing with the world a little bit more about you, where you're currently based, what your early dance experience has been, and uh what you're currently working on now in your career.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um appreciate that intro.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, like I said, my name is Megan Meyer.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: I am currently in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma area.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: So right there in the middle.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And my background is that I was a dancer from Little Bitty all the way up into college.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, one of the things that I found, as I think we all have, is doctors don't understand our injuries.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know what they're doing most of the time.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they don't know what we're doing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just very frustrating when you have an injury as a dancer to go in and just be told, just don't dance, or just don't, you know, do that movement, whenever that's critical to what our sport is or our art is.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's one of the things that really led me to want to go into medicine as a medical doctor is to just do it differently and take care of our performers in the same way that a lot of times our athletes are being cared for.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's what I do.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: I like I said, like you said, I do take care of a lot of the uh professional and pre-professional companies, but I also take care of a lot of competition dancers in our area, take care of a lot of performers in general.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so a few of the things that I do in Oklahoma City is we recently started a nonprofit called Oklahoma Performing Arts Collective, which is something that's geared toward bringing some of that good information to performers because not only is it hard to find somebody who understands you, it's hard to connect in together and then to break down those barriers on how to connect your care team.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's something that we were very passionate about doing here in this area that's been really fun.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then I also help take care of touring artists.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so whenever we have different touring performers, um, specifically dancers most of the time that are coming through and a stop in Oklahoma City, I like to be that pit stop to where how do we like put you back together and help coordinate your care to get you going to the next city?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I have a company called Tour Med that I do that through.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so, anyway, so those are kind of my passion projects and my background of what brought me here.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, I love that.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I love hearing that about the the touring companies.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: Are you specifically working with more concert-based companies or you are okay?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Mostly pretty much anything that comes through our area.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes like concert, sometimes, I mean, it like Circ, I mean different things like that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: If there is a stop and they're at one of our facilities, usually I'm the call that the facility connects with.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of Broadway tours that come through as well.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so really anybody who needs help, you know, I'm happy to help coordinate that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just because it's so much easier just to get that quick in and out of somebody who knows what, you know, you're going through, um, not just using an urgent care that's going to kind of piecemeal it together city to city.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's kind of my passion is trying to like close those gaps in performing arts medicine and dance medicine to make it just easy, consistent, and just healthier.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: That is so great.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you for all that you are doing for our dance world, and we're happy to have you here.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: All right, our next special guest is someone who I have gotten to know throughout the past few years, and they are a business owner as well, and they are doing some great things for our dance world as well.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: They are the co-owner of Relative Motion, and guess what?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: They are a sponsor of Making the Impact.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: We are so grateful for their support, and uh, she's gonna tell you all about her amazing company.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to finally welcome to the podcast, Kara Dixon.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Kara.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thank you so much.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so honored to be here and be a part of this mission at Making an Impact.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's really incredible what you guys are doing and the impact you have on dancers, teachers, just the whole industry in general.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really special.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Me, I'm in Virginia now.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: We just moved here a couple years ago from Tampa, Florida.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we're right outside of Richmond, Virginia.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have three little boys, but I did start my career as a performer, and in between each contract, I just took to different teaching jobs.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my early jobs was under Denny's wall.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I just I got so obsessed with the idea of teaching at that point because of who she is and how she dissects the body.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I just went underneath her as a mentor and I kind of like studied what she did and how she thought, and like the way she, you know, would look at dancers and kind of pinpoint what they needed based on where their alignment was.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it really intrigued me.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I worked under her for several years, and um after that I moved to New York City and I taught at the children and teens program at Broadway Dance Center, and I just loved that.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I loved working with um more dancers that were very like just like Denise's dancers, where they're very engaged and they have really high-level goals and and they're hungry, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I loved that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I moved away from New York City, I taught more on like the governor school level, the university level, and worked with dancers that were like right there right before becoming professionals.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and it was just a really awesome way to see how the brain works from like when the dancer's three years old up through when they're actually an adult, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And like how their body aligns with that and um what dancers really need both mentally and physically to be like that well-rounded dancer.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so once I left that job in the university, my sister and I, Jamie Goodwin, we launched Relative Motion.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't heard of Relative Motion yet, basically we bring anatomy to sight on the dancer's body, and our goal is to bridge that gap between what we as teachers know for through experience and what this young mind like they can't really physically picture their anatomy.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, how can we get them to literally see their anatomy as their training, have real goals, like be able to measure what they're doing, be able to know if it's safe, be able to track their progress.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I just have a huge passion for getting dancers to that next technique level and really like trusting their bodies because I think what happens a lot of times is dancers start because they're so passionate just about how music makes them feel and how it feels to move their body.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And one day they're like, I want to get eight pirouettes, but that's not what they're passionate about.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it like it's that there's so much stress behind that and the overextensions and all this stuff.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So dancers start to believe that those goals are their passion, and they lose like they lose that fire.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And for us, I'm like, if they can start to trust their body and really understand their body, not only can they dance for longer, but they can also like tap back into the joy of it and tap back into the passion of it versus just the technique of it, right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And like then become real artists.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that is like what lights me up.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can like feel the joy emanating from you.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that relative motion offers so many great resources as well, not just for dancers through your patented leggings, but also teacher training courses.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: You also have judge education courses.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: You're offering so many great things to our dance world.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's amazing to see the growth.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we um we look at the industry as a whole and we're like, where do we feel that people are frustrated?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or where do we feel that people are constantly like hitting a wall?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay, why would that be happening?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if we're like our latest thing was we launched software for dance competitions.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what we were seeing was that a lot of people who leave dance competitions sort of frustrated because they would get the same corrections like stretch your feet, wing from the back of your knees.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, well, we know that, right?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now what?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so our goal was like, okay, well, that means there's a gap there.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: If people are that frustrated over that, there's probably a gap in what they're expecting and what they're receiving.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can we do to like help line that back up?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because really, dance competitions are doing an awesome job.