Dancing as an adult: technique

Compared to a lot of adult dancers, I'm a baby.  I acknowledge this.  I'm in my early 20s and a lot of the physical complaints that adult dancers have to work through have not yet settled into this sack of bones.  I also have the advantage of having danced since I was young: at 2 and a half I had my first tap class, and at 7 I started classical ballet training. 

I'm still pronating in this picture. Note: forced turnout in front foot, knee in front of toe, arch collapsed. Tsk tsk. 

In there, I had a hiatus from ages 15 to 18.  Even though that is a very short hiatus, and even though I am admittedly still a young dancer, it's quite different dancing "post hiatus" as compared to pre-hiatus.  

The most significant difference is the self-discipline and attention to proper technique.  This is probably true for anything done as a young kid and then again as an adult: adults tend to care and want to work to get better.  Why else would they bother taking ballet?  Or riding horses?  Or learning an instrument? 

Furthermore, adults are more motivated to gain proper technique to avoid pain and injury. 

Even as a young kid, my joints were not exactly well-oiled.  I had knee pain, a neck with uncertain wonkiness, and rollin' and rockin' hips (as well as snapping hip, as I have recently learned).  But, you know, young joints, young muscles, young connective tissue, all that meant that my technique could be so-so and I still wouldn't be in significant pain.

When I was 15, I went to a physical therapist for my knees.  I think that the experience did not push me in the right direction.  The first therapist informed me that my knees hurt because I had flat feet--this was a surprise to me, as my ballet teachers had always said that I had nice arches.  The second one decided that my knee pain was due to weak quads, which also surprised me, given the whole running-jumping-pliéing thing that I did for hours and hours a week.  So I was assigned some essentially useless exercises, which didn't address the root of the problem, and I went on with so-so technique that still enabled high jumps and smooth turns.

However, after a few weeks of a fairly intense ballet class in college, I developed shin splints.  They weren't terrible, but petit and grand allegro more often than not had me walking away wondering how to make it stop.  During my first conference with my instructor, even before I mentioned my shin and knee pain, she very simply said, "Well, you have lovely jumps, but you tend to pronate.  That puts a lot of stress on your knees."  My eyes got starry, and I told her about my shin splints.  She nodded and said, "Yes, that is probably because of the pronation.  Do you have knee pain as well?"

Ohhhh.

That explains it--why the first physical therapist saw me walk five steps and declared me flat-footed, and why the second physical therapist was, without actually telling me the specifics, trying to work muscles that would pull my knees over my ankles.  But without results--because strength does not equal technical employment when you're doing saut de chats from the corner--I stopped. 

My goddess instructor had me jump in parallel with strict attention to my pronation and knee placement, and--whaddya know--no pain!  Not from the shins, not from the knees.  It was amazing. 

After that I was super motivated to banish my pronation forever, so I started walking with attention to the outside edge of my feet.  When I was brushing my teeth I supinated, went back to flat, and supinated again.  I pulled up through my arches when standing in line. I practiced a lot of very careful pliés and sautés with great care to my knee placement.  And I got better at not pronating, my shin splints got less severe, and ultimately went away permanently after a 2-month rest and return. 

This is just one example of dedication to better technique, but for me, probably the most significant.  It has also led to better-balanced and stronger jumps.  Amazing--good technique gets results.  I think this isn't stressed as much in most ballet studios, possibly because kids can get away with it.  "Technique" at my old studio was spotting and posture.  Spotting, because otherwise you fall over; posture, because otherwise you don't "look nice."  Pulling up through your ribs in a one-legged balance wasn't for support and stability; it was because the line didn't look nice when it was sunk. 

I imagine that kids, through the sheer fact of being kids with still-gelling motor systems and still-spongy brains, can "pick up" a lot of technique, just through experimentation.  What makes you fall over, what sustains a balance?  It's like language--bear with me here--small children use different acoustic cues to distinguish "s" and "sh" than adults do.  Apparently, it's good enough and produces results that are pretty close to adult differentiation.  But at some point they switch to acoustic cues that are more reliable.

In ballet technique, then, for example, I can learn to have decent extensions via clenching muscles in my hips and thighs.  My line isn't as pretty as the girl next to me, but hey, she's more flexible, maybe that's why.  But in the end it's kind of painful and a lot of work.  To develop the proper technique and strength, it takes more work and thinking, and undoing the habit of clenching.  And for a kid that's just bouncing around because dance is fun and they're not in actual pain, where's the motivation?  However, technique is really important for longevity and also, of course, for long-term enjoyment.