Archive for injuries
July 21, 2008 at 10:17 pm · Filed under dance, injuries, CARLA, pacific northwest ballet, les ballets de monte carlo
Life just keeps giving me opportunities to continue to grow as a person. Last January, I was rehearsing Juliette with Lucien Postlewaite for PNB’s new production of Christophe Maillot’s Romeo et Juliette. I was thrilled that I was getting to dance this amazing ballet and I was getting to work with Giovanna Lorenzoni and Gaby Baars from Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. I knew my back was in trouble but the idea of letting go of an opening night as Juliette seemed impossible to me. A week and half before opening night my body shut down. Like coming out of a dream, I was awakened to realize once again that nothing is more important than my health and that it was time to let go. It was an experience of letting go of control. The pain was very humbling. My body was injured and I had to help it to heal.
So here I am. Six months have gone by and my back has mostly healed from a compressed fracture in one of my vertebras. I have returned to dancing (as of this past week!). But this past six months have been very valuable to me. What I can remember from my past injuries is a lot of frustration and depression from not being able to dance. But this time was different. After realizing I wasn’t going to be able to perform Juliette, my mind, body and soul felt open to see what else I could do with myself besides dance.
The first thing I did was to enroll in a class at Seattle University. Until now, I never had an honest desire to go back to school, but since last year the idea of studying again seems wonderful to me. So I took an English and a Philosophy class and loved every moment of it (or almost every moment of it!!). I loved the fact that I was learning new things and I loved seeing myself as a student. It was very easy to dedicate myself to every task. I also started to take singing lessons. As a kid, my Mom and Dad sang with a choir and my older sister had a rock band. They all have incredible voices. We used to sing all the time. (We had songs for Beer, Meals, Chimarrao tea, beautiful sunsets) So I found Ann Evans, my Voice teacher, who has reminded me of how free one can feel when singing. It’s been healing to me to sing again and remember my times in Brazil singing famous Brazilian songs with my sister.
And one of the most important lessons from this injury is how much I have learned about my body and especially my back. Ever since I moved to Seattle I have been interested in the wonders of the human body and how it all works. I have taken Aston Patterning courses in movement and alignment to try to understand as much as I can about the body. Through this injury I got to work with great physical therapists, from traditional to holistic, Naturopathic doctors, Aston patterning, and acupuncture, etc. All of them added something to this enormous puzzle in my head about the body. I enjoy learning and working with the body so much that it makes me wonder if perhaps I will pursue something in this field when I retire from ballet.
But for now I am back to ballet and ready to be onstage again next Sunday. I will be doing four shows at the Vail Dance Festival. My first show will be at the opening night Gala, Sunday July 27th. Damian Woetzel choreographed a piece last year for Tyler Angle (NYCB) and I, and we will dance along with Phillip Glass on the piano (how exciting is that!). My second show will be with PNB, where I will be dancing Fancy Free. Then I have two more shows for the Vail International Evening of Dance with Batkhurel Bold.
It can be so easy to be completely hypnotized by the excitement of being onstage again and to get mesmerized by the magic ballet can create. However, I need to remember: ballet is my eternal love, but my body and my health is still the most important thing because without it I wouldn’t be able to dance.
Writing this post will help me remembered that!?!?!?
See you all after Vail. Hopefully I will have some nice shots from the tour and good news about how my back is doing!!
Recent Posts by carla korbes
May 29, 2008 at 7:43 pm · Filed under dance, injuries, joffrey ballet, LAUREN
Last week I sprained my ankle in company class and have been in physical therapy since starting the healing process. It was the first sprain of my career, so it was pretty severe. The day it had occurred I had an ankle bone similar to the size of a tennis ball, but in less than a week the swelling has decreased dramatically and bruising has been flushed in directions away from the ankle bone(i.e to my toes and outside of my calf). Luckily, Joffrey is on layoff for the next four weeks and I have ample time to recover. My progress is going well and I have been working on releves this week in therapy on the reformer. 
I have been having my ankle taped for support and bruising in my toes is clear in this picture.
Joffrey uses Athletico in the East Bank Club in Chicago for therapy.
Recent Posts by lauren
February 19, 2008 at 6:15 am · Filed under dance, injuries, blogs, writing, wingers, magazines, marketing, TAYLOR, kristin sloan, bloggers
(LINKS UPDATED 2/20 SO THEY ACTUALLY WORK! HAHA SORRY ABOUT THAT)
Hi Wingers!
Life has certainly been keeping me busy since my last post about graduating from college, and there’s lots to catch up on (performing, teaching a bit, internship, writing…). But instead of focusing on that (which you can read about in my other blog) I wanted to write about an event tonight hosted by movmnt magazine.
