What is a chia seed?!

I absolutely love to teach.  In class this morning one of our student's, Lucy, told me I was a warrior :)  When was the last time YOU heard that?!  Well, it's actually on the label of today's featured post..... the health warrior: found inside of a chia bar.  This one (shown above) which I had after my run today happens to have coconut, and it was delicious AND filling!!!!

Getting it's name from the Mayan word for "strength", these small but powerful seeds are knows to boost and help sustain stamina and energy levels.  Chia seeds have the maximum amount of nutrients with the minimum amount of calories.  They contain fiber, omega fatty acids, calcium, antioxidants, and even protein.  Chia helps aid in weight loss and digestion by helping to curb your appetite.  So try adding this little tiny superfood into your diet!  

6 miles down today.....

.... only 20.2 miles to go.  I have officially been accepted to run in the NYC Marathon this November 1st!!!  I might be crazy, but it's happening!

As a young person I was always told that running was bad for dancers.  And now, as a Dance Conditioning teacher, I tell my students to hit the track and get to work!  I LOVE this article from Dance Magazine.  These experts give some wonderful tips for dancing AND running as part of your weekly regimen.  Of course when you're in specific training (for a marathon, a performance season, etc.) something has gotta give -- so adjust as needed to best suit your goals, your schedule, and your body.

Some interesting points from the article: 

• repeated bounce of running strengthens bones (like resistance training with weights!)
• running in parallel helps to strengthen those muscles underutilized -- especially for ballet dancers who are always working in outward rotation
• increases stamina -- strengthens heart and lungs (prevents injuries resulting from fatigue!)
• landing a leap in ballet is equal to 12 times your body weight, and running is only 7-8 times (who would have thought?!) 

Some great tips: 

• start smart with lunges and squats to get those muscles ready, and then balance power walking with short intervals of running until your body is ready for longer runs of 30-45 minutes
• muscle soreness is ok, but be on the lookout for any join pain, swelling, or tendon discomfort 
• pay attention to your form, a heel strike is great for dancers to roll through the whole foot and not tense up the calf muscles 
• get fitted for proper shoes -- just like you would for specific dance styles 
• the "runner's high" is an added bonus! 

So get out and hit the pavement!  

Happy (and healthy!) running! 

What is "quiet" time?

How do you define your "quiet" time?  How do you relax? Recharge?  Especially if you are an "on-the-go-24-hours-per-day" kind of person, how do you find time to relax, rest, and how do you get to a place where you feel like that is worthwhile and not merely a waste of time?

Many of the dancers at our program are high achieving students, dancing multiple days a week.  They are athletes, actors, singers, and deeply committed to things they care about: their families, baking, the environment, investigating other cultures.... the list goes on and on.  So how does a young person prioritize and then STILL find time to rest, relax, or take a risk?

One conversation I had with a student this afternoon ended with me encouraging her to go out and (literally) play in the mud this weekend.  Get absolutely filthy dirty, love it, then go home and shower.  If we are always following the road map, with fear of getting lost, we may be missing out on so much.

This conversation led to a larger discussion about how the kind of people we are often parallels the kind of dancer we are: if you are an organizer -- someone who loves order and structure, you may be this kind of mover.  If you are a risk taker, someone who easily "goes with the flow", you might dance with more abandonment.  Many of the students agreed with this, like they had suddenly realized they dance like their personality!

An interesting article, Dance moves can reveal your personality from publication The Telegraph, looks at the styles and trends of movements on a dance floor and the corresponding personality types of those movers.  My favorite highlights:

• "People use body motions as reliable indicators of others' personality types, and even the movements of robots have been shown to elicit attributes of 'personality' by observers."
• Michelle Groves, associate dean at the faculty of education at the Royal Academy of Dance, said professional dancers were trained to express their emotions when they danced and tended to hide their personalities, but this would be less obvious in untrained people.
• Dr Peter Lovatt, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire and a former professional dancer, said dancing and movement could convey subtle messages about the way people are feeling and thinking, which has its routes deep in our evolutionary history.
• "Confidence plays an important role in the way people dance. Self esteem also plays an important role and this can influence a person's personality."

So that leads me to more questions: are confident, more bodily comfortable people drawn to dance, or does dance shape you into this kind of person?  And if your personality draws you to structure and organization and a need to keep busy, how do you truly find rest?  Should you go out and play in the mud?  Should you paint, get messy, be daring? With it help to relax your movement in a technique class, or encourage you to take more risk?  I'd be curious to see!

The danger with keeping a close eye on the scale...

The students filled out some questionnaires regarding their strengths and weaknesses, their short and long-term goals, previous injury history, and a ton of other important pieces of information.  I was struck by some of the goals, especially those around specific "weight loss" goals.  To me, your weight should not be reflected by the number we see on the scale, but in how you feel and the tracking of your energy levels, physical strength and performance.  I turned to a great article from the Harvard Medical Center for some thoughts on this topic. My question:

How do we assess our size in a healthy way, and how do we get away from worrying about being "fat"?!

