Update: On Class Hiatus

So, I missed a Thursday class a few weeks ago- I was tired, or had plans, or something. The following week, my car nearly broke down and needed transmission work. Just breaking down a transmission itself is quite a time-consuming process... then they had to figure out what was wrong with it... order the parts... fix something else that my car had been recalled for that I'd forgotten about... fix the transmission... put it all back together. There was a big week-long event in town the first week, so car rental prices were absurd. By the second, I'd gotten used to just getting a ride to/from work and saved car rental money. But I had to miss two weeks of classes, on top of the Thursday I'd missed.

Had I gone back to class, they were just working on the demo I wouldn't get to be in, and I'd be quite behind on learning the moves. And after the demo, class is pretty much over. I've also found a new hobby I'm adoring, so I've decided to just go on hiatus until the next ballet season starts in the fall. That doesn't mean I'm not working at home; I'm just not going to class.

There's another reason as well. Remember the injury my silly self got by overdoing splits? I'm still injured. It doesn't hurt to move or anything, but the slightest stretching and I can totally feel it. I've decided I want that to heal totally before doing anything major with it. (I'm reading Dancing Through It by former NYCB principal dancer Jenifer Ringer, and one of her teachers told her, when she was injured, "The slower the recovery, the faster you recover", or something very similar. The book is fantastic, BTW. I just covered many pages while at the doctor's office today. I highly recommend it!)

And honestly, I haven't done a ton of ballet lately besides tendus, rond de jambes, other barre work- with a big exception: I've been going plie crazy! I noticed the slightest hint of extra muscle definition in my legs recently, and it has spurred me to do at least a little exercise every day. I like doing my plies in fifth, so I will usually do 15 on one leg here and then a little later do the other side, and keep doing that throughout the evening, or during the day if it's the weekend.

I also do a lot of leg lifts towards the back (ballet term not coming to me) to work on my butt, focusing on keeping my legs turned out. I do tendus and rond de jambes. I do a lot of ankle rolls and foot doming (many times throughout the day, every day) to work on my ankle strength. I do releves, including releves with either leg in passe (working on turnout!) I do this exercise every night on my problematic, non-turning-out, tibial torsioned leg. I do arabesques and other things. Occasionally, I do an online class. Non-ballet-style: all four on the floor, left leg up behind me then bring back down, also to work on my rear.

And I finally got nearly everything I need to make my rotation disks! I may have mentioned this before, but at my job, they install speakers. To install speakers in a box, they have to cut out circles. (The circles aren't perfect- it's difficult to cut a perfect circle with the tools they use... I mean it's perfectly circular but there's an extra cut in them that makes them kinda unsellable... maybe... hmmm....) They were going to throw away quite a few, so I grabbed them and came home and was able to nearly finish one. I can use it now, just the top is not attached. Getting the other screws and washers I need will be one of this weekend's projects!

One other thing: I realized last night that even though I don't really want to stretch my injured leg much at all, I can still stretch the rest of my body, even my other leg (duh!). So I am going to start stretching again, possibly yoga. (It's too bad I wasn't injured on my right leg. That one's naturally more flexible, and I could have worked on the left one catching up, but oh well!)

So that's where I'm at these days. Still loving ballet. Kinda regretting already not getting right back into class- I don't know where I will be placed when I go back (the girls should all be moving up a level), but either way is okay with me.

I might not be posting as often as I was, but I'm still "into" ballet and haven't lost my motivation as I'd feared I would. (Well, a touch, but not to where I am going to stop.) I'm still finding gorgeous photos online and will still be sharing those!

Splits Progress!

Disclaimer: What I am about to discuss was probably a terrible idea to try. I'm sometimes my own guinea pig and risk injuring myself for various tricks and such. I do not recommend trying anything in this post. To do so could truly cause major injury!! 

Edit: I did, in fact, get injured! Nothing too horrible, but still a setback. See my post five days later here. 

Edit #2: Please don't do anything you see in this post. A month later, I'm still injured. Read about it here.

OMG, I can't believe I haven't ever posted photos of my splits here! Probably because they are so sucky, but still, that should have been good reason right there, so I can chart my progress. Anyway, let's just say that never in my life have I ever been able to do any sort of split. Not straddle, or either side. Let's say I've never been within a foot of the floor doing splits. Let's say that because it's all true.