Movmnt is a quarterly dance lifestyle magazine that just came out with it’s spring 2008 issue. The Winger was featured in their last issue, and in this new one there’s an article I wrote about injuries, featuring The Winger’s own Kristin Sloan. First of all, if you haven’t seen the magazine you need to get a copy of it…and I’m not just saying that because I write for them. It’s really a fresh take on the dance world that most other dance writing out there doesn’t offer.
THAT being said, tonight the magazine hosted another blogger get-together similar to the one that Cedar Lake Dance had last month. This time we were able to sit down and actual have some serious conversations about dance, publicity, pop culture, and so much more.
Readers, you should know that all of these bloggers you follow are really incredible people with unique perspectives, who all deeply care about dance on a level that I have personally never experienced before to such a degree. It’s different than being in a room full of dancers, or full of just dance enthusiasts. We all come from different places and have our own ideas, and to share them with each other and on blogs like The Winger really does something for the dance world (in my opinion!).
Tomorrow or someday really soon I promise to post details of our (fascinating) conversation and conclusions we came up with, but for now here’s a basic rundown of my experience at the get-together.
I ran into Evan of Dancing Perfectly Free in the elevator on the way up to the movmnt office, and when we got there we were welcomed by David, Editor and Publisher, some of his magazine staff, and Doug . A stack of sandwiches and multiple diet cokes awaited us, with chips and snacks added to make us feel at home. It’s funny because even though we all see each other in person once in a while (and only since the Cedar Lake event), we all have a sense of what’s going on with each other that we don’t really even need to ask, “So how are you?” Haha we read each other’s blogs and it’s such an amusing connection. Sometimes when I blog I think, who on earth actually reads this. It’s nice to hear that people actually do!
Anyways, multiple other bloggers filtered in within the next half an hour, including Tonya and fellow Wingers Tony & Brian (visiting from San Francisco). After munching and marveling over each other’s real life personas versus blogging personalities (haha), we got down to business.
The nearly 2 hour long conversation went everywhere from what influence do bloggers really have on the dance world, to what dance companies are/aren’t doing to modernize themselves through publicity, to social networks and the fame culture, to where is the blogosphere headed in the future (any thoughts on any of this, please comment!). Everyone raised some very interesting points and sparked some great debate/dialogue. It’s really inspiring being surrounded by people who care so much about dance…I was fascinated by each person at the table.
After saying goodbye and walking away with another copy of the new issue, I took the subway uptown with Evan and we continued the conversation for the whole ride, discussing the issues already raised and bringing up other things we forgot to mention. Now that I’m home and thinking it over I realize there is so much to be discussed and we’ve only touched the tip of it. I hope we have more get-togethers like this regularly in the future, and it would be great to hear from blog readers about some of the issues mentioned above.
More details from our conversation and photo(s) to come soon, but big thanks to movmnt for hosting the get-together. If you get a chance, head to Barnes & Noble and pick up the new issue to see my article and lots of other interesting dance writing!
Recent Posts by taylor gordon
February 18, 2008 at 9:39 pm · Filed under dance, injuries, DR-R, hamstring, anatomy
All athletes at some time in their career tend to injure, strain, pull their hamstring muscle.
In high school I played hockey and basketball. Unfortunately, my coaches had no idea of how to prepare the body for athletic performance and how to stretch after activity. This led to chronic hamstring tightness and pain for three days after every game. My hamstrings are tight to this day, 20 years later!
Most dancers will not have very tight hamstrings, however, their incidence of hamstring pulls and tears are high due to there constant lunging, running and jumping.
The key to decreasing the incidence of injury is to be aware of mild hamstring strains and tightness in the muscle. It is also important to stretch correctly and to have balance between the quadriceps (anterior thigh) and hamstrings (posterior thigh).
In this article I am going to discuss the basic anatomy of the hamstring, symptoms of injury, stretching and ways to decrease the incidence of injuries.
Lets begin with anatomy. The hamstring muscles are located in your posterior thigh. They consist of three muscles: the Semimembranosis, Semitendonosis and the Biceps Femoris (long and short heads). They originate from the Ischial Tuberosity of the the pelvis and part of the femur and attach to various portions of your knee, Tibia and Fibula.
Because they span the hip and knee joints, they have two functions; one, to extend the thigh (such as arabesque position), and two, to flex the leg.