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And with what they're working with and the time frame they have, like they're giving as much as possible, right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, where is that gap and how can we fix it?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's the goal with us, is just like, you know, serving the industry really in any way we can.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and y'all definitely are.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for serving our industry so well and also being such a supporter and sponsor on making the impact.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: We're very grateful for your support.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: All right, let's talk about the body.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about our dancer body today.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to just mention fun fact, uh, Megan.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a graduate of OCU many, many moons ago, where we did not have any sort of partnership with anybody.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when I developed sesamoiditis my freshman year, and the doctor I went to said, well, don't go up on your toes.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he meant don't releve because he didn't know what relevant meant because he was just a regular doctor.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what you're talking about, is that the doctors sometimes don't know what we're talking about.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I, this is the thing I have to do to achieve my goal, this goal that I'm paying a lot of money for.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I can't not do that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna need some more than, you know, more than you're offering me.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm so glad that the community there now has, you know, some connections with you and what you're doing with Oklahoma Performing Arts Collective.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I just the Oklahoma City community is very lucky.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very, very pleased to hear that.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I feel like we all have different connections.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so, Kara, you were Virgin from Virginia Beach, right?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was, yeah.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I had come from before Oklahoma City.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like we're in like this big circle around.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: All kind of like some kismet there.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So well, it's all connected just like the body.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's lead into that with this is kind of a general vague question.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not vague, it's just kind of general because I want to just see where you're gonna go with it.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: In both of your experiences, when you're treating dancers, seeing dancers in class, seeing dancers perform, what are some of the main issues you're noticing with alignment generally?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like what do we see out there in the field that could be corrected?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one thing I notice a lot out, unless you want to jump in first, Megan.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I notice a lot is I think that sometimes our focus, like of what we think the correction is, is really just how we're measuring the correction.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance, like a dancer might be collapsing in their arches.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we're like, okay, let's focus on the feet, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: But really, like often I feel like they're not actually understanding their rotation from the top of the leg.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so when they're sinking at the top of the leg, it it sinks into the knees and it sinks into the feet.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So often I feel like we're like, oh, focus on those arches, lift the arches, fix your feet, change your weight.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But really, I feel like if we can focus in a different area sometimes, the dancers will find progress a lot quicker.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: The frustration won't be there as much.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then also those injuries, we're not like doing the final injury, we're like fixing it from what would be like right the starting point.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to let Kara start with it because I think one of the things on my end is I don't see them until they're injured most of the time.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so if we're talking about like commonalities to the healthy dancer versus the injured dancer, I think Kara has that grasp on what typically we're seeing.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um what I'm seeing is going to be more specific to where the injury is at.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: I tend to like to look at the whole kinetic chain.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: And there are a lot of like shared abnormalities that you know you see in that research supports, ranging from the fact that dancers often are notoriously weak through the hip abductors, so our turnout muscles, which is like, wait, what?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's our turnout muscles.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: How can we be through those?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so it has to do with the plane we're using them in.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Calves.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Calves are one that you're like, well, of course they're strong through their calves.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: They're strong, but they don't have the stamina in their calves because of the way we train.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a lot of like shared components that a lot of different dancers will have.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing with core stability and strength, you know, a lot of dancers have really strong cores, but they're not activating it in conjunction or in a coordinated way with the other muscle groups like the pelvis and that recruitment through supporting the torso and using the leg.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so some of those coordination abnormalities, the stamina abnormalities and just the strength imbalances are just really common to the dancer.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's a lot of times where I like to start because those that's really low-hanging fruit.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you fix those few things, a lot of times you fix a lot of ills, not just with injury, but also with uh technique deficits and trying to get, you know, that leg up that you're not able to reach in your develope, but you kick up by your nose.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times that's going to be just some training adjustments that we can do that are rooted in the kinetic chain.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so excited to continue to learn because as you were saying that, it's like, wow, really?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Cause I do, I do think I am strong in my core.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: But I know that I have like it it all comes down to how you're training it properly.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I've learned that through my time and mm with many injuries in physical therapy.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you get to physical therapy, they're like, this isn't activating and it should be.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you're like, how have I how have I dipped my whole life and not activated that one muscle that's like somehow I'm getting around or somehow I'm getting up, but something else is doing the work and you don't even know.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: And then that's why injuries happen because we're not protecting our bodies in the right way.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, one of like, and I know this isn't a full-blown injury chat, but like it's a part of the conversation for sure.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't, I didn't really start understanding my body until I got injured.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like it wasn't really taught to me in in my in my studio or classes to understand how it connects.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a little bit here and there, but once I started to kind of dive deep into what physical therapy uh involved and how a back injury was actually connected to my hip, to my like lack of glute activation, to my weakness in my hamstring, it's like, oh my God, what?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and then to core, you know, everything is so connected and.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: And if dancers can have a a better understanding of that early on, then maybe they can prevent those injuries down the road and uh fix those, tweak those little tiny habits that you mentioned, Megan, in their training ahead of time.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: And even for teachers to be able to flag it and catch it ahead of time and say, I can tell that this is going on.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that comes to mind for me as far as alignment and things I see often in young dancers is sway back, having just everything just kind of out there and zero core activation and getting them to really wrap their head around the concept of what it feels like to close your rib cage and uh activate properly so our back is aligned.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: Does there any anything come to mind as far as like recommendations for that?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because I feel like that's a big one for like the young eight, nine, 10-year-olds.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Some of that is going to be rooted in just how they're made.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, whenever we look at toddlers, for example, all toddlers have that pot belly sticking out, yes, waddling around.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so the way that the core is just structured at those younger ages is not the same as it is whenever we're, you know, a little bit further along into puberty and beyond.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so this age group that we typically see a lot of that sway back happening with, they're caught in that like kind of purgatory between like the little bitty body and then learning how to actually use their body for these higher level skills that, you know, now are becoming very common at these younger age ages.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's one where I think some of that is not necessarily like a technique deficit as much as just a natural predisposition.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: But ultimately we have to address it with technique to be able to overcome that.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of things that we can do is like fun stuff.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's one of the things that PT does so well is trying to get them to do normal activities with that recruitment that they get used to doing it where they have that core engagement all the time, not thinking about it, because that's what's so hard.