Episode 178: Interview with Maria Haralambis
Dr. Chelsea: Do you use the cue to “pull up” or “point your toes”? Those are common cues teachers use in the dance world. But today I have a guest, a fellow dance scientist, who's going to help us understand what dance teachers should know about dance science and how to use it in their curriculum.
Hi, I'm Dr. Chelsea! Welcome to Passion for Dance. My mission is to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills. And one mental skill is attention and learning how to take a cue like pull up and translate that to a helpful action on your body. I know some dancers hear your cue and then nothing happens, but my guest today has some great insights for us on how to help with that.
Her name is Maria Haralambis, and she's an expert in dance kinesiology and currently works as both a ballet teacher and advisor for many dance education platforms, including IADMS, the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, and the National Dance Education Association. Dance anatomy can be fun, so listen in while we talk anatomy and use that knowledge to train turns and balance and so many important skills!
But before I dive into the show, I want to invite you to follow wherever you're listening. It's free. It simply means that each new episode will show up in your podcast feed every Thursday. That simple follow is what allows me to keep creating these episodes for you. So please just follow wherever you're listening now. And if you're not sure how you can go to www.followthepodcast.com/passionfordance. You can do it from there with one click. Thank you as always for your support of the show!
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[Motivational Music]
Hi, I'm Dr.. Chelsea, a former professional dancer and mental performance coach. I know what it feels like to be a passionate dance teacher who cares about your dancers, but you want to challenge them and help them be their best, and I also recognize that some traditions and teaching practices in the dance world are harmful. So I'm on a mission to change our dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers using positive mental skills.
When you understand how to help your dancers with their confidence, how to find their own motivation, work together as a team and more, your dancers will unlock new levels of competitive success and happiness. And it's not just about them; you deserve the same. So we'll talk about how dance teachers can use positive mental skills to be more confident, resilient, and motivated as well.
Be sure to hit “subscribe” wherever you listen to podcasts. There are new episodes every Thursday, and each week you'll hear from me and my guests with advice and actionable tips for building mental toughness, covering topics about mindset, motivation, resilience, and building a community. Passion for Dance is a show designed to help dance educators like you have a positive impact on every dancer you teach.
[Motivational Music]
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Dr. Chelsea: Hi, Maria! Thank you so much for coming.
Maria H: Yeah! So excited on this lovely Tuesday to chat about nerdy, fun stuff! Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: I know. It's always fun to find the other science geeks that are excited about dance science. Will you introduce yourself? Tell us a little about what you do, both your dance time and your now medical specialty side.
Maria’s Experience as a Dancer and in Her Work Today – 3:05
Maria H: Yeah, so I'll start with, you know, some of my most strongest childhood memories. I was a very curious kid. I was a very curious dancer, but the questions I would ask were more, like, anatomical, right? I was thinking deep for my age, and I think now looking back, I'm like, you know, I think I just was always curious and I just wanted answers to my questions, right?
And I mean, dance science wasn't really a thing at that time. So I don't really hold, you know, resentment to the teachers that I had, because I had good teachers who were willing to like, “Oh, you know, maybe I'll research that. Maybe I'll read up on that. Maybe I'll help you with your hyperextended knees,” right? So just looking back, I think some of those memories kind of just planted a seed. I'm like, you know, I think I'm going to try to answer those questions for myself.
So I decided to get an undergrad in dance at Wayne State, and it happened to be an amazing experience. I met a lot of good mentors and one specifically, you know, when I had my dance kinesiology class, I was like, “Wow.” The light bulbs that go off at a moment like that. But, you know, the flip side of the coin is like why didn't I learn at least some of that from a young age? And I think that's the biggest takeaway for me is, yes, it was nice for me to learn about when I was 18, 19 years old, but it's like, that's already my body and my mind playing catch up.
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Maria H: So if I would have had a little bit of lessons, you know, built into my training I think at that point I wouldn't have had to play catch up on so many things, right? But it started to answer the questions, it started to answer like, “Okay when I do my développé to the front, why am I feeling this in my right hip,” right? It started to answer those questions because when you learn about your own anatomy you start to figure out, “Oh, maybe I'm not bad at développés. Maybe I just need to think about them differently or maybe I need to do this exercise to help me,” right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Maria H: So that led me — you know, I'm a nerd. I love science. I love reading. I love stuff like this. So once the passion was planted in me, I just couldn't stop. So I continued my master's right away. I didn't take a break in between, and then same thing with my PhD. I continued right away into all three. I got Pilates certified from the mentor that I met at Wayne State and had a really great experience there. And yeah, now I'm doing my PhD online and focusing on my Instagram.
One thing I want to do on my Instagram is I want to try to bring the science down for people and make it into simple teaching tips, right? Like, what's one thing that a teacher can look at and grab? “Okay, today, try this for your pirouettes.” You know, one little take away because, realistically, you know, it's like who has the time? I mean we're science nerds who read long articles.
Dr. Chelsea: Right, other than us. [Laughs]
Maria H: Yeah, who other than us does that right? So that's one thing I'm trying to focus on is trying to make the simplest things that you can do with your dancers that don't even cost you any money.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Oh, I love that. I resonate — yeah, I resonate with so much of that in also feeling like I found my side of the dance science late and was like, “Oh, if I had known some of this earlier.” And same, I had wonderful teachers and mentors. We just didn't know any better.
Maria H: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: And then now we get to make a career out of how do we bring this to the students now? But then, yeah, so much of there's great research out there, but it's a wall within academia that is not easily accessed, and then even if you can't access it, to your point, you're like, “Okay, what do I actually do with this? How do I take all this cool research and make it mean something when you're going to go teach tomorrow?”
Maria H: Right. And I mean, it's even hard to even just read a scientific article if you're not used to the language and like how things are laid out, and people get a little overwhelmed by that. I mean, I even get overwhelmed by it and I'm reading things constantly. Educators are busy, they're wearing a lot of hats so I'm like okay, I can give them simple things that don't take up a lot of time of their day.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. It's like anybody can read the science and try to understand it. And it's not that it's like the PhD level is over your head. It's just that they're dense and they're long. And if that's not of interest to you —
Maria H: Time consuming, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, no worries. So we're going to break it down today. That's our plan. We're going to try to talk some science and share with people to make sure you have — like you said, great tips for stuff to take away.
The Importance of Using Dance Science in Curriculums – 7:22
So let's start with kind of the broader picture of using dance science to create a better curriculum, to be a better teacher. So what do you wish dance teachers understood about using dance science in their curriculums?
Maria H: So I think there are a lot of common misconceptions when we even hear the word science, right? When we hear anatomy, like building anatomy into dance technique class, right, I think there's a lot of things that come into our heads. It's like, okay, one of the things people think is that it costs all this money, or we need fancy equipment, right? When really the lessons that I try to give people is you could really be doing this with — I mean, time is a thing, obviously, because you're going to be taking a little bit of time out of technique class. But what I say to that is it's a little bit of a mindset shift because I tell people the lessons that you're going to be giving your dancers, they're going to go a long way and a short term, right? There are both short-term and long-term benefits.
So, let's say you're working on pirouettes with them and maybe they're hitting a wall with their pirouette, dance teachers will think, “Oh, I don't want to take time out of technique class. I’ve really got to work on their pirouettes.” But it's like, okay, these little lessons will actually help their pirouettes and other things, right? And I think the other thing I try to focus on is, like, it should not be boring. It should not be a sit-down lecture, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Right.
Maria H: Who wants to sit down and listen to a 20-minute lecture on physiology of the hip and biomechanics of the knee? It does not have to be over their head. So there are a couple of simple ways that I explain it for teachers.
