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Claudine Victorin

DANT 372: Kinesiology

Professor Hane

24 April 2020

Personal Application

For my movement theme, I analyzed the way I personally do foot stretches during bar

work for ballet. Ballet is where I find most of my flaws even with beginner movements. I want to

focus my theme on a particular combination because it not only emphasizes the foot and ankle

joints but also shows my postural alignment drawing down to the way I operate my shoulder and

upper extremities. The combination begins with standing in sixth position, popping the right foot

into a demi pointe, bringing the foot up into a full pointe, back to a demi pointe and down. You

repeat this for both right and left, then we go into a demi plie, standing in releve, back to the

demi plie and stand. We repeat this standing in first position and having a turn out through the

hips. We end the combination with reaching over to the right side bringing the arm over the head

for a side body stretch, plie while bringing the arm in front and contracting the abdominals to

stand back up to repeat for the left side. I find this combination efficiently working through all

the joints when I need to warm up but I do notice some deviations that I have with my body.

For my spinal posture, I have noticed that I do have some common spinal alignment

deviations. I identify my posture as ideal with a small curvature in the lumbar region of my spine

which is known as lumbar lordosis. Lumbar lordosis are individuals who abnormally have a

large curvature in the lumbar region. I would say that my curvature is mild and when observing

my spinal alignment, I can see that it tightens a little on my spinal extensors and iliopsoas which
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creates the curve. A great cue would be to contract my abdominal muscles and tuck my gluteus

maximus as much as I can to align the pelvis and have a normal curve of the lumbar spine. An

exercise I find super useful would be entering a child's pose with the arm stretching out and

knees tucked into the chest to ensure that I am stretching out the lower back. Adding on, I

observed that I slightly have fatigue posture, which almost correlates to the reason why I tighten

my back spinal extensors. Fatigue posture involves a forward placement of the pelvis that relates

to the ankle and plumb line, which is the line that goes straight down the body. Each body joint

relates to one another and connects throughout our body, which is why it is necessary to continue

exercises and cues that help with my abdominal muscles. Stretches like curling my back on a ball

and lifting through the abdomen will not only feel good but help strengthen my core so that I can

have more control in my movements overall. A good cue to fix fatigue posture would require me

to make sure that my ribs are stacked over the pelvis. I would also need to work on strengthening

my upper back extensors with exercises with prone single-arm spine arches while also working

on hip flexor strengthening with bringing knees to chest with a band.

As for my hips, I do have a slight posterior pelvic tilt meaning that the top of my pelvis is

rotated forward so the ASIS is in front of the pubic symphysis, which may be caused by my

spinal alignment. A good cue would be the same to ensure that my ribs are stacked on top on my

pelvis to avoid that. I also do have trouble with my right hip and with my IT band snapping over

the greater trochanter causing it to pop, which is a deviation that most dancers experience. A cue

that will not only help improve my turnout is to ensure that it is coming from my hips is to use

passive hip external rotation tests and practices. These exercises may also help to stregnthen my

hip rotators to limit the urge to pop my hips. For example, modified prone frog stretch helps the
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hip internal rotators but it is important that I also care to externally rotate my legs at the hip and

reach the knees out to the side without arching my lower back. This exercise is a challenge for

me due to my postural alignment and of the slight arch that I already have on my lumbar region

so doing this exercise daily will benefit the deviations on my hip and align correctly with my

knees.

Luckily, this does not affect too much of the alignment with my hip to my knee and down

to my ankle/foot which are all adequately mobile and stable. As for my turn out, I do have to be

aware of not turning out completely with my knees and ankles. As a mover, personally I am most

stable when my foot/ankle and knee are flat and locked which I have noticed is not the best idea

and could hurt me in the long run. I have seen in my practices that when I do emphasize my

rotation through the knees I hunch over causing an anterior pelvic tilt which does not create the

aesthetic of a dancer. My knees function normally which is defined as, genu rectum, but it is very

easy for me to create my turn out from my knees which is not the correct cue. During a grand

plie, I know what would help is if I selectively focus on each muscle while doing wall plies.

Standing in second position with the upper back on the same level as my shoulder blades and

placing my sacrum on the wall and having my heels a few inches away from the wall so that it is

aligned with the greater trochanter, will not only help with my turn out but also my posture

alignment with my upper extremities.

As for my shoulders/upper extremities, I know that I have to be aware of my scapular

muscles to ensure that I am creating stability. With my lower trapezius, I know that specific

location is where I hold in my stress, so it creates a lot of pain when I do have to do shoulder

movements when I am dancing. I was once advised to keep strengthening my trapezius so that it
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can decrease the pain. An exercise cue that can help strengthen would be a single arm scarecrow

with a band so that I am working both muscles at the same time. A nice stretch would be sitting

arms overhead shoulder stretch on a ball so that I can help relax the muscle before putting more

stress on it.

When talking about the combination mentioned earlier in the paper, the ankle/foot goes

through the windlass mechanism to stretch out the plantar fascia. At first, I did not get the reason

why this was so important but the windlass effect allows the foot to be more stable and increases

the height o f the medial longitudinal arch of the foot. Overtime, I have noticed doing the ballet

combination over and over again is just going to keep improving my arch especially when going

into demi pointe. A great exercise cue to continue to work with dorsiflexion and plantar flexion

would be sitting with the foot pointing and flexing with a band which will also improve the

arches of the foot.

In conclusion, when doing this specific ballet combination it does get difficult to

remember every single cue, but what helps me is to section out each body part and fully scan

from top to bottom what deviations can I detect so that I can correct them accordingly. Having a

fatigue posture along with a posterior pelvic tilt is tricky when having to do ballet that is

performed by dancers with the aesthetic of the “perfect alignment” which what I learned is

impossible. I think the most important cue for me to do as for alignment would be to make sure

that my ribs are stacked up above my pelvis which will take out the majority of the other

deviations on my body. When creating a turn out before even completing the combination, it is

important for me to think about starting from the hips. I feel though that I was not conditioned to
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knowing that, which is why I can see all of the deviations that I unfortunately created a habit

towards that I know I can fix for the future as a dancer.

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Work Cited Page

From K. Clippinger, 2016, Dance anatomy and kinesiology instructor guide, 2nd ed.
(Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics).