Questions about Alignment Sticky

[viccarmom]

Clara or anyone else knowledgeable on the subject ,

 

My DD, age 17, training pre-professionally, just returned home from her summer intensive where she asked one of her instructors for advice when she starts auditioning this up-coming season. I think the instructor misunderstood the question (daughter is soft spoken) but gave her advice about her hyper-extended knees (along with a few other things) and not to sit back on her heels because it builds unwanted bulk in the thighs. She gets the correction (at home studio) to “pull up” also.

 

Not accusing her home instructor of not teaching properly but DD didn’t really understand that all of these corrections could have been related to the muscle bulk. Unfortunately, some of this muscle bulk and ability to build muscle easily is inherited. Thank you for the sticky! It makes so much sense now and I FINALLY understand the reason for some of her issues (lower back pain, large thigh muscles, etc).

 

Here are my questions:

 

1. Should she be practicing this soft bend in the knee at all times?

 

2. What should she do to strengthen the muscles around the knee or will this happen over time with the correct alignment? You wrote, “Understand though, that you will need to build new strength in the muscles surrounding the knees, because you have mis-trained them for so long.”

 

Thanks in advance of your reply.

[vrsfanatic]

It may be best to take you question directly to her current teacher. The assumption that your daughter has "mistrained" may not be the case. SI's often times make blanket statements about student's training that may not be factual, just observations over a 4-6 week period.

 

There are different ideas of how to train hyper-extention. It is definitely a hands on situation.

[Clara 76]

vrsfanatic has made an excellent point! I think she will need careful observation as she makes this transition. I would suggest seeing if she can meet with her teacher to say something like this: "Teacher, I think I finally understand what you've been trying to get across to me all of these years- is this right?" And then demonstrate the alignment. This way the teacher can help her to find it and keep it!

 

Sometimes concepts pass us by until our brains and bodies are ready to handle them So even though she may have excellent training from her 'home' school, perhaps it was not time yet to implement the work until now. Ballet works in mysterious ways!

[viccarmom]

I was really just wanting some clarification. Not trying to change the way she trains or anything like that. I'll leave that up to the experts. She will be talking with her current instructors about her SI and what she learned from the experience.

[Clara 76]

Sorry! I shall try to answer the questions:

 

1. Should she be practicing this soft bend in the knee at all times?

It's not really a bend, though at first, she may feel like it is. It's actually the knee being straight- not past straight! Yes, she will have to make herself aware of not allowing her knees past straight at all times that she is weight-bearing.

 

2. What should she do to strengthen the muscles around the knee or will this happen over time with the correct alignment? You wrote, “Understand though, that you will need to build new strength in the muscles surrounding the knees, because you have mis-trained them for so long.”

There are exercises for strengthening the quads , and I suspect she will need some to strengthen and identify her inner things as well as learn how to rotate correctly from the hips. Frequently dancers who are hyperextended also are flexible, which is lovely yes, but also means they can "copy" turned out legs rather than actually using their natural turnout. That part of it is complicated and is something I can easily help with one-on-one, but is difficult to describe via the internet!

 

Yes, the strengthening will be built up over time as a dancer learns to utilize correct alignment, but a few extra exercises done correctly can be quite helpful.

 

I'm going to see if I can find a post where I have a few of them listed.