That Tsatsulin book I've mentioned a few times... honestly, I haven't read more than what I'd read by the time I first posted about it (well, maybe a few more chapters later that day, but not really any since then). It's marked at page 43 of 157 now, so that's how far I've made it. And yet, those 43 pages have made a huge difference in the way I'm approaching stretching (which, yes, I did yesterday, along with some ballet).

One of the things Tsatsulin mentions is this: one leg can get into a certain position alone, and the other leg can get into another position alone, but yet, I am unable to do both of those things together. Why? There is nothing connecting the two legs together (I don't even know if this is true or not, but stick with me here). So it's a mental thing, a fear thing. My body is not accustomed to being in a split and so it snaps into fear mode when I try to put it in that sort of position, which only serves to tighten me up more.

There's a bunch more, you should at least read 43 pages.

So yesterday, I had on some meditation/yoga music and I was working on stretching. I got into a splits position. I was taking shallow breaths, and I got into this very Zen-like state. (I do not recommend doing what I am about to tell you about AT ALL, but especially if you have never done meditation or aren't very good at visualizing what's going on in your body!) I thought about how my front leg could get into the right position while alone... and it pretty much got there. I thought about the same with my back leg... and I was practically doing splits!

I'm totally not kidding about this. I have photographic proof:

(Pardon my mirror spots)

 Now, I know that is not a full split: my left leg (um, on the left- I'm in a mirror here... for some reason my left front split is better than my right) isn't totally touching the floor. And my right leg is bent behind me. I don't quite think my body is supposed to be turned in that direction; it should be facing the front. So it probably altogether looks a bit awkward. But I DON'T CARE because I'M DOING A SPLIT!

 

Yes, I was able to do it (awkwardly again) on the other side as well! 

I WOULD like to caution: besides the fact that this was probably a terrible idea and I don't recommend it at all, I also heard a very scary, very loud POP the second time I tried that first split. It came from within my hip area and scared the crap out of me. Also, I'm sore today. Quite sore. (And this is the second day after- today's Monday and this happened Saturday.)

Yet, I don't feel like I've done any damage. I'm definitely not doing anything much with it today besides walking, and didn't yesterday either. But honestly, this is about the sort of splits some of the young girls in my class can do- with the back leg bent some- and now I will (possibly) be able to do it too!

And my straddle split improved as well:

Not only have I never been able to get that far apart, I was even able to ease my elbows all the way to the ground (though it was difficult to totally rest that way).

I'm so excited. Thank you, Mr. Tsatsulin! Here is a (pdf) link to Relax into Stretch again.

(P.S. That's one of my new leotards from Discount Dance that I scored for under $15!)

Back to class, breathing while stretching, "lengthening" muscles versus "relaxing" them

I made it to class yesterday- it felt soooo good to be exercising and stretching again. (I sat out the second half, due to the jumps.) Somehow, it seems a break did me some good- it feels like I'm slightly more flexible, but maybe I'm imagining it. But when doing center splits, I'm able to get my elbows down to the ground- though perhaps I'm simply not stretching as wide as normal.

(Although I did read somewhere [in a book preview on Amazon, I think, about ballet/dance anatomy] that ideally, a dancer or such will take two full weeks off each year of not exercising (or maybe only gentle exercising, and it does their bodies a whole lot of good!)(I'm not anywhere near a professional dancer, though, and haven't even been doing ballet for a year!)

So, we have a new adult in class! She's taller than me, 21 years old, and about as flexible as I am! So I feel a little less awkward in class now, but slightly more awkward having another adult who may be watching me. (I'm not sure what I will do when I go to adult-only classes if I move!) That's pretty exciting.

I told my instructor, when my left leg was in retire, but would not get that nice, even line like my right leg is capable of getting, that I wasn't able to get that leg out there. She assumed it was from my accident. I tried to clarify after class, but she didn't catch it, and isn't going to call me out on that leg anymore. I'm kinda relieved- I'm trying with that leg but it is simply not shaped to do what I'd like it to do.

How I want my retire to look!

 Before class when I was stretching, though, I did work on my left leg. I put it up in retire, eased up against a vertical barre... bar, and twisted a bit so the leg got closer to the correct position. I held it like that for a minute or so, and when I stepped away from the barre my line looked much better- but I wasn't able to access that again the next time I tried. So my left leg, it seems, will make a nice line in retire, but it is going to take a lot of stretching- and strengthening- to get it to hold that position. (All of this due to my tibial torsion.)

More leotards came in, including a different style of black that I will actually feel comfortable wearing in class! Still have those photos coming one day!

