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13. Using Cross-Training to Elevate your Ballet Technique with Veronica K
122 Plays3 months ago
Veronica K is a former professional dancer turned educator. She combined her background as a dancer, Physical Therapist Assistant, and certified personal trainer to develop the Veronica K method of cross-training, an innovative approach to help dancers develop the strength they need to perform safely.
In this episode we chat all about Veronica’s dance training and professional career working on cruise ships. She shares about the injury that led her to go back to school for physical therapy and how she came to develop her own method of cross-training for dancers. We talk about the most important area dancers need to be focusing and where you can start incorporating cross-training even if you are short on time. This episode is full of actionable advice to help you prevent injuries and become a stronger dancer!
Key Moments:
- Early training [1:38]
- Attending college for dance [4:35]
- Her transition from student to professional dancer [10:03]
- Her experience dancing on cruise ships (and why she chose that route) [13:00]
- Going back to school to earn her physical therapist assistant degree [18:10]
- The most important areas dancers should be focusing on when incorporating cross-training [21:00]
- Veronica’s new cross-training course for dance educators [28:32]
- How to incorporate cross-training when you are short on time [39:37]
- Her biggest piece of advice for dancers pursuing a career [47:50]
Connect with Veronica:
WEBSITE: veronicakballet.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/veronicakplatform
JOIN THE INSTRUCTOR CERTIFICATION WAITLIST: veronicakballet.com/certification
Links and Resources:
The College Dance Decision: thebrainyballerina.com/the-college-dance-decision
DRT: www.drttix.com/create-event (Make sure to mention that The Brainy Ballerina sent you!)
1-1 Career Mentoring: book your complimentary career call
Let’s connect!
My WEBSITE: thebrainyballerina.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thebrainyballerina
Questions/comments? Email me at [email protected]
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Transcript
Introduction and Importance of Cross-Training
00:00:00
Speaker
I wish that the injury prevention and the educational aspect of things were more embraced. you know I've had a lot of people tell me that cross training and what I do is ruining the classicism and the art of dance that I'm trying to make it some sporty fitness thing. And I'm like, that's not it at all. If you think that, I feel sad for you because you're missing out on the opportunity to improve your technique.
00:00:26
Speaker
and really, truly understand ballet at a deeper anatomical level.
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm Caitlin,
Veronica Kay's Background and Cross-Training Philosophy
00:00:35
Speaker
a former professional ballerina turned dance educator and career mentor. And this is the brand new ballerina podcast. I am here for the aspiring professional ballerina who wants to learn what it really takes to build a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. I'm peeling back the curtain of professional dance world with open and honest conversations about the realities of becoming a professional dancer. Come along to gain the knowledge and inspiration you need to succeed in a dance career on your terms.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Brady Ballerina podcast. I'm your host Caitlin Sloan and I am joined today by Veronica Kay. Veronica is a former professional dancer turned educator. She combined her background as a dancer, physical therapist assistant, and certified personal trainer to develop the Veronica K method of cross training, an innovative approach to help dancers develop the strength they need to perform safely. Veronica, I am so thrilled to have you on today. And I want to start from the beginning. Why did you
Early Inspirations and Challenges in Dance
00:01:38
Speaker
take your very first dance class?
00:01:40
Speaker
Oh my goodness, so many reasons. So when I was about, I would say six and a half or seven years old, my aunt took me to see a local production of The Nutcracker and I was drawn to the Sugar Plum Fairy and I wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy still do. I remember after that I came home and I had told my parents I wanted to do ballet and they were like, well, it's too expensive. Back then, I don't know what it was, but I remember my mom saying something about how like my ankles would never make it.
00:02:08
Speaker
at some point in time I ended up getting a old Walkman and a cassette tape of Paula Abdul, her cold hearted snake album. And so I'm seven years old walking around with Paula Abdul blaring in my ears dancing and You know, watching her videos, which probably wouldn't let my kids at seven watch, but I was really drawn to her as a choreographer and a dancer. I loved her music and I loved watching ballet as well. So I ended up watching Swan Lake and Nutcracker. And I just, I wanted to dance more than anything, even though my parents wanted me in sports.
Diverse Dance Training and Career Decisions
00:02:46
Speaker
So then finally i think around seven years old i did start dancing and i took to get a ballet and that was that was where it all kind of started for me but i definitely would not call myself naturally inclined towards ballet.
00:03:02
Speaker
um or even having a ballet body at all because I didn't. I had a lot of things going on with my body that I didn't realize were happening as a developing child int until I became a personal trainer, in until I became a physical therapist assistant, and then learned a lot more about pediatrics and development and stuff like that that we don't learn as dancers either.
00:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, so what was your training like grade up? Was it mostly focused in Chiqueti? I took Chiqueti exams up to grade four and then I stopped due to financial reasons with my parents. They couldn't afford to send me to workshops and exams anymore. So I had to stop, but I did pass grades one through four and then I went back and I just danced like a mixed bag of ballet after doing grades one through four.