Two extremely important structures that are overlooked in hamstring strains are the SACROTUBEROUS LIGAMENT AND THE SACROSPINOUS LIGAMENTS. To some these ligaments are an extension of the muscles. Many times the hamstrings will not release and repair, if there is dysfunction in these two ligaments. Sometimes scar tissue develops between the muscle attachment and the ligament. Stretching the muscle will never get rid of this scar tissue. I have seen immediate benefits and an immediate increase in range when releasing adhesions between these structures utilizing Active Release. (unfortunately you can’t stretch and work these ligaments by yourself).
This is a great picture of the 2 ligaments.
One more important anatomical fact: The Sciatic nerve, which is a combination of the lumbar and sacral spinal nerves, runs down your posterior thigh. Many times muscle spasm in the hamstring can pinch or irritate the sciatic nerve, thereby mimicking a disc herniation with nerve root irritation.
How do you know if it is your hamstring that is causing that posterior thigh pain or that chronic back pain. Remember, the hamstrings attach to your pelvis, which attaches to the spine. A constant pull on the pelvis can cause a low back syndrome.
An easy test for tightness is to try and touch your toes. This is a simple test to check for flexibility of the hamstring..
2 activities which may lead to pain and signal the hamstring as the culprit are the following: 1) Do you have pain in the leg or back when rising from a seated position?
2) Is there pain in the leg or back when walking up stairs?
These two activities cause the hamstring to contract and can give valuable information regarding the muscle.
Stretches
This is a great warm up stretch. Keep your feet shoulders width apart. Bend forward from the hips. Keep your back straight. Do not let your back curve. Hold for 7-10 seconds. If you are doing this correctly, you will feel it in your legs.
This exercise is based on the pilates move. Keep your leg flexed, then slowly extend the leg. Do not rush or bounce this stretch. Nice steady movement, and hold for 5 seconds.
To all those non-dancers. Sitting at a desk for long periods during the day is a prime reason for hamstring tightness. You must try to get up and move 2-3 times an hour. A great stretch for the average office worker is the first standing one. Do that a few times a day to stay loose.
Next month QUADRICEPS
Recent Posts by drdavid
January 28, 2008 at 2:49 pm · Filed under backstage, ballet, dance, injuries, choreographers, japan, EVAN MCKIE, the stuttgart Ballet, pina bausch, national ballet of canada, wingers, website, dancebloggers, opera house, opera houses, choreographer, issues, dacners, stuttgart ballet, back injury, choreography, bolshoi ballet, suttgart ballet, ballerina, marcia haydee, web, swan lake, injury, stuttgart, paris opera ballet, chirstopher wheeldon, john cranko, reid anderson, marcela goicoechea, luis ortigoza, balet de santiago, patrcio melo, debut, american balet theatre, opening night
( …in the world of Geraldine Georges. more at www.geraldinegeorges.be )
!
It’s been awhile!… I suppose it’s high time that I share a few minutes with the ever-popular Winger family!
Though I have become more of a ‘’distant guest contributor'’ here (not my words) due to an increasingly heavy workload, I still check in from time 2 time to see what has been going down. I have been able to meet a few other contributors in 2007 and especially enjoyed catching up with David H. after a decade, seeing Patricio dance with Luis and Marcela from South America and first meeting and then sharing jet-setting tips with Christopher in a german Christmas market only to realize who it actually was a day later!!!! I also want to congratulate Kristin on being an absolute role-model this past year while making difficult life choices. I wish you, Kristin, happiness in your new position at NYCB and am glad you still manage to make time for this site. There doesn’t seem to be any other cyber-place with such a variety of different artistic voices!
I was asked recently what some of my highs and lows of 2007 were…I thought it might be a good way to discuss what’s been going on with me since I last wrote.
Aside from the little problems that can arise in a world filled with blood, sweat and tears, I found myself confronted with some more threatening issues in 2007. I became sort of plagued by a variety of significant injuries that prevented me from doing things that I REALLY wanted to be a part of; like touring to Korea again with Sue Jin Kang, creating a new role in a Christian Spuck ballet, and just generally working on improving my abilities as a dancer. This is when I was forced to realize that ‘lows’ can turn into ‘highs’ if you come at problems from the right angle. Every dancer goes through a huge injury at some point and having the advice of friends and accomplished dancers like Bridget Breiner and Robert Tewsley to guide me through was invaluable. I launched into therapy that taught me new things about my body and I learned about the power of breathing among other things. I decided to have a GREAT time and so I spent days visiting friends from Berlin to Paris. I was happy to see wonderful art and theatre in both places and meet exciting new people. One night after seeing an ABT(on tour) show at the Theatre du Chatelet I found myself on the Avenue de L’Opera. I stood staring at the beautiful Opera Garnier where I had JUST danced one month before. Now I was an invalid dancer shivering outside in the rain wondering if I’d ever be onstage again. A friend called me and invited me to hear him DJ at Le ParisParis which is also on the Avenue de L’Opera so i turned my back on the Garnier and swore to myself that I would forget the stage if just for that night and have a good time. I did but it was difficult to remove my thoughts from the theatre. During the following months I started to let go a bit and noticed an immense improvement in my condition (two ruptured and herniated discs in my lower back). The time soon came to come back to work and I was ready to take on new challenges and more mentally/spiritually prepared to do so than I was before I left for therapy.
Because things move so quick here (the company has had about 70 shows since I penned my last post even…), I was back onstage within a 2 week time period. Being there this time was like a new experience though. I enjoyed myself more than ever because I could feel that through letting go of the ’silly stresses’ of dancing, I had matured as an artist…if even just a tiny bit. 
I won’t bore with other small details that followed this event but I will mention one thing that happened right around that time that I consider to be a highlight of my year: I was cast as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake!
I was going to dance my first principal dancer role with a great big company AND my partner would be doing it for the fist time aswell! What happened next was a combination of greatness and misfortune…
My Odette/Odile, Linda and I rehearsed and rehearsed. The company and staff were so behind us and I felt incredible chemistry with my partner. We were finally ready to dance our first show! We stepped onstage together and with adrenaline flowing heavily, we delivered to a hungry audience that was eager to witness our virgin attempt of the Tchaikovsky classic. Things went well and the excitement increased as we completed the 3rd act where the sorcerer’s evil swan daughter deceives the Prince and tricks him into marriage. It was time to ‘fall into’ the beauty of the 4th and final act that has a tragic love pas de deux that is exclusive to the Cranko version. We danced together for what was to be the Swan and the Prince’s final dance before she is turned back into a swan creature indefinitely and the Prince drowns trying to save her. I could feel her breath on my neck and the moment was magic when suddenly there was a funny sounding click and I realized that my partner’s shoulder had come dislocated in one of those backwards port de bras movements that distinguished the swan from all other classical roles. We exited the stage and she courageously held-in screams as the orchestra played on. Her shoulder wouldn’t pop back in and it was a devastating sight. I ran back onto stage and somehow managed to improvise with the corps de ballet of swan girls as if I was looking for the swan queen who I had lost somehow. 5 whole minutes played out as I performed the ballet til the end while wishing I could somehow help my beautiful partner who was by now being taken to the hospital.
Thankfully no lasting damage was done to Linda’s body but mentally it was difficult for everybody invloved to have been a part of such a beautiful process that was abrubtly cut short. The newspapers carried the story in their headlines and there was an influx of well-wishing notes. Linda still needed time to recover so I was scheduled to dance with Anna, another of my frequent partners. I was sad to see Linda watch as I rehearsed with another soloist just a day later but the show HAD to go on. Luckily Anna and I have chemistry that matches the intensity of Linda and mine together. This is rare (the two ladies share the same birthday too) but I was happy to be dancing with her and glad to not have to try and manufacture any feelings that should come naturally. Our show went over well and I felt the confidence that only a second show can bring. My ballerina told me she had never had so much fun and I believed her.
Since that time the direction was kind enough to give Linda a chance to redeem herself in the role and we danced the ballet, in it’s entirety, on a Christmas tour of Spain. Due to the incedible emotional journey that the ballet inspired for me, I’d definitely put Swan Lake at the top of my personal 2007 ‘crucial moments’ list.
4th Act embrace with Anna Osadcenko in ‘Swan Lake’ with the Stuttgart Ballet. Galina Mezentseva as Odette.
As Stuttgart’s autumn season brought scattered flurries to the Schlossgarten outside the theatre, indoors there was a blizzard of different ballets being performed. ‘The CRANKO festival’ was underway. Infact it was all planned far in advance to celebrate the company’s founder. We all danced a long list of roles that Cranko had created for his star-personalities of the time and many of them came back to help us get into each individual role. I danced Lenski in Onegin and special parts in ‘Brouillards’, ‘Jeu de Cartes’ , ‘Holberg Pas de Deux’ and ‘Initials’. Infact, I just debuted over this past weekend for the final two shows of ‘Initials’ in the hauntingly beautiful pas de deux created for Marcia Haydee and Heinz Claus from the 3rd movement. ‘Initials’ is one of those rare ballet’s that demands a large company fueled by a sense of camaraderie. Four principals represent four seasons and the music by Brahms is so powerful and melodic that it is hard for me to imagine it without steps attached. The choreography is difficult and there are alot of leading roles so that everyone has their own personal responsability to the ballet. We were all in it together and every single person felt like an important ingredient that was required to bring this ballet to fruition. The Cranko festival was a ‘high’ for me because it afforded me with the chance to dance roles that I loved while being a part of a 3 month long seminar-like expereince where I was able to focus solely on what made Cranko, the choreographer tick. I saw footage that I had never seen before, saw roles that had been lost in ballet history and celebrated (night after night) the ballets and steps that made the choreographer so famous. There were gala events where guests were invited to come dance all of the most popular Cranko roles. How lucky for them to be able to dance such roles on the stage where they were first received and how lucky for us, here, to be able to see how other artists interpret the roles that we know so well. (Alina Cojucaru as ‘Tatiana’ from ‘’Onegin'’ was one of my favourites.) I also thouroghly enjoyed getting to know Polina Semionova while dancing ‘Lenski’ with her ‘Tatiana’ in a special gala performance of ‘’Onegin'’.
