Karina (00:03)
You're listening to Thriving Dancers Podcast, a space for moms who believe that dance should build our kids up, not break them down. I'm Karina, your host, an integrative health educator, researcher, and dance mom. And I'm on the mission to bridge the gap between holistic wellness and the dance world. Because our dancers deserve more than rest and ice. They deserve full body, full heart support, so they can thrive for years to come.
Karina (00:35)
Hello Dance Moms and welcome to Thriving Dancers Podcast. I'm super excited for you to be here today because this is our first official episode. And of course, on our first episode, we are going to talk about injuries because what else are we going to talk about as Dance Moms, right? Well, besides the cost of the attendance, the cost of the competitions, the amount of time we're driving, the little sleep that we get, but we're not going to talk about those today.
We're going to get to it maybe in a couple of podcasts ahead, but today we're talking about injuries and injuries happen, no matter how much we try to prevent them. And there is still an ability for us to try to prevent as many injuries as we can. And there are a lot of things that we can do as moms to help our dancers be able to do that. One of those things is something that
A lot of professional dancers actually started using it not that long ago because a lot of professional athletes have been using it. β and let me think also actually military uses it. Something of a magical thing that they call visualization, but we're going to get to it in a bit. But first let's talk about why do injuries happen when you think you're doing everything right? You are
following the typical advice, you rest and you don't dance on the injuries, right? No, no, no, no, no. None of our dancers ever just push through pain, do they? And you ice and you follow all the advice that you possibly can and injuries still happen. Well, there are many different aspects to injuries. So injuries don't just happen out of nowhere, right? It's, mean, there, of course there are accidents that happen. I acknowledge that.
And then their majority of the injuries that dancers have are actually overuse injuries. And that's what research shows majority of dance injuries are actually overuse. So it comes to constantly being, in doing the same repetitive movements that eventually put so much stress on that part of the body that it finally cannot take it anymore. And that's why those stress fractures happen, in the, in the
in dancers' backs and in other bones in the body. So those are very, very common actually. And how can we prevent those? Well, stop overusing them. Duh. I mean, that's the best advice we can get. But at the same time, you're a dancer, you have to do those movements 10,000 times in your lessons. So how do you avoid doing and working on your technique while at the same time...
you know, getting better and at the same time, trying to avoid the injury. So there's all of that contradiction, which doesn't make sense, obviously. So what you can do is first of all, you have to understand your body as a dancer. And that's where parents can come in to help dancers really understand what their body is like when it's stressed, when it's overworked, and also when it's in good shape, when it feels good.
even when you do multiple repetitive movements. And that's where we can get to a point where we can notice subtle things that are about to go wrong before they go wrong. Okay? So the first step in really preventing injuries is to know in your body. And we as dance moms can help our dancers do that by teaching them various techniques and how to listen to their bodies.
so that they know when their body is in the state that really needs rest. Or when they're in the space of, okay, I've just done this so many times and I'm feeling this weakness or this weird twist. So I am going to stand this one out, sit this one out. This one time, I'm going to massage this area here. I'm going to do something here so that I can reset my body into a place
that can sustain and sustain the movement and sustain the extra pressure I'm going to put on that part of the body, whether it's a foot, it's a whole leg or it's a hip or it's your back or the neck or the arms even. Yes, I know there are no cart wheels, although dance has been very different lately. There've been a lot of cart wheels in dancing, I don't know. But if there is...
cartwheeling happening, managing shoulders and arms as well, right? Because those can also get injured. So understanding the body and how it's feeling in the moment can really be the very first step that could prevent a massive injury. And, you know, when you're in a studio, well, not you, obviously, well, we are in studio too, but you know, not on the floor. When our dancers are in a studio and they're
having that feeling, β I need to take a break, I need to sit out or I need to correct something before I can move on while everybody else is continuing.