One thing that I call it is the sprinkle technique where you kind of just sprinkle anatomy as you're teaching something, or the other option that I have for people is that you can set aside maybe five minutes during class. Like I said, if you're teaching them pirouettes and you're kind of hitting a wall with their pirouettes, it's like , okay, maybe you could take five minutes of technique class. And I mean, teachers are going to see that these little things go a long way if they're done in a way that's not boring, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Maria H: If they're tapped in a way that's dynamic and engaging with the kids.
Dr. Chelsea: Oh, for sure. I feel the same way about mindset stuff. I'm like, you don't have to take an hour out once a week and work. I was like, it's just how it's sprinkled into what you're already doing, which makes it much more powerful for sure.
Maria H: Right. Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: And especially for both mindset and anatomy, but in the anatomy stuff, how much more powerful for the dancers to be feeling it as you're talking about it rather than sitting and listening to you, yeah.
Maria H: Right. And then, you know, the common thing that we hear is, “Oh, I can't take away time from teaching. I have 45 minutes. I have skills that they need to learn by the end of the year.” And I'm like, “Ah, trust me. I get it.”
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Right.
Maria H: “I teach too. I get it.” [Laughs]
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, it does feel like a step back, but it's like a one back for five forward kind of mindset.
Maria H: Exactly. Yep.
Where Balance Comes From – 10:12
Dr. Chelsea: Like it's worth it. Yeah, so you're talking about pirouettes. I want to talk about balance and pirouettes and get concrete for people. So, let's start with balance broadly. Will you explain a little bit behind, like, where does balance come from?
Maria H: Yeah, another common misconception that I learned a lot with my undergrad is all my life I thought that balance was just about having a strong core, right? Like, “Oh, if you have a strong core, you can just balance forever.” But when you learn the anatomy behind balance, it's actually three bodily systems that work together.
And so, one thing I like to do with dancers since they're already so visual-dependent and they're constantly staring at themselves in the mirror is I like to take away the visual system, right, and work on something called proprioception. When you work on proprioception more, when you take away the visual aspect, when you have dancers close their eyes and try different things, right, you're training their other balance system, the vestibular system too, which is in the inner ear.
So you start to understand that things work together as a family, right? It's not just like you can have a strong core and that's gonna — of course, it's gonna help your balance because things work as a family, but the family has to work together with all the missing pieces, right? So that's how I like to explain it. It's like a family working together.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, that makes sense. And with proprioception, it's your sense of your body in space, right?
Maria H: Exactly. Yep.
Dr. Chelsea: Like you were saying, knowing where you are in space. I love the advice to close your eyes and take that away, because if you are an able-bodied human, you're going to rely on your vision. Of all of your senses, we go to vision first. And like you said, dance has this, like, you're in the mirror all the time. So being able to — yeah, and not just turn around and don't face the mirror, but actually closing your eyes.
Maria H: Close your eyes.
Dr. Chelsea: I could see why that connection would make a big difference. Yeah.
Maria H: Yeah. Yeah. It's the simplest things, right? These things are like the tiniest, little lessons.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. But it does. It does matter a lot, to close your eyes and actually think about your body and where it is and how are you holding yourself and changing those connections.
Balance Tips and Cues – 12:14
Any concrete tips for dance teachers to teach balance or for dancers to improve their own balance beyond closing their eyes (a great first one)?
Maria H: Other things I like to say are the body is working as a dynamic whole. Everything is going to work together as one harmonious system, is what we're trying to get the dancers to do. So I say, “Push into the floor. Grow taller on your standing hip. Grow taller on that standing glute.” I like to combine my cues with direction too. Instead of just saying, “Squeeze your left glute,” I might say, “Lift your left glute up a little bit on that standing hip,” right? Or I might say, “Drop this right –,” you know, I like to kind of combine direction so that my dancers know something has to get moved anatomically or posturally speaking, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Okay.
Maria H: “Let’s get that right hip down,” you know? I try to give a lot of direction when I cue them.
