"I'm So Tired..!" 5 Tips to Stay on Track & On Your Game

We are now at the time of year when a ballet student/ pre-professional dancer can really be testing their physical limits.  Between possibly taking on a higher demand and count of classes in a given week from the previous year (because you have come up a level) to integrating pointe work and/ or variations work into your repertoire or practice schedule, including prepping for audition season (whether that be working on your resume, your variations, your technique in private coaching, etc.) and also many are packing in Nutcracker rehearsals and performances, all while still managing regular school work...! It's a tough time of year and it's what I consider to be the busiest and most physically demanding time of year for dancers, even over summer intensives.

It becomes easy for dancers to get physically exhausted, not due to lack of motivation but from a real concern of running on empty.  But there really is nothing you can back off from, so it then it becomes a risk of injury, which will really put a dancer in a bad situation.  Use these five tips to help make it through this busy time of year:

1) Diet, Sleep and Overall Well-Being

This is probably a given but at the same time, it's very easy to slip into unhealthy habits when schedules get crazy and/ or stress builds up.  But the more you disrupt your normal habits, the more your body will strain under all your commitments, plus the changes.  So maintaining a proper diet, even in the midst of 12-14 hour days, is crucial to overall performance level.  This means skip the convenience of picking up fast food and pizza, and you may need to make sure you and your parents are on the same page with this.  Because your schedule weighs heavily on their abilities to get everything done as well. (Discussed in more detail below). 

It's also important to get plenty of sleep.  Most teens require between 8-10 hours of sleep a night to manage stress well and sleep debt can hinder an athlete's ability to perform at peak levels.  However, it is as equally important to go to bed at the same time each night.  So if it's Saturday night and you have no rehearsals or other obligations on Sunday morning, you shouldn't stay up until the wee hours of night and sleep all day.  This will just be harder on you and your body come Monday.

It's also important to take moments to manage stress, not only on your body but for your psychological well-being as well.  This can be as time consuming as soaking in a bath for 30 minutes or simply taking 5 minutes to lay still on your back with your eyes closed, listening to relaxing music and breathing deep.  Whatever you can fit in, make sure you do something each day.

2) Get Organized & Time Management Skills

Being a pre-teen or teenager, you may not necessarily be an organized type, and really have no issue with your room being a disaster area and your dance bag being a black hole of so many things you couldn't find what you're looking for at any given moment.  But here's the problem with that: dancers are organized.  You have to be when you're managing everything (especially while touring) and there's nothing more pathetic than someone who is running around because they can't find their hair piece or a glove or other easily misplaced item when 1 or more disorganized individuals share a dressing room or hotel room.  These are skills you want to start developing now if it's not already your natural tendencies.  So here's a quick checklist of things to do to get yourself organized:

• Clean and organize your room, your dance bag and your car (if you're driving your own car)
• Make sure your dance bag (or other bags, like make-up bags) have the essentials you need for rehearsals, performances, auditions; extra ribbon and elastic, toe wrappings, hair supplies, meals & snacks, etc.
• If you are managing your own costumes, label your costume bags, hangars, etc. Label each of your shoes and any accessories (if you can't label accessories, put them in gallon zip lock bags and label the bag).
  
• Prepare your meals and snacks for the week ahead of time.  Many athletes utilize the practice of meal prepping as a means to handle heavy training schedules and maintain healthy diets.  Dancers are no exception. Work with your parent(s) to prepare food ahead of time, as this helps to alleviate the stress of cooking for the week for them as well (at least as far as the dancer(s) in the family is concerned).
  
  
• Manage your downtime in a smart way.  This means that if you have a break or down time during a rehearsal, it's not always the best time management to watch your colleagues.  While under normal circumstances this can be a great learning tool, if you're in a time crunch for a few months, it may make better sense to place a higher priority on doing your homework, or studying for a test, or working on your own variation(s) for audition season, sewing or breaking in a new pair of pointe shoes, or resting.  And most certainly, this is not a time to be gossiping or surfing the internet on your phone, etc.
• Deliberately schedule everything that needs to get done.  This means that it's easy to follow the schedule of your classes, rehearsals and private lessons because those are set by your instructors and directors.  But you also need to set aside deliberate time to work on resume photos or self-rehearsal of variations or studying for regular school work.  Working under the mind-set of "I'll fit it in wherever I can" works somewhat but it shouldn't be your main plan, because 9 times out of 10, something won't get done.  Whether that results in a missed opportunity or a failing grade on a test, either way make a planned schedule that includes everything that needs to be done.  Be sure to enlist your parents, instructors, photographers and resume coaches to help you achieve your complete schedule.

