Balance, Tippy Toes and Stress Release

The word ‘Balance’ in the context of ballet can mean 2 completely different things: it can mean balancing to achieve beautiful positions and can also mean balancing ballet with everyday life. Let's talk about beautiful positions first! Balancing on tippy toes is the dream of many young dancers but this is certainly not the only type of balance we see across ballet. Many dancers will soon realise that finding their central balance by maintaining a neutral pelvis is pretty much essential for any dance move. But how can you maintain a neutral pelvis? Elongation of the spine is paramount and can be achieved by imagining a string pulling up out of the top of your head whilst the spine lengthens up and very slightly forwards. The next step is to imagine that three quarters of the body weight is being supported on the balls of your feet whilst one quarter sits on the heels. Lengthening the oblique abdominal muscles and the rectus abdominis in the core whilst squeezing the glutes together helps to keep the pelvis square. Once this is achieved, movement will be made much easier and the dancers can safely move into more complex positions balancing on one leg or on their toes.

How about balancing ballet with everyday life? For many people ballet is a lovely release of stress and the movement helps to wake up sleepy bodies which have been working hard all day or perhaps not moving very much at all. For professionals, ballet is something that they do as a job and they too must learn to balance it with their daily life. Whatever your reason for ballet, balancing it with other commitments can be tricky but when you get it right it can have wonderful benefits to health, well-being and happiness. Someone once told me to do something you love everyday and I think if you follow that rule you won’t go far wrong!