Dr. Chelsea: Well, I feel like a lot of teachers, we are cueing all the time, right? We're saying, “Pull up! Pull up,” and it's like saying pull up doesn't always go anywhere, right? You know, you're like, “They're not doing it!” So it's more than just saying pull up. Will you speak to that? I'm sure that's one of those things that bugs you.
Maria H: Yes. Yeah, there are so many common cues that have been around for years that I mean, they probably worked at some point in time. You know, they probably worked for people. So we're not sitting here and disrespecting them. That's another thing that is misunderstood with dance science sometimes. It's like, “Oh, we're just respecting the art form.”
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, no, it's know better, do better.
Maria H: Yeah, it's actually we're just trying to blend art and science just a little bit more. We're not trying to take the art away or the science away, we're just trying to marry both together.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: So what were we talking about? Sorry, what was that?
Dr. Chelsea: No, I was talking about the cues and how we tend to just say, “Pull up!” and then get frustrated when the dancers don't know what to do.
Maria H: The cues, thank you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, I mean, the teachers think that they're communicating a certain thing to the dancers. Like, they might have a good intention. The teachers are probably thinking, “I want my dancer to do this more,” and it's probably coming from a good place, but what they're not understanding is it's getting lost in translation because if a teacher doesn't have the anatomical knowledge to support their cue, they're just going to keep saying the same thing, and then, like you said, they're going to get frustrated when the dancer isn't doing it and they're just going to say, “Oh, well, this dancer isn't trying in my ballet class because I've told her to pull up 68 times.” But it's like, okay, well, first of all, there's probably an issue — I mean, I can't say there's probably an issue, but there could be an issue where maybe this dancer needs a different kind of cue, you know? Maybe their learning style is different from the cue that you're giving them, right?
So teachers need to constantly be thinking, “How can I teach the same skill in a long spectrum of different ways?” I always try to give that to teachers. “How can I say pull up in different ways?” Because, I mean, saying pull up over and over again is just kind of like hitting a wall.
Dr. Chelsea: It is. Well, and we know what dancers tend to do, right? Like we know what we're trying to get them to do, but then you see but the shoulders go up.
Maria H: Exactly. Exactly.
Dr. Chelsea: All of the wrong things go up instead of trying to help them do —
Maria H: It's like, “Pull what up?” [Laughs]
Dr. Chelsea: Right, yes! “Pull what up?”
Maria H: “Pull what? Pull what?”
Dr. Chelsea: And I see it on the mindset side. I see the frustration on both sides because not only is the teacher saying, “They're not doing it.” The dancer in their own head is probably like, “But I am doing it,” and thinks they are following.
Maria H: They think they are.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: They think they are.
Dr. Chelsea: And so, then they're like, “Something's wrong with me. I suck at this. I can't –.” it's going to have this horrible, negative self-talk consequence when now everybody's frustrated.
Maria H: Right, and like I said, teachers probably have a good intention when they're saying the cue over and over again but, I mean, when something isn't working, you need to go back to the drawing board, you know?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: I think teachers need to be constantly problem solving. We constantly need to be thinking on our feet and thinking, “How can I solve this problem right here and right now, or if I can't solve it right now maybe I can come back tomorrow with a better way to teach this dancer what I'm trying to get them to do.”
Dr. Chelsea: Absolutely. So, okay, let's stick with “pull up.” You said, anatomically, if I'm not aware of what that means.
Maria H: Right.
Dr. Chelsea: So what would you want a dance teacher to know about saying “pull up”?
Maria H: So usually speaking, when I hear teachers saying to their dancers “pull up,” I think they're just trying to get them to lengthen the spine is one thing that I see teachers wanting or just supporting with their core muscles a little bit more. Would you agree that that's kind of — yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, I think that's usually — or it's like the pull up, but then close the ribs. And it's that combination.