(I mean, LOOK at this! Amazing turnout, foot pointed so well, that leg high up in retire, clean line, just lovely!

I believe I linked to Tsatsulin's book recently, on stretching. He brings up a fantastic point: don't breathe deep breaths when doing deep stretches. When you do so, you're breathing tension into that muscle (especially if you're focusing on the muscle, visualizing it releasing, etc). Instead, it's better to take short, shallow breaths. I tried this yesterday, and it totally helped me.

A note on that: he also recommends not focusing on lengthening your muscles, tendons, fascia. Instead, you are releasing what it there. That totally makes intuitive sense to me. I've never worked on elongating muscles, even when I've read or heard the term "lengthen your muscles". I don't need them longer. I need them to loosen up- the looser they get, the deeper of a stretch and the more flexible I am.

Intrinsic Foot Muscles

A great video for improving the point of the feet (via the intrinsic foot muscles):

(At first, I was like, "ah, I got this". Then it came to doing more intricate things with my left foot and... nope. I don't "got" it. I've been working on it about two days, though, and can somewhat squish my left toes together, which I couldn't do at all when I first tried. But really, from my understanding, being able to even come close to balancing on pointe, and to just have a nicely pointed foot at all, takes ability of detailed movement along with strength of those inner foot muscles, some of which some of us had never felt work before!)

And I get my Perfect Pointe book this weekend, yay!

Conditioning for Dance

Yay! Today's mail brought "Basic Ballet Movement Skills" with Finis Jhung and "Conditioning for Dance: Training for Peak Performance in All Dance Forms" by Eric Franklin.

I'm actually going out tonight and I need to get some ballet in, otherwise I would spend the whole evening reading through that book. It looks awesome. I think it's precisely what I need. The drawings in it are just fantastic, and even a single exercise I did that took about three seconds shows that he's got some great (and new to me) material in there.

I don't think it would be a spoiler to tell you the exercise, in my own words: 1) Stand on both feet and jump in the air. Yes, just jump. 2) Stand on both feet, clench your teeth together and jump. That's it, but can you see the difference it makes on your jump when you clench your teeth? If your jaw can affect a movement that seemingly comes from the waist and below, what other tension is in the body that can be affecting movements in ways you'd never dreamed of?

I can't wait to start working on it! It looks like I am going to need to get some longer Therabands, though. Most of the exercises seem to use the really long ones, like more than twice the body's height. Definitely on my list now.

I'll check out the new Jhung DVD tomorrow- time for barre!

The Perfect Pointe...

My birthday is coming up soon. I've made one request from a friend/kinda-boyfriend: The Perfect Pointe book by Lisa Howell. I know I'm nowhere near pointe, but I would really like to find better exercises to work on pointing my feet in general. If nothing else, pointed feet are very beautiful to me. I'm excited by the progress I've made so far, and hope I find more exercises to continue that progress even better in her book. Since it's SO highly recommended, not to mention that even the used copies on Amazon and Ebay sell for nearly the cost of the book new, I figure it has to be pretty awesome. Tune Up Your Turnout was as great as everyone said, and this one's supposed to be even better!

I've been taking photos of my progress. I'm going on week five tomorrow! I'll post some pics soon.

Tip of the Day

Remember that you do need to concentrate… Half of the strengthening you will achieve is by learning how to tell the nerves how to switch the right muscles on. -Lisa Howell, The Perfect Pointe

 Howell was talking about the exercises in her book, specifically, but I think that quote can be applicable to any ballet work you're learning. (Quote taken from Amazon's "Search Inside This Cover"... I REALLY want this book! Just can't shell out $50 right now, though.)

My notes on Anteverted Hips

Here is a picture showing anteverted hips:

Swayback usually results in the gluteal muscles being underused (atrophy). Hip extension in the prone position activates the hamstring muscles before the gluteal muscles. Should actively contract the gluteus at heel impact when walking. Predisposed to hamstring muscle strain. (Link, the hamstring info may refer to upper swayback instead of lower? I may have lordotic? Wiki says lordosis is common among dancers?) Update 11/16: Yes, I have "lumbar hyperlordosis": Lordosis is too much of a curve. My lordosis is in the lumbar/lower back region. Commonly known as "swayback". (There's another type of lordosis, seen in the first photo below, where the upper back can curve outwards too much. One can have lordosis of both the lower and upper back. Mine is only at the lower.)