00:03:49
Speaker
that same time i was doing jazz as well and i i learned very classical fosse jazz so all the lines and the isolations and all of that stuff my instructor that i had growing up um she trained to be a rockette but then decided not to i think life just kind of changed her direction she had a really strong background in tap and jazz so those were her focus areas definitely with her studio they had really great dancers in those genres chiquetti was kind of not as much. I feel like I ended up becoming a very strong jazz dancer early on. And then because of a lot of the body associations with ballet, I aligned myself more with jazz growing up because I simply just thought I wasn't supposed to be a ballet dancer. So that was kind of how my training went in high school. How did you decide to attend college for dance? o
College Education and Professional Dance Journey
00:04:41
Speaker
So when I was a junior in high school,
00:04:44
Speaker
I had my dad for my English teacher, which was super fun. And he did this thing called life goals inventory, and it was where you kind of outline everything in your life. And you say, what's practical? What's not? Where's your passion lie? And then what's your personal goals? So like, how do things line up? And what do you think is the most attainable route for you to go with your career? So at that time, I was the lead anchor in our high school news show growing up. And I thought, okay, well, I like to write, and I like to be in front of the camera. So maybe I should go into journalism. Maybe that's my calling.
00:05:23
Speaker
So that was like my practical path. And then I had dance over on the other side as like my passion. and opening a dance studio as like a more practical option. So I had all these things kind of out on the table and then at the end of the life goals inventory you're supposed to decide like what lines up the best. And so I had decided actually that I was going to go to college and major in journalism at that point because I thought dance is not attainable for me. I didn't grow up at a big studio. I don't have the body. I don't have the background, the training.
00:05:56
Speaker
the finances to actually get better training. So I thought that's a bucket list thing. It's not attainable. And what's really crazy is, um, I actually have the copy of the life goals and inventory still. My dad gave it to me and he's like, isn't this so funny that you ended up writing like exactly what you do now. You wrote that down when you were 17 years old and you said, I can't do that because it's not attainable. And now I'm doing it.
00:06:23
Speaker
that it just kind of like gives me chills thinking back like I just wish somebody would have shook me and said like hey you need to dream bigger but started my first year of college hated what I was doing couldn't stand it switched major to psychology couldn't stand it was a psych major for two years actually learned a lot then I decided, okay, that's not for me either. What if I decide to start doing some private lessons and go back to dance? So I did. And I was 18 and I really buckled down. I started um doing a lot of training with different people.
00:07:05
Speaker
And I got rejected from a handful of schools. I got rejected from one, accepted as a minor in another, and then accepted as a full dance major at the third. And that was where I went. I went to the University of Akron. And there I got to dance in the pre-professional company. I got to perform on A.J. Thomas Hall Theater. I worked with some incredible instructors.
00:07:27
Speaker
My ballet instructors ah ranged from Ohio Ballet principles to Pennsylvania Ballet principles. One modern instructor I worked with, he danced for the original Martha Graham company. And he's in videos like on YouTube where you can see like him dancing with Martha Graham's original company. He was pretty hardcore, but he, you know, he said that he held her hand by her bedside. He was so close with her. I got to study with some incredible really educated professionals. And that is when my technique just exploded because I was getting like a ton of different variety of styles. um I was getting Viganova. I was getting Balanchine style. I was getting contemporary for the first time. I was also, you know, refining my jazz technique. It was great. And I learned so much. And then I also was required to take anatomy. I remember in my anatomy class, I sat there in the lecture hall of everyone.
00:08:23
Speaker
and thought, this is so stupidly boring. like I can't stand this. I want to be in a technique class right now. There is no point in me knowing this. I already know everything that I need to know because my teachers are going to tell me what I need to know. And why do I need to know you know about the origin, action, insertion, and innovation when everybody who's around me is a med student? okay And that's an ignorant 21-year-old talking. a very ignorant and narrow-minded 21 year old version of myself. I actually scored the highest in the class over all of the med students.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I remember the instructor coming up to me at the end and saying, you know he asked me what my major was at the end of the the semester. And I was like, oh, I'm a dancer. And he looked at me and he's like, wow, I really wasn't expecting that because I thought maybe nurse or pre-med. I was like, why are you so shocked that I'm a dancer? like am' Am I supposed to be Dom? So that was annoying. but I graduated with honors actually in dance and I was at Akron on a dance scholarship as well. So I did pretty well while I was at Akron and I
00:09:31
Speaker
I graduated and I went from walking in the doors at Akron saying, I don't think I'll ever dance professionally, but at least I can maybe open a studio and educate to transforming to, I think I can, I think I could. And then I finally did when I ah graduated Akron and I so set off on my tour to find work with an audition.
Transition to Professional Dance and Financial Challenges
00:09:54
Speaker
And what was that transition from student to professional like for you?
00:09:57
Speaker
oh It was kind of rough. I was really, really lucky. I can sing. I also dance in ballet and jazz and tap. Before I actually hurt myself really bad in college, I used to tumble. I went out and I decided I was literally going to try everything until something felt right. So I went to Florida, auditioned for a contemporary ballet company, a classical ballet company, and
00:10:28
Speaker
I got offered an apprenticeship in a contemporary company. They were unpaid. So I tabled that. Then I went and did auditioned for Disney. And I actually got offered a job as a sleeping beauty, which I turned down because it was extremely low pay and no housing. And then I did get cut out of the audition at the classical ballet company but I got pulled into the room with the artistic director and she said I just want to let you know I really enjoy watching you dance I really love your passion and your style but your body is not the type that we need for this company and you know when I did walk in the room I immediately felt out of place because
00:11:10
Speaker
Every single person in that room was like five, eight and above and extremely thin. And I'm five, five, five, six on a good day. And so like I was short and curvaceous compared to them. So that was a definite body type no cast for that. And then I went over to California and I auditioned for a bunch of other things over there.