Maria H: Yes, it's the both at the same time. Yeah, so I mean, one thing I like to say is we don't want to knit the ribs together too much and close the ribs off too much because then we need to be able to breathe. So that’s why sometimes it's hard with cues and sometimes anatomy gets a little complex because, like I said, if you don't have the anatomical awareness, then you're just going to keep kind of saying the same cue over and over again and hitting that wall.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Right.
Maria H: So something I like to say is, “Engaging the core in a dynamic way so that you're not sucking in.”
Dr. Chelsea: Okay. So what does that feel like or look like?
Maria H: So when we engage the core dynamically, you're not gonna see like a sucking in, you're not gonna see the belly contract inwards because we want to support core in a way that you can still move and function, right, so that they can support your pirouettes without, like I said, sucking in because once you suck in, the diaphragm can't move up and down.
Dr. Chelsea: Which makes sense. I think you're right.
Maria H: Yeah. Yeah. You want to be able to breathe.
Dr. Chelsea: Like the younger dancers — yeah, when you say pull up younger dancers just suck their stomach in.
Maria H: Suck in. Yeah, they hollow. They completely hollow, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. They hollow and shoulders go up.
Maria H: Yeah. That's not what we want.
Dr. Chelsea: No, it makes sense. And I can see how saying “lengthening the spine” would have a better impact on the body.
Maria H: Yeah, “Grow two inches.” Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Right, yeah, grow two inches. And then the connection for me — what I realize too, it's like pull up — sometimes teachers are talking about — if you're in passé, they're talking about that passé leg of like, “Oh, it's actually a hamstring thing,” or like it's a different part of your body, and instead we just say “pull up” over and over and over again.
Maria H: Right, and that's the thing is we need to be specific with what we mean, you know? Because it's just getting lost in translation.
Dr. Chelsea: For sure. So, yeah, I think that's such a good point with cues that they, like I said, many of them are what we were given or what we're used to. They'll work for some dancers, and then some dancers are going to say, “I am doing that,” or “I don't feel it.” I don't know how many times you've heard that as a teacher and the dancers are just like, “I don't feel it.” You're like, “Right. Okay, so we need to talk about a different way to do this.”
Maria H: Yeah, and that's why, yeah, like I said, it's important to just keep in mind it's not going to work for every dancer.
Dr. Chelsea: For sure.
Maria H: You know, the same cue doesn't necessarily work for every dancer.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. You think of another — I was trying to think of another example of a common one but then a more effective version. I think of, especially with the younger dancers, when we say, “Point your feet,” and then they just crunch their toes, right, not knowing what they're really supposed to be doing with their foot.
Maria H: Right. Again, it goes back to just knowing basic anatomy, but it's a little more than just basic anatomy because you also have to understand anatomy. When we're talking about dancers, things are always a little bit different, right? Just reading a science textbook is a little bit different from understanding dance anatomy, so I really encourage people to read specifically dance kinesiology books and dance anatomy books, because they're filled with stuff like this, and they'll even list common cues, and then they'll, it's like, okay, here's a different way to think about it, you know? Because, like, like I said, once you just understand one basic thing about the foot, you'll be like, “Oh, I don't think pointing the toes is as anatomically accurate as I might have thought previously,” right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Maria H: Or maybe if I grew up with pointing the toes, maybe it worked for me and that's okay, and you can like respect and then like just — we can just improve it a little bit, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: Sometimes I don't think like the cue has to be completely removed. I think maybe sometimes just the wording and when we use it can be adjusted.
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Maria H: Yeah, right.
Dr. Chelsea: So what would you say instead, to be more anatomically appropriate with your foot?
Maria H: Yeah, so something I say is, “First of all, the toe should be long when we point the foot, not curling or crunching over.” So I use the imagery of making a rainbow shape up and over or making the shape of a long banana.
Dr. Chelsea: Okay. Yeah.
Maria H: And then we'll just practice with my dancers, “Okay, shorten your banana, curl your toes under; and then lengthen your banana out or lengthen your rainbow,” yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And visuals are always good. Yeah. Visuals are always helpful for kids to be able to see, “Okay, I can make a rainbow. I can see what that does.” Yeah.
