The importance of using your core when dancing
When I was a ballet dancer,
I remember I was like 12 or 13 years old and I went to a vacation ballet school and the dance teacher I had never met and I was extremely thin but not anorexic. I am telling you this because it was here that I learnt what my core was.
As a ballet dancer we tuck in our stomachs and our bottoms. It was an every dance move thing that we had to do. So I had full control over that. But my core was different.
I was in the front row because I like to clearly see what I am learning and the male dance teacher said to me, pull in your stomach. So I pulled in my stomach where my belly button is. He said no, that’s not pulling in your stomach.
I looked at him confused. He pointed to the part under my belly button. A pouch you would see on most women, even celebrities. I didn’t have a pouch because I was thin but however he could see it, he could see it was not pulled in.
I felt the pull immediately when I tried it. And I have used it ever since to flatten my stomach in the aim to not have a pouch.
When you pull your stomach in and then pull up your part below your stomach, you are turning on your core.
Your core is so important when you are dancing. It aligns your body, it helps hold up your body. When I did aerials, holding in my core when I did tricks meant I would not get injured. My friend who didn’t have a dance background did aerials the same time with me and she didn’t know about pulling in her core and had so many back injuries from aerial drops she eventually had to stop.
Pulling in your core is an effort you need to master for as long as possible. I used to pull in my core all day as a dancer once I learnt how. My body had an incredibly strong core.
Ways to help work on your core is simply standing for periods of time and turning on your core and don’t forget to pull in your bottom at the same time. Remember to breathe. Release and do it again. And again. And again.
Make it a game. Obviously if you go on YouTube and look up core exercises and stretches, you will find other different ways to bring in your core. Standing is the simplest way to practice pulling in your core.
But to improve quickly, do it every day and start by doing it for five minutes then twenty then forty and then one hour. But remember to breathe! It’s so easy to forgot to breathe because we are pulling in our body and holding it in position. But you definitely need to breathe.
It doesn’t matter what age you are, pulling in your core is for fundamentally improving your body and less being injured when doing something.
#core #dance #meltoye
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