Stretching in dance, how the Franklin Method can offer you different solutions to higher extensions, tight hips and locked pliés…

Embodiment of the articulation and movements of the femur and pelvis is a tremendously supportive activity for dancers of all abilities and modalities, helping you develop greater comfort and range of motion, without the need for excess stretching.

A n d . . . . s t r e t c h . . . . . . . . . 

Dancers on the floor before class, often in box splits, that very dancer thing to do.  Dancers of every age and ability, dancers everywhere on Instagram demonstrating their stretching prowess!  It makes a great photo, sells classes and is a badge of achievement, but Instagram likes do not always equate to a healthy dancer.   My thoughts below consider how dancers could condition themselves to be more healthy dancers.

So, does it help the dancer? 

There is so much written about the need to dynamically warm up the body before class and strategically cool down using dance related movements and this is something you will see professional dancers working on before class (that’s a topic for another day).  Yet how many studios I have walked through only to find dancers hanging out or collapsed in their hip joint - is it helping them?   In some aspects range of motion may improve, especially in a static position (but there are other ways to achieve this with greater ease and speed!) but it often does not look comfortable and how often I think their time would be spent better working on conditioning their body in a dance specific way.  For many elite dancers the ability to demonstrate extreme ranges of motion come from a combination of diligent training and cross training, precise motor control and additionally the gift of a shallower hip socket.  However, a shallower hip socket trades itself off with a need for the labrum and surrounding soft structures to stabilise the joint in motion.  Coupled with a lack of rest and over training this issue can turn into a niggle and then into common dancer injuries such as hip flexor tendonitis, labral tears and cartilage damage.  Having worked with dancers who are still dancing, as well as retired dancers, many look back and reflect on how they had done things differently to avoid the problems they now have, but some came from a different time when the no pain, no gain approach was king.  Sadly today, there are still many dancers that feel this is a normal thing to go through.   

My focus, is on trying to help dancers and non dancers move more efficiently and in a healthy way. 

To help dancers of all abilities access a way of training that can be hard to find or has previously required a lot of travel to get to!  Having longevity in their dancing, to feel good about what they do as well as have bodies that last beyond dance, being able to feel so much happier, calmer and confident in what they do is what drives my work.  

Human beings are not static creatures and the skill of the dancer is to convey a message in movement.  Once they start moving that delicate balance of muscle groupings, proprioception and strength in the body displayed through an ease of motion that should make itself apparent and also allow room for expressivity.  It is my observation from watching so many dancers that for many, in spite of all that range of motion, the leg that can be pulled high up over the head is not sustained in movement.  Movement may still feel tight and blocked to the dancer, or just look awkward to the teacher, uncomfortable or transmit tension into other places in the body such as the the spine, feet or knees, which can start to suffer.  It’s not comfortable to watch, and I know for some of the dancers I have taught it’s not been comfortable for them to execute but they had been taught to think this is how it is.

A diet of stretching alone is potentially upsetting the long term health of the bones and joints and upsets the delicate balance of muscle spindles and proprioception, and often at a time when dancers, especially young growing dancers are so vulnerable. 

Perhaps one solution is not found stretching those hips again but by looking at your muscle strength and balance, and something called your body schema, as well as some basic movements we do in everyday life as well which then translate into the language of dance.

It would be a good idea to find out about it if we all want to have healthy hips for life! However, dancing requires such precise and fine tuned motor control if we have awareness and control over this many parts of the puzzle of movement and dancer health start to link together.  

Did you know for example that for non dancers as well as dancers aching backs are often a result of poor understanding of moving from the hip joint? 

Very few people I teach have any idea about that joint when they arrive at any of my classes!  Even some movement professionals are not clear!  Dancers don’t just walk, they perform complex movements at the hip joint repeatedly. 

How many times in class do you use a plié or any movement that bends the knee? 

Remembering that pliés in all their variants are a fundamental movement in dance, from which many other movements are built or transitions to other movements made that’s a lot of use of the hip.  If your mind does not have the correct body schema of the pelvis and the femur bone in movement your skeleton is not working optimally and from this point you can get real imbalances developing in the muscles.  Repeatedly training faulty movement or being unable to resolve a fault that predisposes you to injuries in the foot, the knees, the spine as well as the hip!  We need to try something different to feel comfortable in movement so what can be done?