A studio that's very supportive in actually helping dancers prevent the injuries by also encouraging dancers to understand their bodies. And that kind of studio will go a long way in preventing injuries for your kids. And that's kind of my step number two is being in a studio that actually supports injury prevention as opposed to pushing through the pain and
whatever, doing the old ways where, you know, ballerinas used to wear, wooden I think even metal shoes, something insane like this. I mean, who invented that? I'm not, I'm not going to go there because I do have an answer, but I'm not going to go there. But you know, who's, who's actually living in that era anymore? And a lot of especially classically trained dancers are in older,
studio owners are kind of in that mindset a lot of times and, you know, not to poo poo, you know, on, various, dance studios, but there's a lot of pressure for a dance studio to produce results. And of course they're going to do what they know and how to do it, but it is not always really the best or the safest way. You know, research now already shows that static,
pushing and stretching is actually really bad for dancer's body. It does not allow the dancer to create the muscle strength internally. So they are actually predisposed to having an injury in the area that's this, the stressed in this way. So, you know, you've seen a lot of videos probably of especially the old ways or I've seen them in some of the countries.
I know they still do some of it in Russia. It's going away a little bit, but there's still the old dancer mentality there. But where you have a dancer and then you have the teacher or a trainer that is pushing on their back to have them bend in a certain way or to supposedly stretch them. But that's not really...
what the body is meant to do. If the body is not going there, pushing it physically and putting someone else's force on that area is actually going to create damage to the muscle fibers as opposed to having the muscles that the dancer is working on themselves to build the strength and to build the resilience and also elasticity in that area.
So there's research in that and unfortunately a lot of studios don't quite know that. So finding the right stretching teacher is also very important. So that's your number three tip here. And that is finding someone who really understands that pushing on your child's body is actually more detrimental than helpful. Helping them to get somewhere by maybe
holding their foot in the right position or correcting their position is absolutely very, very helpful because a lot of times kids, of course, they don't know how to put their body in the right form. However, doing the actual force and forceful movements for the muscles of the child is extremely detrimental and causes perhaps not in that moment injuries.
But it predisposes the child for future injuries, making that area actually weaker. And that's not what we want, right? We want our dancers to be healthy. We want them to be able to be stretchy. And at the same time, we want them to be able to use that stretchiness to do the dance. And if they can stretch, but they can't hold that stretch.
That is the biggest sign, So if you're seeing a dancer that could lift their leg really high up, but they can't really hold it there, well, it means they kind of overstretched it, but they don't have the strength, which is actually quite a common problem among that kind of training, that kind of incorrectly trained dancers. So that was your number three is to find a trainer for stretching.
and conditioning and flexibility who can really get to help your child to get to where their body is meant to be. Because, and that is our tip number four, you as a parent, understanding your child's body is extremely important. Yes, you can teach your child how to listen to their body. However, different child has a completely different capability, physical and also emotional.
And you know, some kids just can't really get to that pain point and they can't handle it. And others, they don't really care. Okay, it hurts or whatever. I'll just, I'll just push through it and it'll be okay. And that's also kind of a danger, right? You don't want to have the kid who keeps on pushing, without understanding what a pain of effort versus pain of injury really feels like. And, know, we will talk about all of these.
individual components more in depth in our upcoming episodes. just right now, understanding the concept of it, I think is really important for a parent. And when I was watching my daughter, when she was just starting out, and I would compare her to the other kids, and I'll be like, interesting. So she can do this, but she can't do that. So I guess she just doesn't have the skill yet.
β And then, you know, over time, obviously being a dance mom for 13 years kind of teaches you one over five or thousand things. I realized that, well, also given the context, which I'll mention in a bit of her health and her body in general, we realized that actually her body has very specific limit.
β It is anatomical, physiological, and also pain point limit that her body is just not capable of doing some of these movements that are expected. And for you as a parent to be observant and understanding of how that works for your dancer is extremely important. And what I mean by that as well is, you know,
especially when they're little and they're just starting, So if you're listening, if you're a mom who is just starting out, first of all, kudos to you for being here, starting out so early to do this, right? Because it is so important to get this whole journey right. And I really wish that I had this information when I was starting out as a dance mom. I mean, granted, of course, we don't ever really know if our kid is really going to go in that trajectory or not.
β But sometimes we can figure some things out and be like, okay, even if it takes just a couple of years for them to just enjoy the dance as semi-serious activity, it still is important to do it right. Because there are some studios where, like an example I just gave you about studios that like to push on the kids to give them a little...
Nudge for stretching that can really hurt the child. Even if they're not going to be doing dance forever, but they can cause some injuries that could be lifelong. And even though our bodies repair, we could still develop some problems, especially if you don't really know how to manage those injuries in the correct way so that they don't become lifelong. That could cause a problem and we don't want to do that.
