DAY 1 at NYSSSA

Today's class began with a muscular assessment through strength and mobility testing.  The dancers paired up and got to work --- agility; flexion, extension and hyperextension of various body parts; balance...some new terms we discussed include

• pronation (rotating toward the midline, as in rolling in on your ankles)
• supination (rolling toward the outside of the feet)
• flexion (bent limb)
• extension

The dancers measured resting and active heart rates and we will soon discuss the impact of cardiovascular endurance -- especially for dancers and the amount of lengthy repertory that we perform.  It was even a bit of a challenge to do jumping-jacks for 3 minutes while testing! 

The student partnerships interviewed one another and began to do some visioning work that will help us to set goals for this summer and beyond.  They discussed previous injuries, current weekly movement activities and past kinesthetic experiences, strengths, challenges and interests. 

We found that many of the dancers in our group have extreme mobility in their spines and that dancers really do have incredible physical movement capacities.  We have to remember that "normal" people might not ever be able to move the way a dancer can!!  In order to move safely (and to have a long and healthy career in dance) we need to find our movement potential while maintaining proper alignment and increasing strength.