Harvard Health Publications states that most people have their own "private" way of assessing how "fat" they are -- like feeling your pants getting tight or loose, or catching your reflection in the mirror.  But how do we determine what is body fat, and what is bone structure, muscles, organs, hair... all that other stuff that comprises the mass that is our weight?  There are three common ways in the mix right now:

• Body Mass Index, BMI -- your weight in kg divided by the square of your heigh in meters.  It's generally a good measure of health risk as most studies show that with an increased BMI comes an increase in cardiovascular disease related deaths.  
• The down side... BMI does not separate pounds from fat from pounds that are created by fat-free tissue like muscle and bone.  It also doesn't tell us what kind of fat it is.  Could it be from healthy subcutaneous fat that's below the skin which protects us and keeps us warm?  Who knows?! 
• Waist Measurement -- not about weight or total body fat, but about the metabolically active fat that collects around the organs in our abdomens.  Waist measurement is a great predictor of diabetes and a good indicator of heart disease risk. 
• The down side... where do you measure "the waist" on the body?  Is it at navel level?  And it just might not be scientific enough to add to more quantifiable things like cholesterol, or blood pressure screenings.  
• Waist-to-hip ratio, WHR -- your waist circumference divided by hip circumference. Basically a smaller waist and larger hips is usually associated with a decreased right of heart disease, stroke, and other health problems.  

So... what to do?! How do we manage all of this?  What's in a number?

To me... nothing really.

As dancers we are so in-tune with our bodies that we know (quite easily) when we are out of shape, easily fatigued, and not performing at our best.  We don't need to step on a scale to know this info, and I encourage our students to step off the scale, and to begin to understand when they are FEELING their very best.  Muscle weighs far more than fat does in pounds, so when building muscle and developing your fitness you often GAIN weight.  Our bodies fluctuate so much (especially for women) and it's important to pay attention to any rapid weight gains or losses as this could be a sign of a major health issue, but try not to get too caught up in the number.  We must find a way to ignore the information around us in the news about what "beautiful" is and begin to feel what beautiful is.

Day Two: Bones, Muscles, and our first Circuit Workout

This afternoon brought us a discussion on key bones and bony landmarks for dancers to know as well as a some information on key joints we use often and the muscles that facilitate their actions.  One of the more important parts of the body for a dancer to know is the spine.  Each section has particular movement ability and when realizing this we can see the true value in the "expressivity" that is added to create beautiful dance movements.  

For instance-- the thoracic spine does not actually allow the body to hyperextend.  These vertebrae are shaped in such a way that they become locked against one another; it's actually your cervical and lumbar spines that allow us to travel beyond 180 degrees as you would in a back port de bras at the ballet barre.  

Similarly, the large vertebrae of the lumbar spine cannot rotate.  When spiraling the spine we imagine a starting place at the base of our pelvis, but he curve begins much higher.  In order to see the beautiful expression of dancers, we incorporate our arms, our focus, and quality, to create the spiral.  If we just look at the spine itself, very little mobility may be used -- it's all the other things that make dance beautiful.  

This expressivity that we spend years and years training and developing is what separates dance from athletics and makes what we do an art form.  When you're in the gym lifting weights or on the treadmill for a run, it's about the mechanics and proper form and alignment are a must.  Onstage, it's about feeling and expression.  It's about sharing that with the audience.  It's about communication.  

Back at NYSSSA!

Day 1 for NYSSSA 2014!!!

We welcomed 30 of New York State's finest dancers back to Saratoga Springs today, and began with our first day at The National Museum of Dance.  This summer in addition to teaching several Dance Conditioning workshops, I'll also be setting a new piece of choreography. I'll be keeping up with the blog again this summer, so check out postings featuring photos and videos of the students, interesting articles, and fun facts!  Today we began with some assessment and wonderful conversation.  Lots of excitement-- let's get to work! 

Check out Dutch in an overhead squat with his partner, Lucy: 

In the assessment we're looking for any deviation of the arms, head, lower back, knees and feet.  This will give us information about any muscle imbalances and help to guide our sessions.  We also investigated joint mobility, and strength testing.  

Most importantly the students shared some of their summer goals, which helped to spark a conversation about what someone looks like vs. how strong they might be.  We often think that the grass is greener on the other side, without really knowing the grass, personally. We see high legs and think, wow - that's so beautiful.  What we might not realize is that the dancer with an incredible amount of flexibility may have other issues, like developing strength.  It is about finding the best YOUR body can offer to you for what your goals are, not someone else's.  

It's a tall order, to accept the things we cannot change about ourselves -- like the skeleton we were born with or previous injuries -- and to improve the things which we CAN control.  That's our summer goal. Not to be someone else, but to be our best self.  And it starts today!