Maria H: Because everyone, yeah, they know what a rainbow is, they know what a banana is, you know?
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yeah, and we know from the brain science side of it, being able to connect to visual is going to help them remember what to do. Yeah, I love that.
Maria H: It'll stick in their brain more, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. So, with cues and understanding your body, and then that's going to help with balance, we were talking about pirouettes. I want to come back to that because I think the other cue that we say a lot that may be misunderstood is when we're talking about spotting is we'll just say, “Spot, spot, spot,” you know?
Maria H: Another one, yeah.
The Science Behind Spotting and Pirouettes – 21:26
Dr. Chelsea: So what do you wish dancers and teachers understood about spotting or just kind of the science behind pirouettes in general?
Maria H: So I really view spotting as finding an ideal balance between whipping the head a little bit but also keeping the neck free of tension. Does that kind of make sense?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: You don't want either one —
Dr. Chelsea: You don't want to squeeze it too hard.
Maria H: Yeah, you don't want either of the really extreme spectrums, like I said, where we're just overly whipping the neck or where we're not creating enough whip to actually — I mean, spotting is a little whip of the head, right? That's just naturally what we've learned with technique and just how anatomically it works too, because there's also a lot of research that has come out about how it supports the dancers, and it obviously keeps them from getting dizzy.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maria H: Yeah. So it's good for their vestibular system to actually focus on a spot and to not just turn, looking around the room.
Dr. Chelsea: Sure. Okay.
Maria H: But first, it's just about finding a balance, right, with our dancers, not having them overly whip and not having them not whip enough and just not spot.
Dr. Chelsea: Okay. So how do you go back to cues? How do you cue that? Or how do you talk to your dancers about that balance?
Maria H: Yeah, so I like using dot stickers that you —
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm.
Maria H: — just find on Amazon, you know, those like just circle label stickers and just putting them on the mirror.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: Yeah, and then having — or I'll hold a big colored circle, and I'll tell them, “Tell me when I'm just at your eye level,” so they're not spotting anything too low or too high for them. And I'm like, “Okay, look at my circle or look at my hand,” and I have them just do marches around themselves.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Okay.
Maria H: I’ll say, “Look at my hand for as long as you can and then snap back around.”
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Right.
Maria H: But again, not in a way that's just tense, tense, tense, tense.
Dr. Chelsea: Okay, so you're watching them. I think all those kinds of spotting techniques that we've seen before and probably — your point being warning them or looking out for if they're holding too much tension.
Maria H: Overly tense. Exactly. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Chelsea: Okay.
Maria H: Because, I mean, one thing that popped into my head too is on their less dominant side, you're gonna want to work on things like this.
Dr. Chelsea: Oh, yeah.
Maria H: Yeah, because like the less dominant side is going to be slower at organizing things.
Dr. Chelsea: For sure. Oh, yeah.
Maria H: So you’ll have a spotting side that's way slower.
Dr. Chelsea: Right, and when you say organizing things, it’s the neural organization, right?
Maria H: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Chelsea: Right, that yeah — so when you're —
Maria H: Body organization, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, you're teaching your brain of — you know, I always explain it with, like, you're creating superhighways, versus like the first couple of times you do something or when it's not as strong, it's like the back country bumpy road. It's going to take a long time to get there, and you’ve got to make the superhighway, and the only way you do that is repetition.
Maria H: Yeah, I recently taught a workshop about training the dancer’s less dominant side of turns, and it was very successful. Yeah, dancers were saying it was like the most turns that they've ever done.
Dr. Chelsea: That's awesome!
Maria H: We just focused on their less dominant side the whole time.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, the whole class.
Maria H: They were like, “We're not going to do our favorite side? I'm like, “No. Nope, sorry. You do it every day!” [Laughs]
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yeah, and even when teachers are — our technique classes are well balanced, which we hope is true and happening when you get into competitive season, you're not balanced anymore. You tend to be training one side so much more.
