Rest

"We do this every night as a habitual activity – it gets dark, we go to sleep… usually.

Outside of “sleep” dancers/performers/movers seem to find the concept of rest relatively unimportant and seem to think that “pushing through it” will be fine.

First, lets change the word rest to recovery – this sounds a little more active and therefore more appealing/acceptable. The point of recovery is to allow your muscles, nervous, immune, mental systems to repaire and process the stresses that are constantly being placed on them by pushing your physical ability. As we all know, fatigue leads to injury – injury leads to no dancing.

You can start your recovery training (yes, view it as a part of you training) by taking 20 minutes out of your day to let your parasympathetic system come back into play, allowing you to become more ‘anabolic’ and repair any damage to your body.

This 20 minutes should be something really simple and relaxing – meditation in any of its forms being the most beneficial, but anything counts – reading a book, listening to your favorite music, enjoying a cup of tea etc. etc. just make sure that is all you are doing for 20 minutes. Let the stress fade away."

This is taken directly from the blog of Athletic Artist, a site well worth visiting. HERE!

Little tip

From Pointe Magazine:

Tip: Stretch Deeper 

Want to get a better stretch? Hop on the foam roller first. “Rolling helps to break up adhesions in the muscle,” says Sally Donaubauer, a physical therapist at the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries. “It can also help mobilize the fascia around the muscles.” When the fascia (the connective tissue that surrounds your muscles) is loosened up, you can go further, getting a more productive stretch.

Remember....

The most important thing I can say to you: