"Practice as if you are the worst. Perform as if you are the best".
-Author Unknown
This week as part of my Genius Hour, in order to get back to dancing and doing ballet, I had to start with the basics - stretching.
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| Day 1-back in the studio stretching. |
Since its has been a long time since I have last done this style of dance, my range of motion and flexibility have decreased greatly, so this weeks task is to try and regain that ability.
Starting with stretching and regaining my flexibility is important for many reasons. Stretching everyday is important so that I can keep my muscles strong, flexible and healthy to avoid tight muscles and the risk of injury. Having flexibility is important for dance due to the different range of motion that is required of your body in order t perform a variety of movements.
Because I had such great flexibility in the past, I assumed that this phase would be the easiest out of my whole Genius Hour process, as it would not take me too long to re-stretch out my muscles - but I was wrong. Immediately upon doing the first stretch of the legs I could a restraint, a resistance, a tightness, that I never had felt before. Now I knew that it would clearly take me a little more time and a whole lot more stretching than expected to regain my old flexibility back.
After spending an hour in the studio, my flexibility level was no where close to where I expected or wanted it to be. Even the flexibility that I had regained did not seem natural, but forced as a result of a temporary increase and relaxation of my muscles. From this session, I learned that this process may be more difficult and take more patience than I thought, as well as it is not so easy to jump back into dancing after the many years off as this will have to be a gradual process.
Some important stretches that I worked on:
Day After 1st Stretching Session
As the title suggests, the next morning walking was not all that fun. All my muscles from being worked the previous day were sore and stiff as I had not been using them in this was for a very long time. Because I was so sore, this meant that I was unable to continue with my stretching regime and had to take a day off. Now for next time when beginning my stretching routine again, I will be taking a different approach. Since I was so excited to jump back into dancing the first day, I went too all out and pushed the limits of my current capabilities too far. Now I'm going to change the approach and be a little slower when increasing the intensity and types of stretches that I do so that I can slowly work back into it and develop proper flexibility that I can maintain of the period of this Genius Hour.
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