How to Regain Your Dancer's Body After Years Away.

Some of us dancers, for one reason or another, do not find themselves dancing for a career or past-time after high school or college or even after professional careers in dance. Here's how to kick start your dance life again.

In order to dance again, you must first have the dance life mentality that "I am going to do this, it may be hard and I will get discouraged. I am a dancer and I will stick to a routine and revel in the beautiful results." Once your commitment to yourself has been established, the rest will fall into place. Have grace and forgive yourself for the days when you lack self-confidence or the drive to persist and have pride and commend yourself for the days that you re-start after a low day or exceed your expectations on hard days. Push yourself on easy days and share your success.

Here are a few tips that will help you to reach your dancer body goals.

Tip #1 - Stretch

Stretching is essential to maintaining a healthy musculoskeletal composition that provides us with so many benefits. By being able to send breathe into every joint, you are increasing your synovial fluid, lubricating your body and increasing your range of motion. You are also strengthening your personal energy source so that your body works optimally. Your brain receives this energy too and you benefit from all the good hormones released.

The best time of day to stretch is in the morning before you eat, when your body is able to focus solely on the work of movement, and not having to process food. A low stress environment is key as well, play some relaxing music and go to a room by yourself where you can be undistracted and give yourself undivided attention. In your morning stretches, the intent should be to properly align your body, we are not conditioning here, we are healing and restoring and strengthening tendons, ligaments, muscles, etc. Our goal is not the end result, but the current moment act of breathing life into your body.

Of course, life does have it's demands, so stretching whenever you can is beneficial too. You will also want to stretch after strenuous activity with the intent to relax and repair any tight muscles or joints and prevent soreness the next day.

Tip #2 - Nourish Your Body with Nutrition

Not all nutritional needs are the same. Find out what your body needs or doesn't need, and start making a plan for success. Recognize your good habits and bad habits related to food and diet. Put an intention behind what enters your body to be nourishment and energy to make your body stronger and lean and able to handle a lot of activity. Don't starve yourself, but you may realize that sometimes if you exercise or move around instead of eating, you won't be hungry anymore.

Supplements can be good for increasing the minerals and vitamins that your body needs as a dancer as well. Again, everyone's body is different, and there are many sources of information on natural remedies. For example, turmeric for joint health, aloe juice for muscle and tendon recovery, magnesium for muscle and bone support.

"Turmeric is known for its powerful anti-inflammatory properties that might help to alleviate swelling and soreness." – Rachel Fine, Dance Nutritionist (Performance Recovery Nutrition for Dancers - Dance Nutrition)

Tip #3 - Dance Around for Fun

Dancing releases endorphins, so it makes you happy and motivated. Dancing around the house while doing chores or getting ready in the morning not only makes the mundane exciting, but it creates positive energy, burns calories, and keeps your body in a continuous movement routine that will build good habits.

Tip #4 - Increase your Endurance and Lung Capacity - Find ways to Breathe

One of the most frustrating parts about getting back into any activity that requires endurance is remembering how you used to be able to expend copious amounts of energy and now realizing you get winded a lot more easily. Part of regaining your dance body will be to train your body to breathe for endurance. Focusing on long sustained breaths while stretching is a great way to start. My next favorite is aerobic exercise start off small and increase a little everyday. I like running in place and focusing on breathing through my abdomen, lungs and nose and throat, building muscle memory in my breathing technique. I also of course recommend high energy dance as aerobic exercise, such as zumba, jazzercise, or high kicks.

Meditation is another great way to increase your breath. I highly recommend incorporating meditation into your journey back to dance for many reasons, not all related to this article.

Simple things like adding running up the stairs instead of walking or actually going outside and doing activities will also help increase your lung capacity.

More difficult things like the Wim Hof breathing exercises and Ice Baths or Saunas will improve your lung capacity among other things.

Tip #5 - Practice

Finally, get back to your art and skill by practicing whatever style of dance you used to do. Or, if you are new to dance and just trying to create a dance body, start taking classes.

Make sure to take it slow and not attempt moves that you haven't done in years that require a lot of skill and strength, i.e. don't attempt a fouetté turn before you master a pirouette again. Start with the basics and make sure technique is correct. A few correct plie's and port de bras do wonders for the whole body. For non-beginners, I would recommend practicing at home a little while before joining a class so that you can really focus on your alignment and basic skills because we all know that once you get into a class, you'll want to go full steam!

If you need tips on how to start back with basic recommended technique, we'd love to hear from you and answer your questions.

At my studio, we offer a Dance4Life class that is geared at bringing the body into dance-ready shape. I have been meaning to post videos on my YouTube channel, so any requests for such content would be encouraging!

You're Back!

It is hard work reshaping your mind and body and lifestyle, but you will do it! Keep focused on the goal and know that this is a forever lifestyle change that you must have patience for. Things will get in the way and breaks will happen. If you follow these tips and start dancing again, I'm sure you will realize that you can always dance and have a life too, it'll just be a #DanceLifeBetterLife!