to rest or not rest in 2 months leading up to auditions?

[cxllqhy]

I'm out of school and rely on open classes to maintain my technique. I've had quite a few serious injuries in the last 2 years and have been a bit slack recently, now I'm trying desperately to get back in shape before the European auditions in January and February. For the last few weeks, I've been doing classes nearly every single day, but in the last week, I'm starting to feel that at least 1 part of my body is not feeling a bit wrong, Monday was my right knee, Tuesday was my left ankle, Wednesday was my right hip flexor, etc. I'm treading extremely carefully, because I don't want to get any injury during this crucial period. But if I take a break on the weekend, my performance on Monday is always much less desirable than that on Friday. So my question is, given my intention to accelerate improvement and considering my current work load of average 2 * 90min open classes daily, should I take the weekend off to let my body recuperate or should I keep going as long as nothing falls apart because it's only 2 months more?

[Victoria Leigh]

cxllqhy, before I respond I would like to know your schedule. You said two 90 minute classes a day, but how many days a week? And are you performing every weekend, which means you are dancing 7 days a week?

 

Sorry, tinyzinnia, but the rules on the YD forums are that a teacher/moderator must reply to the question first before other dancers can add their experiences. In this case, I have not actually replied yet, as I asked her a question that needs to be answered first.

[cxllqhy]

Yes, Ms Leigh. For the last 3 weeks, I have been doing 2 open classes most of the days, 7 days a week. Before that, I used to do open classes 3 days a week. I'm not performing, I just meant how well I did in class, for example, if I was doing consistent triple turns on Friday, then I have the weekend off, by Monday I'm only able to do double turns and gradually I become more consistent with my turns over the course of the week.

[Victoria Leigh]

Seven days a week is not a good idea for anyone. The body needs at least one day of rest. Your technique will not diminish with one day off. And it sounds to me like your plans for all the other hours of the day are highly excessive. Yes, some extra stretch and strength work is okay, but in moderation, please! If you have two ballet classes, I would not do more than one hour of other related work. And I think I read on another thread where you wrote about a lot of relevés and other things every day, in addition to classes. Be careful there. Very easy to cause overuse injuries when you do anything to excess. Instead of building strength, you may destroy it by creating injury.

[cxllqhy]

thank you Ms Leigh, my feet have become a bit problematic again, so I'm going to take a week off just to let it heal completely, despite all the stress i feel for not doing class and exercises right now.

[Victoria Leigh]

That sounds like a good idea.