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: If we start asking them to like overcomplicate it when they're little, little, you know, like not little little, but you know, like the eight, nine, 10 age group, that's where we get a lot of the, well, I'm tucking my pelvis too much.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like, now is this right?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm like a stiff man, shoulders up and all these different things.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: Versus if we kind of teach them to make it strong through doing things like planks and then have them reproduce some of that, like keep your course strong with jumping type activities that's aren't necessarily dance specific.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times they can learn to apply it to everything.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, that's a really good one that I think is good to incorporate into classes at those levels that's not always tied into a specific dance skill.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I would also, I love that.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it makes me think too, I think a lot of times when a dancer has a sway back, a lot of our corrections are very back focused.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're back, you're like tilting your pelvis back, you're back, like you know.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think often if we could bring that focus to the front body and be like, give them pictures and analogies to help them really understand not even the action, but the energy of where we want their body to go when they're little.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if we sometimes I'll just be like, why don't we put, you know, your finger on each of your hip bones and pretend you're like you're attaching suspenders and I want you to draw the suspenders up and I want you to connect it into your belly button.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so then instead of them scooping forward, right, they're like taking the energy of the legs, the front of the legs, and they're drawing it up.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, and then that helps them like flatten out and engage the front body versus like a scoop, which is sometimes if we say the back, okay, you have a sway back, they'll overcrect it and like sweep it under, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we have the same kind of like lack of of movement that they can get in their hips there too.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like when they draw it up, it opens the hips up.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So now the legs can move a little more freely and their cores engage.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I do try to think of like a story because like you said, making it fun, it's like, okay, we're gonna put on our suspenders, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just get them to like, and kids are especially that age, it's like they they don't have a huge vocabulary for even things they know.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like five year olds only know certain days, they only know certain numbers, they only know certain colors, right?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then as they get older, so like, okay, what would they know suspenders?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: At what age are they gonna know what a suspender is, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: So then you have to like consider that too, right?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like taking a lot of things.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: We learn them so much.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're learning so much from us.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, like getting that developmentally accurate.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, Megan.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was great.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think the part of the issue with the sway back specifically is that so many times, like you said, Megan, with the higher level skills that are being expected of these young kids, what you see is somebody rewarding an eight-year-old for an incredibly swayed back when she's sauntering across the floor to go do her million pirouettes or to go do her big leap.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: All you see on Instagram are little girls with very suede backs.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody said that was okay somewhere.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we we wouldn't be seeing it as much if somebody was correcting that more.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I I'm kind of curious, you know, if if if in 20 years, if the science is better, if the dance teachers know better, if we all have a little bit more anatomy education and alignment education, is that gonna get better?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because right now I'm like, I don't think that's I don't think anybody's doing it right from what I can see.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: Hey parents, does your dancer want to have a career in dance post-high school graduation?
• 27:22
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• 27:25
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• 27:29
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• 27:36
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• 27:44
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• 27:52
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• 27:56
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• 28:02
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• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's a piece, and this may be a controversial statement to say is that, you know, whenever they're smaller, they are a little bit more hypermobile.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: We're all a little bit more hypermobile at that point.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a subset of kids that naturally gravitate to dance because they're good at it because they are bendier than their peers.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they have a true hypermobility.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I I, you know, just to kind of start scratching the surface on that topic, um, that's one that these are the ages that really we should not be rewarding that extra mobility.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's great that they can do it, but looking at it on the long run, winning that competition because you have that one skill, that's not the thing that would have had you win that competition.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: It could be the thing that ultimately causes harm down the road, not just with issues down of the ligamenture that holds everything together, that is tightening up in these ages, not just setting them back from not being able to do these skills with core activation, which is the really only safe way to do those hypermobile skills.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: But also from the end, is we're seeing scoliosis come out of this kind of stuff.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of these things that are being trained, especially the more of the tricks that are very popular right now on the competition scene specifically, they're very loaded through the spine.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're very repetitive to the right.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times you will see a lot of these dancers have really bad scoliosis that comes out of that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: So there's not a lot published at this point, but having shared notes with other physical therapists or with other doctors and then physical therapists, everybody seems to be seeing, like, yeah, I'm seeing an uptick in scoliosis.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: And we're also seeing an uptick of really loaded positional kind of like tilts and arches and all sorts of different things that are just not typical and just aren't safe if you don't have that core activation.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Any gymnast, circus performer that is doing it at the highest levels, they're only doing it because of the way they're stabilized around it.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what we need to be encouraging whenever they are small.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, I love that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and Megan, um, tell me, I this is one thing I was thinking.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when a dancer is hypermobile or anybody really, their connective tissue is weaker, right?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: So like they have that mobility, but the tissue, the connective tissue isn't as strong.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: So like they actually, so I think a lot of times we see really flexible dancers who aren't strong, or we see really strong dancers who lack that flexibility, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're doing this hypermobile activity and yet they don't have the strength to really sustain it, then that's where it's like their body's so unstable.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we do kind of like prioritize and like get really excited sometimes to see dancers who can just do whatever with their bodies, but then you're like, okay, where you can do that, yeah, you don't have that stability.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the chance of you having an injury that you're unable to recover from later, or like chronic pain or injury throughout your life from this point.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes with kids, they don't they don't really feel the pain because their bones haven't fully formed and like all the I mean, like children have way more bones than adults because they have they haven't really like right fused together.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Fused, right.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just think about crus plates in your feet for point.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a reason we don't put we talked about this on the ballet episode.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a great plan to put kids on point too early because of that reason, exactly.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and there's you know, it's interesting because um recently my my oldest, he was seven at the time, he broke his arm.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we went to the orthopedic doctor, they like they gave him this little like, you know, cast or whatever.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then they were like, Well, you know, the good news is his bones are still soft.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so if this was an adult that had the same break, it would be a much worse injury.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: But since his bones are still soft, the injury's not as bad.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, also like young kids' bones can bend.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes when we see this hypermobility too, their bones are actually a little bit softer, right?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you think, okay, you're taking a child, it doesn't hurt them, their bones are bending, but like how good is that on their body long term?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at what age do they start to realize the damage that's already been done?