Thank you for being here early in your child's dance career so that we can kind of nip all that in the bud and not have your child experience these problems. So let's get back to our point of allowing β the dancer to really just get to where their bodies are meant to be. And the way that we can ensure that that happens and not beyond that is...
by watching and observing our kids in class. So I know it kind of sucks because we dropped the kids off and we're like, finally, I have the five hours to go and do my chores or three hours to go and record a podcast or whatever it is. in the beginning, I know when I was allowed to, we did...
My daughter actually went to PNB, Pacific Northwest Valley school for her two years in the beginning. And they did not have a place where we can observe a class, unfortunately. And that's when I couldn't really tell what her capabilities were there. But because it was just the beginning and then I did get to watch her during one of those
long awaited days of the, what is it, the observation days. It was amazing. And you get to watch your little ones to go from just like hopping around the room kind of aimlessly to going to, you know, in proper circles and, or actually doing something really pretty and musical. And that was really fun to watch. But anyway, I digress.
You know, watching your child do certain things and then seeing, okay, is that something that is more usual or unusual the way that they're approaching doing some of these movements? And, are they able to do what the teacher is telling them to do? And then also after the classes, talking to them about their experience, their body experience in the class. Because as we know,
dancers use their bodies as the tool, In what they do. So when we are teaching kids from early on, if we can, or whenever you're starting this, of course, not everybody's going to come to this from the very beginning, but also whatever your child is in their dance journey, then it's never really too late to have them start talking to you about how does their body feel.
Okay, when they're doing this movement, is there something or just having a, not necessarily a process, but a way that you can encourage your child to share if there's something that feels off. Because when you get to collect that information, that information is essential for some of those moments where there is an injury and you really need to explain to the doctors.
what has led to it, perhaps there's a better chance and really understanding what happened for the doctors. And then also potentially a better way for you to manage it also in the future. And then for the treatments to be more effective, because then once you know what happened and how things have taken place, then you can really put together a better protocol, if you will.
a better way of helping your dancer heal from that injury. And then also, of course, to prevent it later. So this point number four that I keep on talking about is really important. And this is something that I must confess. I did not actually practice it when my daughter was younger, because at that point I was still learning and figuring out, you know, how this whole thing works and...
While I was using a lot of holistic approaches and integrative approaches at home for everything else, dance wasn't really, it was like, okay, it was just there. know, we, we, we didn't really need to use holistic approaches for dance at the time. However, I've really wished that I did because it would have most likely saved a lot of other, subsequent issues that, β she had experienced. And I am sure that she would have had a lot.
easier time in doing some of these stretching challenges and flexibility issues or some of the other things that we had experienced a couple of years into dance.
And that brings me to point number five, which I briefly mentioned in the beginning, and that is visualization. And I'm not talking about the, the Wu kind of visualization where you meditate, visualize your dreams, put it on the dream board, et cetera, et cetera. You know, I mean, that's, that's pretty cool too. But what I'm talking about is visualizing actual performance or β
the technique that you're working on. So let me give you a bit of a background here. So when I was studying piano, you know, as every Eastern European descendant, we all have to learn how to play piano. And I never knew this. And I know for a fact, had I known this when I was a kid, who just did not want to practice.
Unlike of course our dancers who want to practice and be in studio 24-7. if I had used this technique, I would have been so much better and it would have saved me so much trouble in finding practice rooms or finding practice time to do all of the practicing. Because when I was in college and in the music conservatory,
but actually studying your neuroscience We'll go figure. I guess those two go together, right? I was told by my professor that actually using visualization, that is closing my eyes and imagining myself playing the piece without the actual piano, but perhaps maybe moving my fingers if I wanted to, but not necessarily,
But having the visualization of the music that I was playing was extremely important. And that could really progress me to the next level of being able to get that difficult part without having to spend five hours practicing. I mean, that was the expectation. Five to six hours every single day. Who wants to do that in a basement? Like that's just crazy.
But we have dancers who really want to do that. You know, they want to stay in a studio and keep on going over their purets, their turns, their whatever's. And it gets to a point where that's where injuries begin to happen because you're overusing it. Okay, you're going to do it 50,000 times in a studio. And then when the time comes to actually do it again, your body is going to be so worn out from doing that physically that...
