Still sat at work really bored, so I started to look for dance shoes on the web, and came across these pictures...
This can either be pushy parents or just pure addiction to the dance..
What do you think?
Take a look
Their faces just show pure terror and pain... I'm so glad Simon doesn't put me through my paces like that!
Ouch! They bring tears to my eyes!
I hate to think how wrecked those poor girls bodies will be in their 20's.
Slightly reminds me of what I saw in stretching at my local kick boxing club, only the stretches are going much much further. Certainly the expressions of pain look similar.
I do wonder how much use being that flexible is in practical dance terms.
Perhaps I should.
I do see dancers doing the splits and such, in a way that fits the music well and looks excellent, and I heartilly approve of that. However, the stretches I see in those photos go well beyond that. I guess I was wondering how much that additional flexibility helps. Is it ever possible to be too flexible?
I guess this is more of a question to the female forumites.
Yes it is! Certainly according to various physios and osteopaths I've talked to over the years who have tried to help fix my various back, leg and knee problems - and I was never as flexible as the girls in those pictures.
My osteopath told me that the backward bends that gymnasts do at the end of routines gives them spinal problems later in life. Apparently my knee problems have quite alot to do with my yoga practice - too much flexibilty and not enough strength.
Anyone got any other stories?
I have an interesting (and somewhat gruesome) story.
I have / had ( do you grow out of it?) lax joints. What is commonly called double jointedness but just meant that my joints were looser than what they should be.
I was a sickly kid.. and didn;t have much in the way of muscle mass.. and as such My bones kept popping out of place and giving me great pain.
When my Mum took me to the doctor he explained that my joints were loose and as I got stronger it would be less problematic.. then showed my mum and me what he meant.. with a rather shocking (but painless) demonstration.
he got me to put my right leg out.. he grabbed my heel.. and my knee cap then with a push on my knee and a pull on my heel.. he bent my leg. .. .. .. up the way !!It was uncomfortable but not painful. but legs should not bend that way i still remember the horrible clicking feeling and noise as my kneecap clicked back to where it should have been..
I'm not to supple now. I still freak people out with my human pretzel trick with my arms but apart form that I don't dislocate quite as much as I used to..
what can I say.. I'm a freak.. (but on my home planet I'm considered normal )
I used to dislocate my jaw periodically.
Not quite the same thing, although once I did it whilst cleaning my teeth and got stuck with my toothbrush in my mouth, with froth pouring out... and totally unable to tell my mother what was going on. Fortunately I started giggling, and that unlocked it...
Too flexible is a possibility.
Basically, Beo's story kinf of summed it up.
Flexibility should be balanced with strength.
In other words, in dance terms, it's all well and good to have the flex, but without the strength to control it, it's pretty much useless and your prone to injury.
I'm fairly flexible, but I constantly do strengthening exercises which means the muscles and joints never go outside what I, as a dancer, can control.
p.s. I know you said female forumites, but I though a dancers perspective, no matter what gender might come in handy.
Just to set the record straight I am male
I used to be friends with a girl at school who's sister suffered with this. It wasn't too much of a problem when she was young, apart from the regular painful dislocations that you must have experienced, and not being able to join in with sports, in case of injury. She did dance, however, in order to build muscle strength, but that would also probably have meant she'd have been working on flexibility too.
My mum bumped into her mum the other week, and it turns out that now, at the age of 30, she is actually very close to being in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, the constant dislocations have worn away her joints so that they now pop out all the time, she's been advised never to have children, as doctors believe there is no way her body could possibly take the strain of pregnancy or childbirth.
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