Maria H: No, you're on your favorite more.
The Dangers of Only Training One Side More – 24:45
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Will you speak a little to the anatomy of that? Like, when you train so much on one side, the dangers of that?
Maria H: Yeah, so, like, mentally, I think there's probably some mental blocks that happen, too, because, when we know what's our less-dominant side, we will avoid it, right?
Dr. Chelsea: For sure.
Maria H: And this is for me too. When I was in my Pilates certification, there were some exercises that are still hard for me. So, mentally, I would avoid those exercises when I would go and do my Pilates workout. But I'm like, you know, actually, that's not what science says. Science says that we need to keep doing the movement patterns that we're uncomfortable with so that they can become comfortable, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Maria H: So, first, I tell my dancers I don't let them call it their good and bad side. First, I tell them their favorite side, I call it their love side because they already love it.
Dr. Chelsea: Uh-huh.
Maria H: And then their less favorite side, we call it their extra love side because it needs extra love.
Dr. Chelsea: Nice. That's awesome. It is. It's a simple mindset thing, but it's true because it's that fixed mindset trigger. It's as soon as you say, “I can't do left,” or your teacher says, “Okay, from the left,” or in a ballet classroom, they're like, “Reverse,” and your brain short circuits and you're like, “No, I can't do it!”
Maria H: Anxiety. Yeah, anxiety. It's the same thing with pirouettes.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm.
Maria H: And I asked the dancers too, I'm like, “What do you think is going to happen if you keep just doing your favorite side of pirouettes and only working on your less dominant side, maybe once or twice a year?” They're like, “I think it'll get more uneven.” I’m like, “It's just basic logic.” Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Right, I went through a phase with a specific — it was like a year of just — I was already an adult, different kind of training, and my calves, they're different sizes now. My left calf is significantly stronger.
Maria H: Wow. Really?
Dr. Chelsea: And it's like — because I spent so much of my life in the ballet world that is pretty good about being equal, right?
Maria H: Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: You do both sides of the barre every day, and then when I left the ballet barre and went to a more contemporary setting, all of a sudden I was like, “Oh, wow, I'm super uneven,” because there was so much dominant-side training that it was an epiphany to me, even as an adult, I was like, “Wow, okay, that's a concern.” And then it does become more uncomfortable. All the mindset stuff kicks in. I was like, “Wow, I haven't done left leaps. I haven't done left turns. No wonder I feel off balance and not as coordinated.” It’s because you haven't trained it, so yeah, you are less coordinated going that direction.
Maria H: Right. And so, I relate pirouettes to building a recipe. And so, I tell the dancers on their less-dominant side, all of the ingredients in their recipe are less organized. And so, what they have to do on that side is amp up all their ingredients on their less-dominant side. Everything that they use on their favorite side that works for them, right? Anything they do for their core, for their shoulders, for their foot, anything that works for them, I'm like, “Amp it up,” on their less-dominant side.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Do more and more of it, yeah.
Maria H: Yep.
Dr. Chelsea: Just a little personal aside, my daughter just learned simple hip-hop, like baby freeze. She's eight, and she was having fun with it, and it took her, like, a month to get it on the right side. And she got it. She was so excited, and we celebrated for a while, and I was like, “Okay, now we’ve got to try it on the left.” She was like, “What?” I was like, “This is how dance works.”
And so, we had to walk through, I'm like, “How do you organize your feet? How do you organize your hands? Which way do you go?” And she immediately was like, “Oh my gosh, I don't know what to do.” I was like, “You're right. You don't because you haven't done it yet. It took us a month to get that side. It's going to take a while, but we can't like only do that side.” It's those little life lessons, but she had the immediate like, “Oh my God! No, I can't!” I'm like, “We can do it. We can do left. Keep going. Left is good.”