Did you know that our bones have movements all of their own?  When you plié or perform any knee bend there is a lot going on throughout the whole body - think of it as a symphony of movement, very subtle, but nevertheless still there.  It can often be the case and with the best will in the world some of the cues that dancers are given become more foe than friend.  These are sometimes what we call a legacy cue, a hand me down from a much loved teacher, or something that is very personal to the teacher, which possibly may have been useful to their body.  However, some of the cues used in dance may be unhelpful, either anatomically because they lead to faulty biomechanics, or because they cue the end goal and not the process, or the metaphor used is not helpful for that dancer.  Imagery and its application is a skill and has a very specific process.  Once you learn it, it becomes yours to keep, but everyone benefits from training in it!

In the Franklin Method® we learn more about our design and go right back to the fundamentals of movement as human beings before placing the fundamental into an outer form - such as dance, or Pilates or yoga. 

That’s why it is such a flexible system for people who just move around as human beings or move within a movement modality.  We use lots of different strategies to understand movement.  Learning from a book about anatomy alone is not going to be as effective as feeling your own anatomy working in your body and using the mind through imagery in a powerful, precise and systematic way (we even have scientific studies on this showing the regions of the brain that are used when just moving, just using imagery or using both! That’s for another day!).  I have dancers from the whole spectrum of experience, some being medical professionals with many years of training in anatomy, and even they find they are astounded to experience what their body is doing in a felt rather than an academic way.  Franklin Method® teaches you to understand yourself and the many different systems we have in our bodies we can use in movement.  You would be surprised how quickly you can bring about an increased range of motion, flexibility, and level of comfort in the body.  And it is not just an opinion but a fact that it can help - at the bottom of my blog you will find the latest scientific paper that has studied what we do!

Some of the foundations I always use with dancers are the bone rhythms - these are the movement of the bones and the joints in our bodies to help us make safe, healthy and efficient movement.  Based on biomechanics, anatomy and dynamic neurocognitive imagery® we can help you get moving brilliantly with your design. 

By understanding and embodying what the pelvis, the hip joint and the surrounding muscle complex talk to each other in movement there is a better, more healthy and scientifically accurate way to move and increase your longevity, level of comfort and joy of dance.  You will find that movement becomes more comfortable, expressive and you have a much greater range of motion than you had before because you have managed to co-ordinate or synchronise your mind with the movement in your body, using very powerful imagery.  We teach from a student centred way, so there is no absolute.  It’s bit like trying on clothes, using different biomechanically and anatomically correct cues and a skilled systematic use of different types of imagery that allow the individual dancer choice to find what works for them.  In having choice and the chance for personalised learning, the body schema and motor control of the dancer is improved, and additionally, over time the dancer learns to take greater responsibility, relies less upon the mirror, and feels more confident in what they do.  We finally have the body singing in harmony.  Embodied dancers are healthier, happier dancers, they are more focused on what they do, calmer and definitely more confident.  Surely that a good place to be?

It’s a wonderful thing to move towards being the best dancer you can be regardless of how long you have been a dancer or what skills level you are at.  And, its wonderful to have worked with dancers of every ability level in the same class as everyone has something different they experience or learn!  There is something for everyone to come and explore, discover and feel their body really working for them in movement.

Come and discover how in a friendly and supportive atmosphere where we try things out and find what works best for you.

If you are interested in trying out the Franklin Method® come and try the following all on livestream:

Come to my masterclasses - Tension Free Dancer with the Franklin Method® Part 1 is now booking. Join my dancers’ Journal which sends you regular tips as well as advance notice of all forthcoming events. You will find it on my Franklin Method® for all dancers page.

Or come and join me in my regular classes on Tuesday’s and Friday’s - visit my Somatic Movement Studio to find out when and well as the other dancer specific programmes I run!

If you would like to discover some of the Science behind what I do, this is one of the latest articles on Franklin Method® in Dance available for everyone to read:

Dynamic Neuro-Cognitive Imagery (DNITM) Improves Developpé Performance, Kinematics, and Mental Imagery Ability in University-Level Dance Students, Amit Abraham, Rebecca Gose, Ron Schindler, Bethany H. Nelson and Madeleine E. Hackney.

I’d love to see you! and hopefully one day in person too!

© Sarah Pritchard , 2020-2021. All Rights Reserved.

DISCLAIMER: as I do not know your individual circumstances, none of my blogs, my videos, my guidance in the Facebook group or any other materials available to you where I have not taken you on as a one to one client shall be construed as advice and I shall have no liability to you in any circumstances should you choose to rely on any of the materials I publish.