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And like you can't go back and reverse like years and years and years of okay, that hypermobile action.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they did it in their solo 85,000 times this season.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes when I talk to parents, like I've done some parent seminars and I've just said, like, if your dancer has a specialty, like this is their best side, or like this is they love this after out, I'm like, don't put it in their solo.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let them feature it in a group piece that they do once or twice, you know, in a rehearsal.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that solo time is a great time to really take the teacher aside and work on something that your dancer's not good at because you get one-on-one attention from the teacher all year.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So think about something that they're gonna want to excel at in their professional career.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: If they're doing a contemporary solo every season, but they want to be on Broadway.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you take that hour with that teacher and really get them to enhance those skills that you can use?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because having your daughter do that or your son do an aerial over and over again, or back handsprings, or these high overextensions over and over again throughout the course of the week and then multiple times, like throughout their rehearsals.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there's so much more your child can get from that time with the teacher.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really the time that they're gonna actually get those injuries because of how much repetition you're doing of those lines.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if it was featured in a group piece once or twice, like great, your daughter did it, so exciting, and you're not doing it 500 times that week, you know, on the right every time, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've I've felt that a million times doing shows, you know, on in Broadway shows eight times a week.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: The choreography is the same every single day.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: And you just have to change sides.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't get to choose to do a left botma today because uh my right hip is mad.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I still have to do that right bot ma.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you see a lot of wear and tear injuries happen just because of the duration of time that you were doing the same repetitive mo uh movements, regardless if it's safe.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like it's it's gonna happen just because of the repetitiveness of it, unfortunately.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you can be proactive, you can be warming up properly, you can be doing your PC exercises, but like, you know, if you continue to put strain on your body in the same way over and over, your body's gonna start telling you, hey, this hurts.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, this doesn't feel too good.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: Can we even it out?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: And even with the scoliosis, you know, that's like a perfect example of of how you can kind of re you know, misalign your body from overuse.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing that I think now the acro is so prominent that we uh, you know, just have to be mindful of, you know, with dance, nothing about, well, not nothing, but a lot about dance is not uh physiologically normal.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's not normal to move from a turnout position, it's not normal to dance on your toes, not normal to bring your leg up above 90 degrees for any good reason, you know.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's like all cornerstones of what we do.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so to do that, we have to be precise.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: We have to use perfect technique to be able to do those things safely because they are not the way our bodies were built and structured.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: We got a lot more forgiveness for the things that we're evolved to be designed to do.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so, with that, you know, I think ballet is a little bit farther along on the forefront because there's been a lot of research into it and a lot of, you know, years historically, but where we're seeing a lot of like where the acro components and competition dance, there's just not as much data there.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of the skills that are plugged in, looking at a lot of the repetition and the load, these acro skills, these gymnastics, or even skills that are borrowed from like breaking, you know, those were meant for one person to be done a few times in a practice, not necessarily to coordinate 20 people doing at the same time together.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, like headsprings for these, you know, national palm competitions, to get 20 people to do a headspring in coordination means they're gonna have to rehearse that hundreds of times in a biomechanically normal movement.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and same thing with the aerials to get so many people together to do that.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's a piece as well is understanding that a lot of these skills, where they have been say fish in other industries, they're being applied in a different way in this industry.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so just like with everything else we figured out with working in within the parameters of the dance world, how do we work smarter?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: How do we do this in a way that we still get the cool skill, but not the rotten injuries?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a piece that I don't know that anybody really thinks about.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the coordination of your entire team, you know, in Headsprings, like you said, the national palm team, this that's everybody now.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even just the palm teams, it's everybody.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's seven-year-olds, all of them.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and every I've never seen a good one.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you that right now.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've never seen a good one.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're all they're all dangerous and scary.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, because like terrifying like terraform competitions, not saying that this is any better, but are do they are they on like a little bit of a sprung something?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: What is their situation on the floor?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just wondering about the floor, right?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's typically a foam, it's a like thicker foam mat is what um, at least unless something's changed since last time I was at NDA UDA, but that's what they had before.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, at least there's that.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_03: A little better, but like still, I mean, do they I mean, maybe they have hopefully they have that same flooring in rehearsal.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: They don't.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, cool.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: So not usually, just given that a lot of times palm squads are relegated to the basketball gyms that are available even at the university level.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, some schools probably do, but most of the ones, at least in my area, you know, they're they're rehearsing where they can get the space.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a part of it too, is like safe pro safe flooring practices as well comes into play.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: You just make a good point that I think applies to just sort of the parents and the teachers and the kids, like everybody should hear this.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: That those skills, like you said, barred from breaking, you know, the aerials, the millions of turns, the all the acrobatic skills, that used to be something that one person did as a feature, as a special thing that wow, this one person got the aerial in our dance routine.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: But now everybody's expected to do it, which means they're also, it doesn't even feel that important anymore.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because if everybody can do it, then why, you know what I mean?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think that's the pressure that these kids are facing is that like I didn't necessarily feel pressure to do an aerial back in the 90s.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some people got it.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Once or twice you'd see an aerial.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: They would be in cats or whatever, and like, okay, cool.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: But but I don't, I we didn't feel that pressure.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now everybody feels that pressure.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: The studio feels that pressure, the teacher feels that pressure to teach it, even if they don't know how to teach it properly.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then here we go, everybody is going to you, Megan, and you're seeing them when they're injured because they didn't learn something properly.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a wild world out there.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know what word keeps coming up that stresses me out is loading.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that that feels so I know exactly what you mean when you say that, like the loading your spine.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I think about that, like pressing the load on your spine.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is our spine, this is what we need to support us our the rest of our lives.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I have dealt with spine injuries and it is an awful feeling.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: And when I see dancers in a scorpion, I'm thinking about how much load is going on their spine in in that shape.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: When they're in a contortion shape where their head is their booty is sitting on their head, you know, like they're uh in a chin stand or something.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just I'm just thinking about the load on their spine.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I that word, like as we've said it throughout this conversation, I'm like, I I really hope that people understand what we're what we're driving home here because that is damaging.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like we are compressing our spine to a point that is unsafe and is going to cause harm, and then repetitively practicing it over again.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you think too, like um, there's a lot of training modules out there that that are encouraging adding props to that.