How flexible do you need to be to dance?

Image by woei tyng wong from Pixabay

Are you flexible or are you not? It appears, that dancers are either super flexible or just not even flexible. This is because of the different types of dance. For instance, if you dance hip hop you don’t necessarily need to be flexible. Whereas, if you dance contemporary being flexible is ideal. 

However, whatever style of dance you do, you can still learn and improve your flexibility. 

As a past dancer and an aerialist, my flexibility was very
high when I was a dancer and then my flexibility turned to a huge increase in flexibility. This is because dancing on silks, the silks would help push my flexibility smoothly while gravity pushed my body into flexibility. I was able to do middle splits in the air whereas when I danced ballet earlier in my life, no matter how hard I tried I could never do the middle splits. 

So yes, if you are looking to be even more flexible, doing aerial silks will help you improve over time. The most important factor to note when increasing flexibility in your body is to increase it inch by inch. It might take a week to a month to increase your flexibility by an inch. Don’t push your body too hard that you get injured. It’s all about balance. Once your body feels tight that’s the point you stop and hold for 5-30 seconds or however long you can stay in that position. 

When I was practicing aerial silks, I would practice on the silks twice a week. I would also include off the silks flexibility stretching once a week and over a six month period I went from my normal flexibility to being able to do contortion. Which is extreme flexibility. In the air, I could touch my feet to my head from behind me. It was very cool. 

So if you don’t have great flexibility, don’t panic. Here are 3 flexibility exercises you can do:

1. Sit in front of a wide wall. Sit in a middle splits with your legs in front. Use your feet to slide against the wall as you go deeper into a middle split. Hold for thirty seconds. Move slightly forward further and hold for another thirty seconds. If it hurts, get out of the position you have reached your limit. 

2. Lay on the floor, using a yoga mat preferably and lift your right leg as close to your face as possible. And then swap legs. You can even hold each leg to near your face for ten seconds and then swap legs. 

3. Stand up for this exercise and go to a place where you have room. Maybe even your back yard. Lift your right leg to the side and go as high as possible and then swap legs. Repeat on both legs ten times. 

Remember, it’s important if you start to feel pain, you get out of the position immediately. 

#flexibility #dance #meltoye

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