You're not going to be able to do that again. And I bet you there are dancers who've done that and they keep doing it, doing it, doing it. And then they realize that they don't have the muscle strength anymore to keep doing it because it's just too much. Now, having said this, it is extremely important, of course, to build stamina, but there's different ways to build stamina and to work on the muscles. And this is something that we will talk with the experts.
on how to build the muscles properly and how to use different exercises for this type of work, for the full longevity and for the stamina. But I'm not going to go into the details right now, but we will discuss it with some of the experts that we're going to bring into this podcast. But for now, just understanding that that is doing exact same repetitive motion is not really going to build stamina.
What it's going to do is to predispose that part of the body that is being overused to overuse injuries. Yeah, you guessed it right. And the best thing that you can do is if you want to give, well, not you as a parent, but your dancer can do is you can teach your dancer to use visualization to actually practice that particular technique.
in their mind to do it correctly. Of course, for that, they have to see it done correctly. So really good pre-professional and professional dancers as well. They watch the proper execution of that technique and then they visualize doing it themselves. And actually there are studies that have been done where people
are learning piano from scratch. One group is learning just by visualizing, they did not actually touch a piano. Then there was a group that was visualizing and pretending to play, and then there's a group that was actually learning to play with a real piano.
All three groups learn how to play except that the one that was visualizing and also pretending to play did the best. However, the group that was just pretending, they actually did pretty much as well as the ones that were visualizing and pretending. So when your brain actually creating that muscle memory inside,
your head, but without the overuse of the hands and the muscles, then why not? Why put the body through the extra stress and shorten that longevity of the dance career by overusing the body so much when you can actually provide this kind of same technique, if not even better.
In fact, there's some dancers who get so good at that visualization piece that their time in the studio does not need to be so much. And when you don't have to be in a studio doing all of that same repetitive work that may predispose you to injuries, you actually have time to properly train the body
to avoid the injuries, but to create strength and proper flexibility in the body.
So our five tips that we talked about today, and of course, these are not exhaustive. There are so many other tips that I have for you. And also, well, what happens when that injury does happen? We will talk about that as well. There are different holistic ways of how to approach that. And there are also different ways of understanding, okay, well, what else is happening with the child's body?
Is there a potentially mineral deficiency that's happening and that's why they're having all these bone injuries? Or is there not enough vitamin C perhaps that they have in their body that is predisposing them for having some muscle issue? Or maybe they have a condition that is not allowing them to really do their best with their body. Some of those conditions like...
A condition I can never pronounce and that is, I'm just going to give you an EDS as the precursor to our talk about that condition. And that is a connective tissue condition that really causes great havoc in dancers. And actually there's a huge number of dancers who have this condition. And that is something that we obviously cannot not talk about.
on this podcast and we will bring in experts also to discuss how to manage it for dancers and how to avoid injuries when you do have that condition and a lot more, of course. But for now, let's recap our five tips that we talked about. So we started off with teaching our dancers how to listen to their bodies because that's really the first step.
And that is the closest step to the injury, right? If the body is knowing that something is off and well, more like the child knows that something is going on with the body in the moment, they can take a pause and actually prevent an injury from happening. And then we talked about having a studio that is supportive of these types of practices.
that understand that if the child is sitting out or is taking a moment and not doing the, β the, the twist, the turn, the jump, whatever, in that moment, that they're not being lazy or non-corporative, that they are listening to their body and they're working with their body to prevent an injury. And that is something that should be absolutely a no-brainer for the studios to, β to encourage.
And luckily, finally, my daughter is in that kind of studio, but we have been in the studios before that would actually belittle kids who had injuries, which is a total no-no. I mean, who does that in this day and age? Come on. So that is our tip number two, having a supportive studio.
Tip number three was choosing the right flexibility and strength trainer who can really understand your child's body and help them get to where their body needs to be as opposed to where everybody expects them to be. And doing that in the most safe and effective way. Our tip number four was to talk to your dancer about their...
experience, their dance and their body experience. So after every class or, you know, as often you decide, as you decide to ask your dancers, how are they experiencing certain movements and, or at least creating this connection with your dancer that they would feel open and free to share with you if they are having any issues. So for example,
my daughter was having some issues with her knees. so nearly every time I would just ask her, hey, how are your knees today? And she would share with me. Or β other times she would just say, β today my hip really just pulled out and they did this and this and that. And so it allows us to collect the information for potentially having to manage issues later or to
basically prevent those issues from happening later by collecting the information and saying, Hey, whoa, stop, let's check out what's going on. Because a lot of times the dancers don't really want to manage anything because they're really afraid to having to find out that they have to sit out and don't train anymore. But that's where our tip number five comes in. Because if that is the case and they have to sit out, it doesn't mean they do nothing. There's so much that could be done. one of those things is.