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always think like the best way to get a dancer to fully move is to find space in their joints, right?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we get the most space in the joint?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that'll give them this length, but also it kind of like relieves the pressure on the joints.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you can even see dancers like doing like a backbend basically, but having their head like on a bosu.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's unstable.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like your whole your spine and your head is like balanced and the weight, and what if you shift?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what if you don't have the core strength in that position, or like you see different, various like training methods where like a dancer's in an extension, but they're it's wrapped around like their neck or like their and I'm like it's it's nerve-wracking because I do think that they see this like quick progress with their lines, and then you're like, but at what expense?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think anytime you're bringing like the spine or you know, I don't know, anytime you're bringing the spine into it, I think we need to be really protective.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime we're balancing the joints on something, I think there's like a certain amount of protection that we need to take.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes parents don't know because they're trusting like a body mechanic specialist to like move their child to the next level.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: But like just like having a list of red flags, like if you see this in their training, because my one thing is like the time's gonna come from somewhere.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if the time doesn't come in at the beginning of the training and you're and the body is trained scientifically to do a certain process to get from this flexibility level to this one, you compress that time.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: The time's gonna come over here through injuries and like having to like be off of your body completely and having to restabilize and relearn and build that strength at the back side.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I try to like really encourage parents like if you think your dancer is progressing really fast, check, check what is like scientifically right for the body to be able to do in that training module, you know, like that whatever modality they're using, like what science the body science, right?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, like certain things cannot really happen without there being a price to pay later.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: Without shortcuts, and people always want a shortcut.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think with a lot of the stretching components, you know, and the use of props to get some of those positions, what we're seeing is we're stretching out soft tissues that were meant to be our like kind of last line of defense.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, when we're looking at sitting in a frog stretch for hours, which, you know, I think all of us probably did at some point.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what that actually ends up doing is puts pressure from the head of the leg bone into the capsule and overstretches it.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: That will never tighten back up once we've overstretched it.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: So what does that mean?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Labral tears, because we have an unstable hip, snapping hip, which is obnoxious in and of itself, you know.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, those are issues that really it when we look at the data, frog stretch doesn't make your turnout better at all.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's no data that supports that that is a useful thing that we know turnout actually comes from strength, comes from our hip stabilizers.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: And on that same token, I see so many dancers spending all this time propped up on blocks to be inverted and kind of overstretch their splits with the idea of trying to get that pretty inversion or even just trying to get to neutral on their leap.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: They've got their splits, but they're still not completely flat during their grandchete.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: The issue there, again, it's strength.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't a flexibility issue to begin with.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I think so many of the things that, you know, you know, traditionally maybe we treated by over stretching even our point.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: Those little contraptions we put our foot in, they don't do anything other than overstretch the midfoot, making it more unstable.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: What we need is intrinsic foot strength to get a better point.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: So so many of these different things that have been historically things we sit forever with props and stretching, you know, if we can cross train that, we can get the outcomes we want, probably as fast, if not faster, without the risk associated with it.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: We just need to train it right.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think so many instructors, um, dance educators these days, they Want to incorporate that.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: They are watching for that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that we battle is social media.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of dancers are coming in with these wonderful teachers, at least in my experience.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: My area has some amazing dance educators that are trying to do it right.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then I've got a kiddo who has seen this person on TikTok get this like rope situation.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just like, just because they've got a lot of followers doesn't mean they got a lot of experience or education or knowledge to apply to your body, which you only get one of.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there are several hurdles that are out there as far as this problem.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the more that we can emphasize the stability work, I think the more that we can show it proof is in the pudding, you'll get those technique outcomes.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: You'll get the dance goals that you're you're trying to accomplish accomplished by just training a little bit smarter.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: Train smarter, train smarter.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: I am curious to talk about parallel for a little while.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: And also we can move into turnout because they both apply in dance.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: But one of my biggest pet peeves that I see when it comes to alignment in sp in particular as a judge at dance competitions is the lack of understanding of what a true parallel stance is supposed to look like, from your feet to your ankle to your knees to your entire lower body.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm curious, do you all see the same?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something that can be easily corrected?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: Is that is it a gap in training?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is it not emphasized enough?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to sometimes I'm really trying to figure it out because I think for us, especially as a judge, I care about positions.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: I I want to see clean positions, but obviously it comes back into the alignment issue that the lower part of your body is what's going to set you up, your entire the the entire rest of your body.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: So if there is misalignment, if you're letting your your feet open and prone open or anything, I mean, even your gait, like how you walk.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've learned all of that in in physical therapy, and I'm bowlegged.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: So like that's a whole nother issue that like I have to navigate and figure out.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_03: Some people are hyperextended in their knees.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like all of that matters in how we are properly aligned.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: And some people might struggle with finding that alignment easier than others.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: But is it a gap in the training at studios?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: Is it about each dancer's individual body?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: Anything to share on parallel?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that I've seen with that is like I was mentioning, hip abductors are notoriously weak.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times, dancers, because they're they're shortened because of working in turnout.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: If dancers are exclusively training dance, a lot of times they are training those abductors, those turnout muscles in a shorter plane.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so then when they go to use them in a full extended plane, they don't work the same.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so they may not even be recruiting them at all.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me to be able to get power to jump, you know, I probably have a little bit more with some of those, like almost it's almost like an involuntary cheat that people are doing because of some of those deficits.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think I could be completely wrong, but it's one that typically whenever whenever I will test in the proper plane, they're exponentially weaker, they are less controlled, they're less balanced.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's because they're not recruiting in the same way because they've been so one-dimensionally trained, which that's not on the educator, you know, that's a lot of times on the cross-training component that we want to plug into that.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly see a lot less of that in dancers who are also athletes.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: So my dancer soccer players, my dancer basketball players, I don't see as much of the issue there.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's almost because they're doing something that's very counter to the way that they're hitting that repetition during the week for dance with doing their other sport on the weekend.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that's my thought, but I don't have any science to back that up.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us a quick rundown?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because this feels like I have to go to the gym to remind myself which is the abductor, which is the adductor machine.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which, which, which one are you talking about?