00:11:30
Speaker
got offered a couple apprenticeships as well that were unpaid and then i got offered my full-time job on carnival cruise lines and that's where i ended up landing for my first professional gig which was a cruise line contract and i was a singer-dancer and i did a lot of different stuff on the ship contemporary jazz musical theater character work and it was super fun it's exhausting because you do like two or three shows a day and like by the time you're off of your contract i think mine was eight or nine months you're exhausted because you've been singing and dancing three times a day for like full shows and some people never even perform that many times in their lifetime like that's a lot of shows
00:12:13
Speaker
But it was definitely a huge learning experience. Yeah, I'm just like so grateful. I got it. I know a lot of people laugh at cruise line performers, but like listen, it is hard. You're learning shows like Rapid Fire and you're on a moving ship.
00:12:29
Speaker
Dancing on a movie ship and singing at the same time, that's the other thing. like ah We were contracted, I was through playlist contracts. We sang and danced. So we didn't get to like lip-sync. We were actually singing live. And I know with other cruise ships that my friends have danced on, some of them, they don't have to sing if they're dancers.
00:12:49
Speaker
but that wasn't the way Playlist did it. So I was like, whoa. But that was kind of my journey into getting my first professional job. There's a lot of auditions, a lot of confusion on my part where I thought maybe I should just accept these apprenticeships. Maybe I should just go and be a part of the rally company, go unpaid for however long until I can move up the ladder. I couldn't. I financially did not have the ability to do that. I had nobody backing me to say like, you know, go live your dream.
00:13:18
Speaker
I'm going to help you until they start to pay you or you can work five jobs. It just wasn't in the books for me. Yeah. And that's one of my biggest issues with the ballet world specifically is that's how it's set up. When you enter the industry, you expect to be unpaid for a number of years. And it didn't matter that I went to college for dance and that went into my career. It didn't.
00:13:41
Speaker
replace the unpaid trainee or apprenticeship years that I did. so I was out of high school for six years before I started getting paid to dance. and I was really able to do that, quite frankly, because I come from a lot of privilege and I had parents who supported me. That doesn't mean that I didn't work my butt off and have five jobs at a time, but I also had that backup.
00:14:03
Speaker
and so Having that really gave me the confidence to know that I could ask for help if I needed it, but not everyone has that. And it's just so frustrating to see how many dancers fall through the cracks because they don't have access to the financial help that they need to pursue this career. Exactly. Exactly. and And that was my whole thing. The company that offered me a position in Santa Monica was my first choice company. And I was like, oh my gosh.
00:14:31
Speaker
This is it, like this is what I need. Then I figured out that the apprenticeship was unpaid. It's in California and my parents are in Ohio and they were not in a financial situation to support me. I was like, I don't know how to do this. I didn't have anybody to my family who they're all like educators and realistic, but so to speak, career paths. It wasn't even a question of that I should consider that.
00:14:56
Speaker
getting the carnival contract was like no brainer. You've got to go do that because they're going to pay you. You can pay off all your student loans, which I did. So it was a really binding situation because if I was to put it out passion versus what I'm not passionate about, I would have gone that route. It just wasn't in the cards.
00:15:14
Speaker
Do you want to stop worrying about what's next after high school? You're not alone. Many dancers struggle with the decision of which path to take after high school. Should you attend college for dance? Should you strike out on your own in the real world of professional dance? How do you know which path is right for you? I've been there myself. That's why I teamed up with my colleague Gina McFadden of Dancer360 to bring you the college dance decision.
00:15:39
Speaker
The College Dance Decision is a digital course that will help you take stock of what you really want after high school, develop a plan and a backup plan toward achieving your goals, and provide actionable advice to connect with your parents to bring your dreams to life. We've been in your shoes. And while we took completely different paths, we both came out on the other side with professional careers in ballet. Let us save you countless hours and dollars by providing you with the structure to make an informed and powered decision about your future.
00:16:10
Speaker
Head to the link in my show notes and take action to cut through the fog of anxiety and confusion and finally get a plan for your dance future. You said
Shift to Physical Therapy and Cross-Training Platform
00:16:19
Speaker
earlier you took this anatomy class and you were just like, this is not for me, but then what changed? How did you come back to physical therapy?