1st time Siegfried in ‘’Swan Lake'’. Flirting with Katja Wünsche’s ‘Olga’ in ‘’Onegin'’
I’ll leave it at that for now as the new year is well underway now and I want to go out and accomplish brand-new things to reflect on at a later date. Altogether, I feel good about celebrating the ups and downs that my career as a ballet dancer brought me in 2007 and I want to make sure to thank the people who have celebrated WITH me! Whether it’s european balletomanes, my family and colleagues, or original Stuttgart Ballet members (antiques) who encouraged me to keep writing here at the WINGER (.. ..) I have recently been getting alot of attention in Japan aswell and am frankly quite baffled by it as I have only ever done ONE show there!..BUT I am always thrilled to receive the notes and extremely creative gifts from my friends in and around Tokyo. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but I am thankful and proud to have such a dance-educated group be interested in me! Thank you.
Let’s see what’s in store for ‘08. I promise to do my ballet-best !………
-Ev
Photos: The Stuttgart Ballet. (I am sorry I only have the few from recent while. The truth is I don’t have that many at my disposal!)
Artwork: a gift from the amazing Geraldine Georges
www.geraldinegeorges.be
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
January 7, 2008 at 8:43 pm · Filed under dance, injuries, health, stretching, psoas, DR-R, dr. david rosenthal, injury prevention, exercises
The Psoas Syndrome
Happy new year to all. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.
I wanted to start the new year off with one of the most common sites of injuries for dancers. I am talking about the most powerful hip flexor in the body as well as a powerful trunk flexor, the ILIOPSOAS.
Injury, shortening and contracture of this muscle can cause lowback pain, hip pain, sacroiliac pain, mid back pain, clicking hip and pain down the leg. It is commonly misdiagnosed as a low back strain or a disc bulge or herniation.
It kind of makes you feel that you are off. You seem to walk unbalanced. Common causes of injury are repetitive hip flexion. sleeping in the fetal position, lifting incorrectly, and in a dancers case the constant hip flexion and external rotation seen in a grand plie and a demi-plie.
A brief anatomy lesson of the iliopsoas. The Iliopsoas is made up of the iliacus muscle and the psoas muscle. It attatches from the the lumbar spine and iliac fossa to the lesser trochanter of the hip. It actually connects to your lumbar spine. If this muscle is contracted and is pulling on your spine you can develop a low back pain syndrome.
One way which I check for psoas shortening is the following: You need 2 people for this. Have the patient lie on there back. Have them bring there hands above their head fingers touching. Usually the problematic side will show that one of your arms is shorter than the other. Your fingers won’t meet at the tips. The short side is the dysfunctional one. There are other orthopedic tests for the psoas but that is for the doctors office.
A common release stretch for psoas shortening.
This is a stretch I recommend to my patients for psoas dysfunction (this is not medical advice, please see your doctor before doing any of this)
What is the best treatment for a psoas problem?
The muscle is not outwardly palpable such as the hamstring or biceps muscle. You really need to dig deep to get to the psoas. Stretching helps but rarely eliminates the problem. I have found Active Release Technique to be the most successful treatment in the case of Psoas dysfunction. ART allows you to fully stretch the muscle while breaking down scar tissue and adhesions that develop from repetitive use.
IMPORTANT TIPS
Situps- Make sure to isolate your abs. Many times you recruit the hip flexor or psoas and it takes away from the Abs. This improper situp can cause injury to the psoas. How do I do that?
Place both feet on a wall and do a crunch. Feel the difference.
In cases of LOW BACK PAIN, MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR PSOAS CHECKED. If you are being treated for Low back pain with adjustments, electric stim, ultrasound, pt, stretching, etc and you are not feeling better after 4 or 5 visits, LOOK TO THE GREAT PRETENDER, THE PSOAS.
Recent Posts by drdavid
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