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like what movements are we talking about when you're I always think of abductor as like I'm abducting something.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you're taking it away.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I mean, whenever you push it out, adductor, I'm adding it together.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're pulling them together.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's how I remember them.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: So like an assemble would be an adducting skill.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, going out is abductor, pulling it back together is conductor.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: So you're okay.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you're using both for an assemble.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel like some people out there are gonna be like, what?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: And they sound so similar that, like, even in my dictation when I'm doing charge, that you know, A Bductor is the one that we're talking about that's out.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: A deductor, you know, for those of you listening, that's the one added together.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, and Megan, you can kind of piggyback me on this, but one thing that we say with our when we are doing like our teacher trainings and stuff, a lot of times dancers are working turned out.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we call on them to be parallel, it kind of sits in the middle.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so one thing we talk about is like when you're working turn out to parallel constantly, your range of motion ends up being from here to here.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, really, your neutral starts to be somewhere around here.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where really one way to really help dancers in the studio is to add a lot of internal rotations.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, like anything that we're doing externally, trying to also do it internally because now we're increasing the range of motion.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this won't be their neutral.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, it'll start to be back to that center line.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so, not that you can do that all the time in ballet, but then you can integrate it more into like jazz and contemporary and other genres that you have a little bit of you can kind of play with the structure of your class a little bit.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then also I think sometimes dancers stand, when they stand turned out, they're like used to engaging, right?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Their inner thighs, they're used to engaging their adapters, but I think when they're standing parallel, they feel like it's their neutral, so they kind of relax there, right?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: So then when they go to plie, their knees start to sink in and like nothing's really engaged.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I always tell dancers, like, think about using your external rotation, even standing parallel, because what happens is it starts to rotate the femur and it starts to lift them up, and then when they plie, they're engaged and lifted.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they haven't changed their range of motion, but they have changed their rotation, and so the legs are now engaged, the range of motion is parallel, so the knees will start to track and they'll have that strength going forward.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if they're not engaging the rotation, it just all like kind of starts to sink into the midline of the body.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: So those are two like quick kind of tips I give teachers if we're seeing that in the classroom right away.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds exactly like what we go after as far as the rehab side, you know.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: The tips that you're recommending is an ACL prevention right there.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a patelli femoral syndrome or patellar maltracking issue corrected or never even experienced because you made those applications.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that all sounds really sage as far as like, you know, I'm I'm never like an all-or-nothing blanket statement kind of girl, but I think that that's a good blanket thing that uh could be applied across the board to correct a lot of ills that I think a lot of dancers kind of fall into.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing, Courtney, like you were saying, that you have you have bow legs, you your parallel looks different than my parallel.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now having been through so much PT, I've had three ankle surgeries, I'm in PT for my hip right now.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of stuff I have had to go to PT for and kind of learn that, oh, well, in jazz, I want to be parallel, period, the end.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when I do a squat, I my Achilles don't work that way for me to get deep enough into a squat for me to feel like I'm in a jazz parallel.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to slightly turn my feet out.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: And like the tracking is slightly different for what you're doing based on what your anatomy can do.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's an important thing for kids and dancers to remember too is that like your body is different than my body and my body is different than her body.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: And like, yes, there are some, like you said, blanket hard and fast statements that we can make about some things.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if if I can't plie any deeper than that, then maybe I make a modification so that then I can actually achieve the desired result while still being safe about it.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: And something that I just want to mention to all of the potential dancers that are listening with that point, and especially with proper tracking of like that's one of my biggest critiques is knees over your toes.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: Make sure that your toes are in line with your heels and your knees are over your toes.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_03: I say it 24-7 because, like you said, Cara, when the knee, when you they plia and the knees start going in, and it's like, I I'm just nervous for an injury down the road.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you, if that's how you're training and no one's correcting that, then you are doing more harm than good because you're gonna repetitively do it wrong.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then it could lead to other injuries.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I encourage dancers to really make sure that when you get that correction once, you need to start applying it and you need to understand what that means, because that's the only way that you are going to get better.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: Your teacher can't focus on you 24-7.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a private lesson most of the time.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: It is a class with maybe 20 other dancers.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_03: And if they say make sure you track your knees over your toes, or if you hear that on a judge critique, you need to start applying it.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: And if you don't understand how what that means or how to make that possible for you, ask your teacher, hey, I got this critique.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_03: How can I how can I apply this to my body?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to really focus it.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: And like maybe that's something that is, you know, your goal for the month is I'm gonna always make sure that my knees are over my toes.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna always make sure that I'm tracking my legs properly.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: To start again, then muscle memory will then work its way into your training.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because I know for a fact, like with my bow leggedness, that was like that was hard for me to if I stand in parallel, my there's a gap between my legs.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: So like if I have to track, I have to make sure that I track my legs properly because it is different for me and in the shape of my legs.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_03: And if dancers just need to be more aware of that and really tuning into that in the mirror and and self-correcting themselves more, I think just across the board in dance in general, just more self-correcting needs to happen and not waiting for the teacher to say, Hey, don't forget about your sway back.
• 53:54
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• 54:17
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• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think the self-correction too can come from, you know, okay, you heard that once.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's up to you.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you've heard you really need to, you know, work on your knees, tracking over your toes.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now that's up to you.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's my correction for me.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I do now.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't worry about me anymore, Miss So who so so and so.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like move on to the next person because I've got that.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the kind of dancer that I think, you know, succeeds into college, succeeds into the professional world is somebody who immediately says, that's mine.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is mine to deal with now.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if I need help, I'll ask for it.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: But if but you shouldn't have to ask me again to to correct my turnout or to correct whatever the thing is, you know.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think to piggyback on that um concept is like dancers sometimes do nod and think they understand the correction and they continue to train something they thought they got over and over and over again.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're like, ah.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so one thing I always encourage is just like leading, leading with curiosity, like, hey, ask questions about how your body feels.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm always when I'm teaching dancers, I'm like, ask questions about where you felt that exercise.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ask questions about if if I'm telling you you need to feel the exercise here and you felt it somewhere else, when did you start feeling it in the wrong area?
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think your body, what changed in your body?
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get tired and now another muscle took over?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, get really curious about okay, first I felt it in my inner thigh, but then as I was going into my extension, my quads took over and I felt the gripping.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, at what point, at what angle?
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are your hamstrings not flexible enough, or do you not have the strength there?
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's figure out by asking questions because I think they do mimic shapes a lot of other dancers or what they thought the correction was, and they practice over and over and over again.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then it becomes this muscle memory of something that you're like, that actually as a teacher, you're like, that wasn't the correction I really gave.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now they did kind of take it on themselves.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish we had like understood that they didn't really get that makes sense.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I would like a lot of dancers to take more responsibility.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, I'm like, oh, and I want you to really understand it you're taking responsibility.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think to add to that, you know, getting curious as far as, you know, if you've been getting this correction and your teacher has kind of helped to try to apply it and you are just still not able to accomplish that correction, that might be a time to reach out to a dance physical therapist or just a physical therapist and tell them, I'm having trouble getting my knee over my toe, because they don't necessarily have to know all the ins and outs of the skill to better understand.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, biomechanically, I can help you with that.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: And they can give you some exercises to take home and work on and apply.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that another piece going to the muscle memory, that's going to be something that if you are consistently getting a correction and that's been a bit of a bugaboo for you, I would write those ones down.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we know the ones, you know, like that we get over and over, but are we really thinking about how we change getting that correction like 10 10 months from now, you know?
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, well, one thing for me was always my shoulders.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was always bringing my shoulders up.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me, what that would have should have looked like rather than me just being like, ah, put them down, put them down.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: That should have me being do, I should have been very intentional about working some stabilizer muscles around my shoulder blades to help support that area.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I should have made that a consistent piece of my warm-up, not that I'm having to like find an extra hour in the day, but just doing a little bit of activator work to counter the years of muscle memory that led to that correction.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so that muscle memory isn't gonna be broken with one person telling me even a hundred times.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be broken by me being intentional about fixing it long term.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so having that list of these are the things I tend to struggle with.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: Here are the ways I'm gonna cross-train that as part of my warm-up, even that's the way that you get those corrections to stick.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why physical therapy works, everybody, because you're go when you go to physical therapy, you are doing repetitive emotions over, you're retraining your body in the right way, you're reactivating different muscles.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it's that muscle memory that was then going to help correct the problem in the world.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why it's hard.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody out there has ever been to physical therapy who thought they were like in good shape or are a good dancer or know how to do this.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Me at 23.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Man, gosh, me trying to do just glute bridges, I could do glute bridges all day until my PT was like, Are you even activating your glute?
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, Yes.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: She pokes it, nothing is happening.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can do a lot of things improperly.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the minute you start doing it correctly, like I failed, my failed out like after five.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, why is this so hard?
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's because you're doing it right and you've never done it right before.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's the body is wild.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: The positive side of that is that your body wants to do it right.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: So when you start doing it right, you actually see improvements a lot faster.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: So like I think a lot of times you're like, oh, I've been, you know, doing this all of extension wrong for 15 years.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how long is it going to take me to correct it?
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: 15 years.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, once your body can feel it right and build the strength in that new placement, it really doesn't take that long for your body to want to be in that position because now you're like honoring the body's mechanics, you're honoring the body's design.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're not going up against the hip anymore, you're not fighting the quadriceps anymore.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, your body kind of wants to do it.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like sometimes dancers don't want to like take that step because they're like, oh, like I my leg's this high and I don't want to start down here, you know, and like I work so hard for this, it hurts so much.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is such a good analogy for like finally find finding like the right relationship.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you mean it's easy?
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean it's easy?
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy once you start doing it right, once you, like you said, honor the body.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's a quote right there.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that's one of the selling points I try to give to dancers whenever we're talking about the rehabilitative end, which you know is more what I end up with.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I think even talking about the simple correction of get your knees over your toes, that is not a very fun correction.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that, okay, so I get my knee over my toes and what?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: Am I gonna win the competition?
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it doesn't apply in the same way to that 12-year-old brain that's getting that correction as you know what, in the process of doing the work to work those muscles and to apply that correction to get that knee to track over your toes.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: Did you know those same muscles are the ones that make you spin like a top and have that control to stop on a dime?