00:16:26
Speaker
So this is kind of how it all evolved. Well, I was on a cruise ship. I had a long distance relationship. I was feeling very homesick at that time. And I wanted to be with my family and friends and like all of my connections in life. I felt really like isolated after being on the ship, but I also was having a ton of foot pain. I was having the worst pain in my left foot. And if you know what cruise ship dancers are wearing, we wear character shoes like that is all we dance in. If we're doing a ballet piece, if we're doing jazz, whatever we're doing, we were wearing character shoes and they were they were the higher ones. So lots of stress on the metatarsals. And I remember sitting there in the dressing room rubbing my foot thinking,
00:17:10
Speaker
There has to be other performers. I knew there were other performers like that. I wanted to figure out what was going on with my foot. couldn't figure out what was going on with my foot. I knew I wasn't injured to like what my mind was telling me because I could still use it, but it was in a ton of pain after every show. I remember I shoved it into like ice buckets. I took that nasty smelling Asper cream and put it all over my feet to the point where the people in the dressing room would be like, Veronica, you need to get out of here when you do that because it smells horrible.
00:17:43
Speaker
But that was the only way I was getting through shows. I remember at that point thinking, yeah, I'm homesick and I think that I need to like dive into this more. So I went back home and I was doing a lot of like random project work when I came back home and freelancing, which was super fun. But I like couldn't get a grasp on what I wanted to do and I like looked into personal training.
00:18:06
Speaker
you know I ended up landing on some website that was talking about physical therapy. and I was like, well, um I already went and got my bachelor's. I really don't want to spend four more years in college, but I do want to learn this stuff for physical therapy. so I ended up deciding that I was going to just get an associate and go and um do a two and a half year program that was a physical therapist assistant program. So I went back to school, did that whole thing, met my husband there, went to clinicals, did lots of stuff. And I got a job right out of school because I was, I graduated very top of my class and I did really well with that and loved it.
00:18:49
Speaker
But I really wanted to work for a dance medicine clinic. However, the place that I live, there aren't many options around here. There's about two or three. applied, applied, applied, trying to break down the door, applying. No luck with jobs there. I don't know. I was just like, okay, well, that's fine. I will just go work full-time in outpatient sports medicine. And then I did like PRN work, which is like pickup work in other settings. And then, you know, I just kind of like dove full force into physical therapy and was still teaching dance dance on the weekends, actually twice a week at a very wonderful school and and company, Ballet Worcester.
00:19:29
Speaker
I performed with them. Then COVID hit. I got pregnant and I quit at the studio because I didn't want to teach in the studios at that point. I was like, I really don't want to be like calling down here because it was a 40 minute drive. And I was like, I don't want to teach in the studios anymore. I also quit doing physical therapy.
00:19:48
Speaker
at that point because of COVID and things just got really crazy um with medical reimbursement, with the therapy assistants versus the DPTs. There's been like a huge push to like make everybody a DPT or you're an assistant. A lot of assistants lost full-time jobs, including my husband, and he and I both had to have a career reevaluation during that whole COVID crisis. That was when my brain launched the Veronica K platform. I came out of COVID a completely different person. I was so scared to launch at first because I knew that it had been to years at that point, even since I danced professionally. I was only doing freelance work. I wasn't taking regular class. And I was extremely scared, like the kind of reactions I was going to get from the dance world, especially professionals, because I know
00:20:38
Speaker
You have to have good technique in order to be able to teach, but the puzzle piece that's missing, I think, in the dance world is there is not enough preventative action taken. That's why we all end up with, you know, those career-ending injuries. I think a lot of dancers maybe hear that they should be cross-training, but they don't really know what cross-training actually is or where to start. What are the most important areas dancers should be focusing?
Core Strength Misconceptions and Training Methods
00:21:04
Speaker
I think first the thing that I would love to clear up is that cross training and CrossFit are not the same thing. And I have so many people either email me or DM me and say, I thought CrossFit was really bad for you. It's going to hurt people. Like you shouldn't do that with dancers. And I was like, first off, I don't know anything about CrossFit because I don't have any kind of expertise in it, but it's certainly not the same thing as cross training. And I wish that there was a better word.
00:21:29
Speaker
for cross training. I like to tell people that work with me I say we're doing movement correction or I'm prescribing you exercises to correct your movement and that is what we're doing cross training is essentially corrective movement and exercise it's just figuring out where the tight areas are figuring out where the weak areas are what deficits you have and then diving into them and saying okay this is going to directly affect this which will directly affect your arabesque. I think that the biggest area that most dancers in general lack is their core.
00:22:03
Speaker
We often have this preconceived notion that the core is synonymous with abdominals. And I've had so many dancers who I will do an evaluation on them. And I'm like, so your core is really weak, and we really need to work on holding neutral spine. And they're like, no, like I have really, really strong abs. like I do 100 crunches a day. you know Look at my six pack. My teachers say that I have great core. We do planks in class all the time.
00:22:29
Speaker
but that's not enough and it's not technically the core. So the core is your front, side, back, halves. If you drew a box from your shoulders all the way down to your hips and made a rectangle, that's your core front, side, and back. And if you're not balanced in that entire area,
00:22:48
Speaker
your vertebrae up top, your neck, your thoracic, your shoulders, your lumbar, your hips and your low back. These things get out of alignment if that pelvis isn't held in neutral and it can mess up your center of gravity, your alignment, your extensions, your turnout. So it really all starts with the core. And that's kind of where my method and initially focused where I was like, okay, the core is everything, which it is, and I'm gonna really focus on getting people to breathe properly and then use their core. Because I think breathing technique is also something that dancers do not know how to do. They do not use their diaphragm, they use their chest or their scalenes or their neck. It's not effective for your muscles. It's so interesting because I experienced this with my core postpartum. I had my first child in December 2019
00:23:42
Speaker
And so I was barely getting any postpartum care with COVID, let alone being able to go to a pelvic floor therapist or something like that. But I felt like I did okay coming back. You know, I always thought to myself, I'm a dancer, I know what to do. So I felt like I came back pretty well for my first and then I got pregnant again. And after I had my daughter, maybe like six months after I was getting back into teaching and I couldn't lift my arm to fifth position. Like literally couldn't bring it up above my head. And I went to the company physical therapist and told her what was going on. And the first thing she said was, let's check your core.
00:24:19
Speaker
let's check your pelvic floor. And I was like, okay. And what I learned very quickly is that that was all connected, but I didn't realize that. And basically she had said, I think you have had ah weaker back muscles probably your whole career, but you didn't realize it because you had a strong core. So that was able to compensate. But then once you know you're in pregnancy and you couple all that with breastfeeding and all the terrible posture, everything that comes with having a baby, it was completely compounded.
00:24:48
Speaker
So the first thing we worked on going straight back to the pelvic floor and pulling those muscles up again. But I didn't have really much of an idea that there was a connection between those two things. And now that I've learned this and I've practiced it, it seems to me like the most basic and obvious of things. If this isn't held, you can't activate your shoulders and hold your arms and hold your back. But I hadn't been taught that explicitly. And it didn't occur to me, even after dancing professionally for nine years and teaching and all of that.
00:25:18
Speaker
ah That's what I was just going to say. You dance professionally for a lot longer than me and you never learn those things that I learned when I went back to physical therapy school. And the other thing that I really have honed in on in my method is that the myofascial lines, the muscle and the connective tissue that line our bodies, there are specific pathways that we can look at that if you see that there is a problem in one of the fascial lines,
00:25:43
Speaker
then something else may be affected that's above or below it. And that is exactly what your, was it a PT or was she a trainer? which okay um Yeah, that she was able to say, look, there's a connection here. This is what we're doing. And that's how we're going to look at that deficit. and you know because of those lines of movement and that's something that a lot of dance teachers could benefit so so so much from just understanding those lines in the connection and that's why I'm focusing on that in the instructor course. Yeah so you just launched this instructor certification that I am so excited to be a part of because like we've been talking about there's so much I don't know about this and it's funny because I was actually an exercise science major in college
00:26:26
Speaker
along with being a dance major. I did both for two years before I just shifted to only being a dance major because I could graduate early. But like you said, we probably had a similar experience. My anatomy class was a lot of med students. It wasn't dancers. It wasn't actually even required for dance majors at my school to take anatomy.
00:26:45
Speaker
It was something I took separately as part of my exercise science degree. And so they didn't make the connection for us yeah between what we were learning and how we could use it in dance. It was a lot of memorizing muscles. So even though I had the knowledge of this is what this muscle is called and this is where it is, it didn't really help me moving forward as a dancer, as a teacher. And that's why I'm so excited about this program because I feel like I'll finally be able to make these connections that will be useful for me as a dancer and as a teacher.
00:27:15
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:28:08
Speaker
The whole reason that I started branding it as the Veronica K method was because I realized that the way that I'm cross-training dancers is just a little bit different than everybody else who's in the cross-training world. And there's other excellent cross-training coaches out there, nothing against them.
00:28:25
Speaker
But what I've come up with is more of a conglomeration of my physical therapy background, my personal training background, and dance, all smashed together. I was really lucky I had experience in acute neurotherapy in the hospital setting. I learned so much to do with neuromuscular training, and that is such a big scary word to a lot of people. they're like neurology. Absolutely not. We do not want to take this course if we were going to explain like what neurotransmitters are doing. That's not what the course is about. The stuff that is in the course, it is not overly med for me. It's broken down in a way where I can say something to you and you're going to look at it and you're going to be like,
00:29:05
Speaker
Okay, that makes sense. There's lecture component, but there's also like going to be some live training components and practical demonstration where you're going to have to get up with the videos and move through things. And the way that I'm going to teach it to the dancers that decide to take it are the dance educators.
00:29:22
Speaker
For example, in one video I talk about Dave Le Paix and what muscles are firing in what patterns. So like, if you're performing a Dave Le Paix devant, a lot of dancers and dance instructors, I've seen a lot of them go online. I'll go on YouTube.
00:29:39
Speaker
and kind of parrot you've probably heard a dance teacher say these things before where it's like don't grip in your hip extend from underneath your leg for a Devon extension okay so they're kind of like generalized things that dance teachers say and there's nothing really wrong with those things but they aren't really focusing out on what's happening as far as the muscles and how it's firing and what we're doing. So let's go back to that devant extension. If you are doing a devant extension, what muscles on the working leg are firing? We've got the external rotation to hold midline. We have the 80 doctors, we have hip flexors, we have knee extensors, we have planar flexors of our foot. If you're going down that whole chain of ah front extension and then
00:30:26
Speaker
How are we breathing during that front extension? What is happening when we open the leg? If you hold your breath and you suck in your stomach as you bring your leg out, which a lot of dancers do because they think by pulling their belly button into the spine, they're using their core. But what happens is when you breathe in and you suck all that air in, you take the diaphragm out of the equation for your front extension.