Maria H: But that's good, you know, at a young age that you're not making her do the left but helping her through the left side, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Helping her see it. Well, you see it with flexibility too because people are like, “Oh, I'm flexible on the right,” and then they don't do their left or they —
Maria H: Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, they don't do it as long. They kind of cheat through it. Yeah.
Maria H: Right, long term, there's going to be some issues, you know?
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Well, yeah.
Maria H: Things might be rosy, but yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Short term you have all this beautiful flexibility on one side. I would think if you are thinking from an anatomy place, that would have significant consequences if you are more flexible on half your body.
Maria H: Right. I mean, we hear more and more dancers getting hip replacements, knee replacements at a young age.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm.
Maria H: You know, one of my ballet teachers had two knee replacements, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, and you think some of that is the imbalance and the flexibility and strength?
Maria H: Yeah. Oh, yeah. The overly forcing things, yeah. The harsh environment, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Maria H: Yeah.
Shifting The Way We Think About Anatomy – 29:21
Dr. Chelsea: Any other topics, advice for teachers and dancers listening that you want to share?
Maria H: So we talked about how the mindset things within anatomy too, like really shifting the way that we think about anatomy, because one thing I want to stress that I've probably already said 500 times is anatomy should be fun.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yeah.
Maria H: Please don't read the word “anatomy” and just think, “Oh, boring,” or, you know, if you had a negative experience growing up, I know that that can be hard for people. So I just want to make it clear that anatomy can be fun and should be fun for our dancers. It's not something that we should fear or think that it's going to take time out of our class.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. No, I think that's great. And it is, like you said, that little mindset shift where if you are truly about growth and getting better and improving, then it's just increasing your understanding of yourself and your body is always going to be better. Just like we would want to understand strength training better, we want to understand nutrition better, we want to understand the brain better. You can bring in so many of these tools as just a way to improve yourself and not take it as, “This is scary or this is too hard.” It's like, it doesn't have to be.
Maria H: Right, and then when dancers start to get used to it too, they start to see, “Oh, it was always a part of my training, so that means it must be valued as equal to technique,” right? They're going to think, “Oh, it's not just about me getting 16 pirouettes. It's also about supporting my body through that, and how can I do those pirouettes the best?”
Dr. Chelsea: Right, that long-term injury prevention piece, right. Yeah. Doing it properly along the way.
Maria H: Yeah. Exactly.
Dr. Chelsea: We want dancers to live long dancer lives, keep dancing well into adulthood, and that's going to start with that kind of training as kids.
Maria H: Of course. Yeah, from a young age, yeah.
Connect with Maria – 31:07
Dr. Chelsea: Thank you. Will you share how people can find you and connect and learn more about your work?
Maria H: Yeah. Yeah, so the main page that I'm on is my Instagram page, @the.dancescientist. That's where I'm most active and posting. I'm also @thedancescientist on TikTok, same as my Instagram handle. And then a good place you can find all my links is if you just click the link in my Instagram profile. It'll take you to a link page that I've created with everything listed really easy for people. Yeah!
Dr. Chelsea: Great. Wonderful. Okay, well, I'll make sure that's in the show notes.
Maria H: Thank you!
Dr. Chelsea: Any other last thoughts, advice you want to share?
Maria H: Dance science can be fun! Dance science does not have to cost eight million dollars. [Laughs]
Dr. Chelsea: [Laughs] I love that! We will keep bringing the dance science, too.
Maria H: Absolutely.
Dr. Chelsea: Yep! Oh, thank you so much for sharing today. I really appreciate having you.
Maria H: Thank you! Yes, love this conversation. Thank you so much.
Dr. Chelsea: You’re welcome!
Maria H: Enjoy!
Dr. Chelsea: You too!
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Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance! You can find all episode resources at www.chelseapierotti.com/podcast, and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high-performance tips at @Dr..chelsea.pierotti. This podcast is for passionate dance teachers and coaches who are ready to change the dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers. I'm Dr.. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.
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