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: Did you know those same muscles are the ones that help lift you in the air to have that hang time, your grandchete, you know, it's it's the same muscle groups that make our techniques crisp and good and easy.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it just makes dance not hurt.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think looking at how it's not that there's a thousand different things we have to do to be good dancers and a thousand things we need to be technically secure and then safe, it's all the same stuff.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's working to use our body with the optimal biomechanics to do these weird things that we love to do so much.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_03: This is such a good chat, and we could probably talk for like another hour about so many more things.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_03: But sadly, I think we have to wrap it up.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_03: Are you feeling the same, Leslie?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think we covered a lot of we've covered different body parts, we covered different skills, we covered a lot of things, and I think you're right.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think we gotta do another one next season.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: This was so good.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see y'all again.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_03: This was so good.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_03: I learned so much, and you've confirmed things.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've I just I don't know.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: I I hope that I I'm kind of walking away uh from this discussion, and I and hopefully listeners and dancers maybe too, that like that la that last thing you said, Megan, like to understand to as a dancer, to understand as you're learning, as you're training, how much, how many different muscles and and parts of your body are used throughout all different types of skills that you wouldn't even think connect to each other and that relate to each other and how strengthening this is gonna help that.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, we see a lot of that on social media these days.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if you do this exercise, your leaps are gonna be higher, you know.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like we see that all the time.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_03: And like hopefully it's it's true.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I never did those crazy exercises growing up and I had high leaps.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_03: So there's ways to figure out, like, don't feel like that that's the only way to make progress by these trends that are popping up on social media, because like like we've mentioned, that is it is a hard part to navigate um in in this world when it comes to the tricks and the flash and the instant reward um in dance, because we over here at Making the Impact, and I'm sure with our guests as well, we want dancers to dance for a long time.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_03: We want the longevity of dance.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_03: We want to protect our bodies, and if we understand exactly what's going on and what things help what, then we might be able to have a longer dance career and not one that's painful.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_03: Because when you are when you get that injury that that gives you chronic pain, it it it hurts your soul because then you can't dance like you used to.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it it has affected me for a very long time, my back injury, and I don't want anyone to go through that.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I, again, thought I was trained properly.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: But again, there's gonna be flaws in everyone's training that we're gonna have to reset and regroup and relearn and teach ourselves, and that's just comes with time and and growth.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_03: But that's just my little final, final parting words.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very inspired by this entire conversation and all of the knowledge that you both contributed.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for sharing all of your wisdom uh with our listeners, with our dance world.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_03: And we would love to have you both lead us out with one final thought.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_03: So on our episodes, we always have our guests anything you'd like to say when it comes to the topic at hand, alignment, anatomy for dance.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_03: We talked about injury as well.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_03: So uh if you want to talk to teachers, dancers, studios, parents, whoever you'd like to speak to for our final thoughts on this episode.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: I my final thought is for the dancers that trust your body.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, your body doesn't lie to you.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: If something feels good, it's probably good for you, you know, as far as the way you're moving your body.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: If something feels wrong, if something feels off, if something hurts, we probably need to make a correction.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_02: And just because it feels good doing it a few times doesn't mean it'll feel good doing it that way all the time.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where we really want to lean into the corrections that your teachers are giving, but we also want to lean into the stuff that your body is telling you.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: So if something is feeling off, if something is hurting, always speak up about that to your teacher because they may give you a little tip on technique that will fix it to your parents, because your parents can go and help you get it evaluated.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it may be a little problem that we fix before it becomes a big issue.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's my big take home.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Trust your body, it was made to work.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: We just gotta find out the right way to do that to optimize it.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think my final word would be the fastest way to really understand high-level technique is to bring it back to the foundations.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you can find really great alignment in your foundations, these will be your cross-functional skills.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, like that tondeo, that tondeo is gonna serve you for every high-level technique.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: That fleeting is gonna serve you for every high-level technique.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: That external rotation is gonna serve you.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding your parallel, that's gonna serve you.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding the external rotation in your arms so that you can bring your arms into any position without your shoulders taking over.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like go back to those foundations and really, really get passionately like almost obsessed with them and honor your body.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, like feeling out those positions, knowing those positions, just that muscle memory, be obsessed with understanding the muscle memory in those positions.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can be very clear and like your body just automatically understands those basic foundations, they're gonna go across every other skill you need.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you are going to more advanced skills, not only will they come more easily to you, but you'll have that stability and you'll have the safety, and you can actually fully trust your body doing them.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: So go for it.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_03: We hope you enjoyed this week's episode all about alignment and anatomy and dance.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_03: Be sure to follow our special guests on social media.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_03: You can find Kara at Relative Motion Dance and Megan at The Dancer Doctor.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_03: And check out Megan's new organization, Oklahoma Performing Arts Collective, which is a collective designed to connect performers, performing arts educators, and performing arts medical specialists to each other and to evidence-based health information.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_03: Their membership launches in October.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_03: Learn more on their website at OklahomaPAC.net and follow them on Instagram at OPAC.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: Don't forget to follow Making the Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, and pretty much everywhere you listen to podcasts.
• 1:08:08
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• 1:08:15
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• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Join now at Impact Danceadjudicators.com/slash Platinum Premium or click the link in our show notes.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_03: Competition season is right around the corner.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're looking for expert guidance to polish and perfect your routine before hitting the stage, then be sure to check out our popular service, IDA's Online Judges Critiques.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_03: Our experienced judges will provide you with a video critique of your performance.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_03: But with IDA's online judges critiques, we take it one step further than your standard competition critique.
• 1:08:53
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• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of focusing on the dancer's performance, your IDA judge will dive deep into choreography-specific feedback, including concept, appropriateness, costuming, transitions, style, formations, visuals, textures, technique, song choice, difficulty level, and so much more.
• 1:09:18
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• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_03: So what are you waiting for?
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_03: Click the link in our show notes or visit our website at Impact Dance Adjudicators.com slash online critiques to submit your dance today.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us for season six.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can look forward to upcoming episodes, including costuming for dance competitions, winter and summer intensives, and levels.