00:30:54
Speaker
which then does not help the iliopsoas, which then will not let you bring the leg any higher. So understanding really basic things like this, like for me, it's pretty basic, because this has been my world for so long now, but understanding that you have to exhale as you open your extension to the front and let your belly fill up with air as you're pulling it up to retiré passe, and then exhale.
00:31:21
Speaker
you're going to have a much better extension because the diaphragm can help the psoas and the pelvic floor and all these things are going to come together in that trunk region in the core.
00:31:32
Speaker
so that your front extension can lift up. And then you know we're gonna also learn how to analyze not only that working leg and the trunk and the core, we're looking at the standing leg too. What's happening down there? Are you sitting in your hip? Well, why? Because your gluteus medius is weak? Or is it because your obliques are weak? Or is it because your quadratus lumborum is weak? like These are all things that you have to understand the action of the muscle and how it plays directly with dance so that you can look at somebody and say, all right, my students flaring their ribs right now. Every time they bottom up front, the ribs open up and they're leaning back a little bit. What's happening? Like what can I tell them so that they stop doing that and they can hold proper alignment?
00:32:19
Speaker
They're probably not using their diaphragm. They're probably not using their pelvic floor. They're probably not using their iliopsoas. Maybe their center of gravity is going backwards too. There's so many things that you can dissect off of wrong movement. I get a lot of flack from people on Instagram because I demonstrate a lot of wrong movement on Instagram because it's so much more telling to see me do it super wrong.
00:32:46
Speaker
you can see exactly what's going on wrong and see how you'd correct it versus if I'm always doing something perfectly for stuff that doesn't exist. And my ability as a dance educator or your ability as a dance educator should never be determined based on how we move because we're not applying for movement jobs anymore. Even if you know you're sitting here and you're listening to this and you're like, okay, but like I can't actually teach anymore.
00:33:14
Speaker
you can still do things with dance. And I think this is something that you talk about too in your career mentoring, you know, hey, what if you broke your foot and you you can't, you know, even demonstrate a proper relevé anymore. You can still figure out ways to integrate working with dancers into your life. Maybe going and becoming a dance cross-training coach is what you want to do now. And really like instill the injury prevention side of
Critique on Body Standards and Training Practices
00:33:39
Speaker
things.
00:33:39
Speaker
And I just really think that we need to, as a dance community, come together and really embrace this and stop being so harsh on each other and holding everyone to such this high standard that you're like, okay, well, if you don't look like a ballerina your entire life and you don't look this certain way, then you have no business being in this career whatsoever, no matter what threshold you are doing it in.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree and I have felt that and no one's really making me feel this explicitly like no one's saying anything to me. This is my own personal issue for the most part, but as a former professional dancer, I was often told my body was wrong.
00:34:20
Speaker
so Now that I'm postpartum, I have two children. My job is a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of sitting. yeah And I still teach. I'm still incredibly active, but I'm not dancing 30 hours a week. like My body is different. And I still do have those concerns. like Are people going to take me seriously as a dance teacher or as a career mentor if they look at me now and see my body? And like you said, it doesn't matter.
00:34:47
Speaker
that doesn't impact my ability to do my job. But I do still feel that stigma and part of it is part of myself, but I have had those random comments on Instagram. Like you said, people will say things like, oh, you're not a dancer. And I'm like,
00:35:01
Speaker
Well, you're right. I don't perform professionally anymore. That is true, but I am still a dancer and I still had a professional career and you can't take that away from me. And no, I'm not trying at this point to put on pointe shoes and go for perform on a huge stage, but the skills that I learned are still useful and I'm still able to help people who are in that stage of their life. And I just hope we can move past that because we're so aesthetically inclined in this industry to just want to look at somebody and determine <unk> worth Exactly, they're worth, based on what we think they look like instead of what they can do and what their knowledge is and what they bring to the industry.
00:35:34
Speaker
Exactly, yeah. I'm actually at this point where I'm in a tug of war with my own personal problems with my body. After my second pregnancy, I don't know about that second pregnancy for us, the second pregnancy really did my feet in. I told you about my complaints on my feet when I was on carnival, but I found out during my second pregnancy that I have an accessory nambicular on my left foot. And what happens is that all the tissues that run through there essentially get like really pinched and angry.
00:36:04
Speaker
with everything happening with pregnancy, my foot super flattened out on the left side. So going on a full relevé is actually really, really hard for me right now, which is very frustrating and upsetting because I need to be able to do that, to be able to demonstrate things properly, right? I'm kind of working through that pain and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to have that bone shaved off because it's just getting worse and worse as I'm getting older and older. That's another thing that I have to face, but like not anything to do with anything I did wrong. Just literally my anatomy that I get to have an extra bone and I have an extra rib up here too. So I guess I'm just good at making bones.
00:36:45
Speaker
But I really want to get back on point. Like I really want to get back on point. I really want to actually do a little bit more freelance performance work, but trying to fight the nature of I just had a C-section a year ago, I actually still have incisional pain. I will go up on point and it actually feels better. It's weird.