Having hyperlordosis at one point in training does not mean that this will always be a problem, and care must be taken not to overcorrect and excessively reduce the lumbar curve. Strengthening the abs can help:

"Posteriorly, the spine forms a bony connection between the rib cage and pelvis. However, in the front, this connection is effected purely by the abdominal musculature. Because of this structure, the strength, resting length, and activation of the abdominal musculature are very critical in determining the distance between the rib cage and pelvis. That distance, in turn, affects the curvature of the lower spine and hence ideal alignment [/posture]."

In other words, when you strengthen your abs, the abs will draw up/tighten the torso, pulling the formerly outwards/backwards-tilted rear end in towards the abs and front of the body. The abs will draw up, pulling the front of the pelvis up with it.

"In addition [to the abs], lumbar lordosis may also involve low back and hip flexor (especially the iliopsoas) tightness as seen in 3.24A. If so, stretching the hip flexors and low back will also be necessary to improve the condition, and little improvement will be seen with just strengthening the [abs]." (Link)

 

Here is the link to the book the quotes and photos (excepting the very top one) above were taken from. I found all of this on a Google book search (something I'd forgotten a person can do!).

Reading all of this is very encouraging! I was getting rather disheartened today, thinking about how inadequate my bone structure seems to be. From all I read, it seemed like my back shape pretty much made it impossible for me to ever be good at ballet, so I should just go ahead and give up now. (And hey, a very small part of me was relieved: no more exercise! I can consider this another of my activities I've learned just enough about to convince me that I don't really want to continue doing it! All my life, that routine has repeated itself over and over and over again, and I've really not wanted it to happen again. I can feel myself already getting lazy... I can put off ballet now, I won't be any good.) NOPE! This is my New Self, and she is going to get off the damn computer, stop trying to find excuses, stop trying to convince herself she should just read about the hows all night, go put on my leotard, tights, and shoes, and get to practicing! (I'll continue as I have been, with less turnout than I was trying to go for, and being more aware of all of the things I have read. I'm not correcting much yet until I know more about to do it right. I don't want to jump right into different types of wrongness in my posture.)

Anteverted Hips

Since last night, I have learned that I basically have one of the, if not the, worst possible bone structures (excepting more extreme cases) possible for good turnout, the good turnout that pretty much ALL of ballet and even other forms of dance like lyrical and contemporary are based upon. I have anteverted hips. In fact, I am like the poster child for "person with anteverted hips".

I always thought it was cool that I could sit in a W shape with my knees and legs. While everyone else preferred "Indian-style" cross-legged, my body much more comfortably fell into the W shape, with my knees parallel to one another and my lower legs and feet turned outward, the heels of my feet touching my rear. I was always far less flexible than it seemed like those around me were. (To this day, my mom can still do a nearly perfect split, something I have never been able to do.) The W shape was the one flexibility thing I had down.

Turns out, I should have been working on that while my bones were still growing. I now have a swayback, caused from my anteverted hips. (The former is actually fixable. The bone structure of my hips, not so much.) Not only do have the first tell-tale sign, when my knees are perfectly straight, my feet point outwards. I will likely never achieve perfect turnout, nor even anything close (not safely, anyway). My posture's all out of whack as well, because of this.

I'll be doing a lot more research, both on anteverted hips and tibial torsion (likely because of the hips, my shin bones twist inwards as well). I know I can always work with what I have, and even go far in it, but it's just very disheartening to know that my technique is always essentially going to be substandard. 

Tune Up Your Turnout

Wow! I think I mentioned the other day that I had purchased a used copy of Deborah Vogel's Tune Up Your Turnout. It came in the mail today... and wow!

In the first chapter alone, I found out something very important- very, very important, because it affects everything I do (in learning ballet/dance, among other things): I have a swayback! And the book lists exactly why this is bad in ballet. 

I also read how to test how much turnout I have. I took photos as best as I could using this method, and got into photoshop to put the photos together and layer a protractor over it. Ehhhh... it's not very good, especially on my left side. There is a big difference between the two.

NOTE: Vogel says that doing the frog position to help turnout is VERY BAD, especially on your stomach. And even on your back, no one should EVER put weight on your legs to push them out more. And if that position causes pain- you shouldn't do it at all. Not only is it bad for you- it does not do anything for turnout (and can even hurt it). To show, she had a photo of a lady who could do a perfect frog on her stomach, but her turnout was only average.

I was really wanting to do some ballet tonight, but reading this book is way more important: bad habits have already begun, and I need to know how to correct it (and this book is definitely showing me how!) This was a top recommendation for turnout, and it was only a few dollars. I am definitely going to have to purchase The Pointe Book, since it comes extremely recommended, as well (and even the lowest used copies are still nearly full price, so it must be good!)

In other news, I have gained 10 pounds in about three weeks. I used to have very little appetite, and I've never eaten so great. In my late teens and early 20s, I weighed 110-115. Up from then until now, I've always hovered between 115-119. Today, I weighed 126- the most I've ever weighed besides when I was pregnant (and then I only got to 135- a healthy weight for me when I was pregnant). I know I am filling out some (thanks, in part, to my recent bad Snickers peanut butter bars habit), but to me, I don't look ten pounds heavier. I've been at this going on a month, around 5 days a week, 2-3 hours mostly, so I am really hoping I'm gaining MUSCLE! (I've never been muscular, at all, so this is exciting.) I can even FEEL the strength gaining in my legs.

Edit: Also, I have learned a few other things, just within a few pages. My posture is awful. My pelvis tilts back towards the rear. I've been pretty much unconsciously ignoring my core- I keep listening to and hearing about focusing on my core... and I've seemed to tune this out. Not even that it wasn't important, more of a "yeah, yeah, I know I should but let's get to the more fun parts of technique", very blasé from hearing it and reading it so much that I barely notice it's said. And it IS perhaps the most fundamental aspect (and my core is lacking in the muscularity department).

Along with that, I checked out the Vaganova book from the library. It came in (the libraries all around here share so I can order from any of them) yesterday. And wow, again! I had no idea of the... foundation... upon which ballet is laid, that there are such specific reasons behind movement, the technicality of it. It's fascinating, and I would now like to say I am beginning to actually study ballet, something I think should be important to learning, especially especially especially if you are like me and this is something you do in your own home, without feedback, without someone there to tell you how, why, what. And books like that and the turnout book are proving to be vital to my learning this. Reading about bad habits learned by doing at home is another one of those things I'm a bit blase about, and these books are opening my eyes to how very little I know (and how easy it is to train oneself to make mistakes).

I'll end with a note and a video. I'm turning 35 in, wow, less than two months. Tonight I spent about ten minutes fruitlessly plucking the grays from my formerly-colored hair. I've been thinking a lot lately about getting older, especially as a woman. I've dyed my hair red since I was 15; I'm naturally brown. The women in my family gray early (my great-grandmother was fully gray at 20). I decided that I am not going to dye my hair anymore. I cannot remember what color my hair really is, how it looks natural and surrounding my face. I have a few photos of me as a very young teen, but besides that, and a brief reprieve here and there, I really have no clue what I look like with natural hair.

It's graying faster and faster, and once it's gray I will never be able to see my brown hair again. (That's kinda depressing to me!) I'm worried about the glinting the grays already make in the sun, the ones where my roots are growing out. I look younger than I am, and I am very worried that gray hair is going to age me... a lot. (I still get carded for cigarettes and alcohol, and frequently shock people when I tell them my age.) I'll have plenty of time to look old, but... this is my only chance to ever see my natural hair again. And, with all I have been through up until this point in my life, I don't think I'd want to relive it. I don't mean that in a negative way, just that I'm content with the way I am now and I'm especially happy with the wisdom that comes from my age. And so I am not going to color my hair again, not until I am fully gray and possibly decide to try it then. I'm going to embrace the grays as they come, a symbol of experience. I'm not in the grave yet; I hope to have quite a few years or decades ahead. And it's only going to get better from here. I'll leave you with this inspiration:

"Tune Up Your Turn-Out" & Other Books

I just purchased Tune Up Your Turnout:



(Referral link). I ordered mine used- it was only a little over $6 including shipping! I really want the Perfect Pointe book, but I want to wait until I can find a cheaper copy of it. I've spent too much on books in the past three months!

(I've finally rediscovered the library. I have been obsessed with Young Adult dystopian society novels, preferably with a prominent female in it: the Hunger Games [movies sucked], the Divergent series [still haven't seen the movie, but the books were fantastic],  Life As We Knew It trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Hungry by H.A. Swain, and I just finished up Ally Condie's Matched trilogy- which was surprisingly deep in the last book. All of which I purchased and read in the past three months. I've also purchased Delirium by Lauren Oliver, and have that series along with the Selection on my reading list. But I just checked out from the library The Testing series... and at the moment I have just started a break in all of that: I'm reading Misty Copeland's Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina!)