Like we talked about in our tip number five is actually visualizing doing the technique or the movement that they want to practice on without actually doing it physically listening to the music to which they want to do that, that movement to and practicing it multiple times in their head. They might be able to move their body a little bit just to kind of give it a little bit of kinesthetic memory, but really.
I would encourage to only use the brain and create a really good practice in doing that because our brains are so powerful. And it's not because I have a neuroscience degree, but also there's so much research that is coming out. I mean, nearly every day really that tells us how flexible our brain is.
how important it is to train and prime our brain before we even do a lot of the physical activities. And a lot of professional athletes actually do this. And like I mentioned before, even the military, I saw a video of, I think it was Blue Angels or somebody that were literally as a group. They were sitting in an office and they were visualizing, practicing their maneuvers.
in their heads, And it's like, you could even see them all bopping their heads at the same time and there's no music really in the background. So they weren't, you know, bopping to like Jay-Z or something. So it was just literally practicing their moves. And I thought this is such a brilliant thing because why can't our dance teachers teach dancers to do this from literally the young age? Because...
A lot of these dancers want to progress and they want to progress faster, but there are so many times and so many hours you can be in a studio. So having to have this tool is super important for getting better as a dancer, but then also managing the possibility of the injuries and minimizing the risks of those
stress and overuse injuries that we talked about in the beginning.
I hope this was helpful and please drop me a comment in the Instagrams and let me know if you want to hear more about some of these topics that we're talking about. I've got a million things I can talk about and share with you, but of course this podcast is for you and I want to give you the information that you want to hear,
So thank you for being here. This is all I've got for you today, but only for today. And we are going to come back next time with our episode number two, where we are going to talk about burnout. And I'm actually going to talk about burnout for dancers, but then also for moms, because both of those kind of sort of go hand in hand. And I think you're going to be surprised about some of the things I am going to bring up.
You know, if you think that, your dancer is too young to even think about burnout, think again, because I've seen some five-year-olds who have been burned out and I kid you not, their parents are probably even more burned out, but nobody really knows that. And we're going to touch on that next time.
there is a lot that nobody talks about that we really need to start this conversation. So please join me time on our episode number two. And it's not just about avoiding burnout.
but also about recognizing some signs and symptoms for both you and your dancer, and also about what you can do in a holistic way. And I'm not just talking about just meditation, but some other really powerful tools and tips that we'll touch on to address the issue, understand what burnout really is. Because if you don't really understand what it is,
How can you prevent it even, right? You know what an injury is or why it happens now, and you can prevent it. You can avoid it by doing your, at least the five tips that we've talked about.
So I hope I'll see you at the next episode, number two. In the meantime, if you do have any comments or questions or requests, send us a DM on the Instagrams and we will get back to you and we'll definitely take all of your comments and your requests into consideration because this podcast is for you, for the Dance Mom who is driving thousand miles every day. You know what? Some of you probably are, I would not be surprised.
My hat goes out to you and those of you who are also having multiple dancers in the family, which is even more, you definitely have to be here for episode two because that burnout could be really real. And for those of you who are just starting out as well, welcome again. And I hope that this was helpful for you to really understand how you can set your dancer for a really fun and
as much injury-free dancing time as possible.
So don't forget to subscribe. This really helps us to understand that, hey, this is something that people are truly interested in so that I can provide for you as much value as I can so that you can help your dancer thrive and not just survive in a studio till the next lesson or till the next performance, but to be able to enjoy dancing and to have thriving experience, not just of dance, but also of life.
and I'll see you at the next episode.
Karina (33:51)
Thanks for listening to Thriving Dancer's podcast. If today's episode gave you a new perspective, share it with another dance mom who wants better for her dancer. Remember, Thriving Dancers start with supported moms. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.