00:37:05
Speaker
point feels better to me than flat right now with the bone problem I have. No idea why, but my pelvic floor, I still can't feel my full pelvic floor after my C-section. I actually will put my fingers down in my abdomen and I will be palpating and I'm like,
00:37:25
Speaker
Okay, I can feel with my fingers that it's firing, but I can't feel it down there anymore. And so that's freaky to me because I'm like, if I weren't a dancer and knew how to correct this, I would never try to like use this muscle because I wouldn't know it's there.
00:37:41
Speaker
I don't know and it's just it's really it is really hard and I really can't stand the toxic environment that social media has become with the dance industry and with professionals. There are beautiful people who are professional dancers and or even past professionals and they get attacked all the time on the internet by people who who knows what they're doing who knows what, you know, I don't know what they're doing, but it is sad. And I wish that the injury prevention and the educational aspect of things were more embraced. You know, I've had a lot of people tell me that cross training and what I do is ruining the classicism and the art of dance that I'm trying to make it some sporty fitness thing. And I'm like, that's not it at all. If you think that I feel sad for you because
00:38:27
Speaker
You're missing out on the opportunity to improve your technique and really truly understand ballet at a deeper anatomical level. Right. It feels to me like it should be a part of our training. How are we having a career where we use our bodies so completely and we have so little knowledge about our body?
00:38:48
Speaker
So it is always shocking to me and I am so thrilled to be a part of your program and gain that knowledge for myself and for my students because I've always been the kind of teacher who wants to explain things on a deeper level. I don't want to just say things like don't fall out of your pirouette. That's not helpful. So having this extra layer.
00:39:07
Speaker
of understanding of how the body works and being able to pinpoint things that might be going on is just going to bring my teaching to the next level and that is very powerful. I feel like for a lot of instructors or for dancers, one of the things we always struggle with is time. We are always just running out of time.
00:39:26
Speaker
And I think the idea of cross training sometimes feels like I have to do one more thing. Yeah. So for an instructor who wants to incorporate something into their classes or for a dancer who wants to start training more effectively and they don't have a lot of time, what would you say is the most important place to start?
00:39:45
Speaker
Well, this is actually kind of how I approached cross-training when I started doing it myself and integrating it into either my classes or when I was dancing. Let's say I had two or three exercises that I knew I really needed to work on. like My hip AB b doctors are always weak. I could work on them all the time. And that is something that I always would say, okay, I'm going to pick out like three exercises that I know that I really need to work on these. Like, let's say you have really hard time getting on releve. You need to make sure your core is active. And you also want to make sure that your turnout muscles are like turned on. Then take those three exercises and do them right before class. And what we call that is called muscle priming.
00:40:28
Speaker
What it does is it tells your body you're not taking yourself to the point of exhaustion where you're fatiguing yourself. You're doing maybe 10 reps of each exercise. You're warming up. You're also priming those muscles and it tells your body what we're about to do. It's great to take exercises out of cross training programs like mine and just say All right, these exercises really are producing an effect on me. I'm going to do these before my class and then I'm warm. And, you know, I feel those muscles engaged. I know exactly where I can focus my energy when I think that I'm not turning out enough. And that's going to help you a lot.
00:41:07
Speaker
and studies in dance medicine in exercise science they have shown doing one day of 20 minutes is going to help you I can't remember the exact percentage at this moment um but it will help you so much more than if you just decide, I don't have time. I don't have energy. I'm just not going to do it because once is just not enough. It actually can be enough. It can do something. Take it with your warm up. Do your warm ups.
00:41:38
Speaker
That is huge with injury prevention too, is being able to warm your body up for what you're going to do. Plie is not a warmup. You should be performing your plies. Plie should be danced. You're ready to go once you plie. Sure, you're getting ready and it's building into your class, but you should be Ready to move by your first play and then as far as teachers go I first was introduced to cross training in undergrad one teacher who we did an interview with on YouTube and her name is Cara Sia she's faculty at University of Akron and
00:42:13
Speaker
She always, always, always made us do cross training at the end of class. So a little bit different, but she also had us do integration throughout class. And I go and I take a class down the road here at Northeast Ohio Ballet. And that's where I dance. Now, my teacher, absolutely phenomenal woman. It's really funny because she was actually Kara's teacher. So full circle. She integrates it throughout class as well. so like For example, the one day I was in there and you were talking about pirouettes, she was like, okay, guys, we're going to do and a balance exercise. And she literally had us do a balance conditioning exercise. And then right after that balance exercise, she made us do pirouettes.
00:42:57
Speaker
and the amount of engagement I had during my spotting was phenomenal. And I literally, ah during those exercises, because we were doing some like single leg balance drills where we were like closing our eyes, turning our head, doing circles, stuff like that, and it throws you. And the thing that's really interesting about training balance, and I think everybody needs to know this, if your body is falling and adjusting and doing all these things when you're training balance,
00:43:27
Speaker
You are getting better at balancing. Your body is trying to write itself to come back to center to find out what equilibrium is.
00:43:38
Speaker
where your state of equilibrium is. When you do that to yourself before you pirouette, you're going to turn better. Just doing simple things like that. Integrate it throughout class. If your focus of class is on pirouettes today, or you've been seeing that your students are declining with their pirouettes, you really want them to get sharper spots, then integrate those neuromuscular techniques that you're going to learn in the certification course.
00:44:02
Speaker
in a class right before the pirouettes. And guess what? It's not taking away from technique. It's not taking away from the classicism. My teacher's the one. She works for Joffrey. And then the other one, she, I believe she taught at Juilliard. So I mean, like these people are people who are respected authorities in the dance world and they're doing these things it's getting better that people are jumping on board and they're saying hey you know what we can mix this in with class and it's not ruining ballet it's not ruining ballet it's making better dancers and you're seeing more and more now dancers that are able to dance into their 30s into their 40s because we're doing these things you guys not because we're staying with
00:44:45
Speaker
what the old archaic method is saying to do. And everybody's got to stand with flat turnout. And if you don't have the super pointed arched feet, then you're not part of the group. And you've got to dance from 16 to 25. And then once you're expired, you're out and everybody's extensions need to be up to their eyes. Things are changing.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah. And as we know more about the body, it would be insane to not utilize these things. I think the
Advice for Aspiring Dancers and Resource Access
00:45:11
Speaker
biggest takeaway I have from what you just said about incorporating cross training is doing the specific exercise right before being really intentional about it. So not just randomly coming in and doing a five minute plank. yeah Not that planks aren't good, but having a very specific process and a reason behind what we're doing. Exactly. And then you could connect it to the step so that everyone sees the connection and understands why we're doing what we're doing.
00:45:37
Speaker
Yeah. And there's a time and a place for it. Like if you're working one-on-one them with a student and you're having a cross training session with them and you know that they have X, Y, and Z deficits, you're of course going to do like a lot of exercises during that session. Maybe you go in and out of relating it back to the technique, but If you are teaching a class, if your definition of cross training is, I'm just going to start the class with my cookie cutter workout circuit and every single class I'm going to do the same cookie cutter workout circuit and that's my cross training. So of course I cross train dancers because I'm making them do planks and
00:46:14
Speaker
run in place and do jumping jacks and do box jumps and single leg squats and you know and then we dance. That's not cross training. That's just doing a circuit drill with a bunch of dancers in the same room. It's not specific. It's not relating to anything functionally at that point.
00:46:32
Speaker
You can make those things really to functional things, but you have to make the connection or else the function of what the exercise is supposed to be doing is not gonna connect with the dancer. It will just fall flat and then they're gonna get bored. And then they're gonna be like, you know what? I hate doing Miss Veronica's 10-minute circuit drills at the beginning of class. They're so hard and I just like can't breathe through them and I don't know why we do it. You know?
00:46:58
Speaker
It's so much easier to stick with it when you see those direct effects. Like when I do an exercise and then I do a pirouette and I see, wow, my pirouettes are better, that motivation is really there to keep doing it. This has been so, so good Veronica. Before we wrap up, I would love for you to tell us if you had to give aspiring professional dancers one piece of advice, what would you tell them? Oh my gosh, my one piece of advice would be Please do not listen to anything negative that anyone talks to you about. And if anybody has ever told you that you can't make it because your body or whatever you think you can't make it,
00:47:39
Speaker
Don't do what I did. Don't try to find another career path. If you're truly passionate about what you do, then you just need to do it. And you need to find your support team and the people who are going to help you grow. And you need to ignore everybody else who is trying to take you down because that's something that I have to tell myself every day. So I hope that my daughter grows up in a better atmosphere than what I ended up in when I was a dancer.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah. And I will say this, you talked about the certification program and you're in cohort one, the first cohort to launch. Yeah. Cohort two will be launching soon. And if anybody is interested in cohort two, you can go to my links.
00:48:22
Speaker
And you can get on the wait list. If you're on the wait list, you're going to get a nice hefty coupon from me. Perfect. I will put all of that into the show notes, but tell us if anyone wants to reach out to you or follow you on Instagram or anything like that, where should they go? Yes. You can go to youtube dot.com slash Veronica K Ballet.
00:48:42
Speaker
You can also go to veronicakballet.com and see all of the training options if you want to get a movement analysis with me, private lessons, even join a $15 workshop. I hold one workshop every single month. There are $15 and you don't have to be a member. Or if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's veronicakplatform is the handle and same with TikTok. Perfect. Be sure to check the show notes for all of that. And I just want to say Veronica that I am so glad you're here.
00:49:09
Speaker
and that your program exists because we really need it. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you, Caitlin. I really appreciate it. and Thank you for having me on the show. It's great to talk to you and and just hear someone else who's danced professionally and has also been a mom and just understand there's a lot of things that can happen in your life.
00:49:35
Speaker
Thank you
Conclusion and Future Insights
00:49:36
Speaker
for tuning into the Brainy Ballerina podcast. If you found this episode insightful, entertaining, or maybe a bit of both, I would so appreciate you taking a moment to leave a rating and hit subscribe. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode. And you'll join our community of dancers passionate about building a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. Plus, your ratings help others discover the show too.
00:50:01
Speaker
I'll be back with a new episode next week. In the meantime, be sure to follow along on Instagram at The Brainy Valorina for your daily dose of dance career guidance.