3) Negotiate

Although this is not always going to work nor necessarily be appropriate to do (use your best judgement and discuss with your parents beforehand) there are times that it makes the most sense.  If your rehearsal schedule has large gaps of downtime between your dance time, talk to the director or choreographer running the rehearsal and see if there is any way to re-organize.  This not only keeps you (and probably others at your level) from having tons of down time but it's also about managing injury risk, because if you're sitting around for an hour or more, you'll have to spend time all over again to warm up.  Granted, making a rehearsal schedule that pleases everyone is impossible (so don't expect that from your director) but if you see an opportunity that makes sense, humbly bring it up to the director in private.  Never ask them to change it in front of others and never request a change without proposing a solution that makes sense.

Another non-conventional way to manage your time is with your physical education class if you're attending a regular school.  Request a meeting with the P.E. teacher (and possibly a vice principal or principal) with you and your parent and provide a detailed list of all your dance classes and rehearsals and see if (at least during the busy time if not for the whole school year) if you can be exempted out from P.E. requirements.  If this is granted, it can provide an additional study hour if your P.E. is in the middle of your school day or if you can make your schedule where it's at the end of the day, then perhaps you can get in a private lesson or additional rehearsal hour.

4) Cross-training

While I personally find very little value in regular school systems' Physical Education programs, before opting out if you can as described above, I do very much believe in cross-training for dancers, and your P.E. class may be the place to do this.  Many professional dancers do cross-training, whether it be Pilates, yoga, weight and resistance training and swimming.  These are all low-impact forms of exercise that can help train muscles that either you are not getting from your ballet classes and rehearsals and/ or it provides muscle training that can enhance and work muscles you are working in new ways so that there is not repetitive training and muscle fatigue (leading to injuries) occurring.  This counter-balance to all your ballet training helps to keep the body in check as well as provides your body a "break" from ballet without being static.

5) Let it Go (from time to time)

When you are feeling chronic fatigue, or you seem to be doing a lot of mis-steps that almost caused an injury, it's time to back off.  I was very fortunate in the fact that I never sustained a serious injury throughout my entire dance career, and while yes, I did all of the above and always gave 200%, I attribute my zero injury factor to one thing only: I took time off when I really needed it.  The simple fact of the matter is, your body is your tool.  And you should be in tune with your body enough to understand the difference between normal tiredness due to missing a few hours sleep or a few hours extra rehearsal versus compensating safe dancing and technique because you're trying so hard to carry yourself through various physical demands and the reality is, you just have nothing left.  Which is dangerous.  Even though you may feel like every single day (maybe even hour) is a critical time for which to not let up on your practice and discipline, if you cause yourself a severe injury, that will be far worse than just taking a day or two off, in the short and long run.

If you are constantly feeling new smaller injuries, mis-stepping in pointe work (where you roll your ankles easily or land jumps badly) or noticing that you are treating and trying to prevent injuries (ice & heat packs, PT and other medical type visits) on a regular basis, chances are good you are headed for a severe injury.  When these practices are becoming common place, let it go and take a day (or in some cases more) off.  Don't even do class, just allow your body time to rest and recuperate.  You will come back dancing without the high risk of injury and in most cases that I've seen, dancing improves.  Character portrayal improves and management of stress overall is improved.  I am one of the hardest pushing coaches I've ever met, and even I subscribe to this practice.  

Good luck to everyone pushing through another winter season and take care of your bodies!

Building Your Personal Repertoire [Student]

As a student in ballet looking to become a pre-professional, it is important to include, within your skill level and abilities, your own personal repertoire.  Your repertoire is the collection of dances, variations, solos, etc. you have accumulated (and hopefully acquired exceptional skill at!) during your tenure as a student ballerina.  There are very specific areas to which a pre-professional dancer should take care to include in his/ her repertoire; whether it be for the resume, the social media resume, competition, audition or other submissions to a professional company and contract for dance.  While this post centers on the ballet pre-professional repertoire, many of the same principals can be applied to any dancer, in any genre.

Age & Level Appropriateness
The first factors to look at when developing your personal repertoire all have to do with age and level.  After all, the last thing you want to do as an 11 year old in the first year or so of your pointe work is to try out Black Swan.  Therefore, you want to look at what is appropriate for your age and level of strength with your pointe work.  I would say that in many cases, if not most, that you wouldn't want to even attempt variations and building a repertoire until at least your second year en pointe, and even then, you'll want to seek the advice and direction from your main ballet instructor as to whether or not you can safely begin variation work.  This, of course. is not to say that an aspiring young dancer can't begin variations study on demi-pointe/ flat, but variations are meant to be done on pointe, so even a demi-pointe study should be geared to what you will eventually do en pointe.

It should also be noted that while many instructors say that beginner students (on flat) or a new pointe student (again, I would say at least two years en pointe in most cases, the exception is a dancer that is taking multiple technique and pointe classes in a given week and has the feet/ ankle strength) there are many young dancers, as young as ten years old who want to compete in national ballet competitions.  Although the dancer should yield to the instructor's advice on whether they are strong enough, it's also a coach's responsibility to adjust variation choreography to fit the dancer's ability while still maintaining the original elements, hence the title of a variation.

Available at the end of this post is a rough guide for levels and the types of variations that would serve a dancer well to be working on as well as include on their social media resume, and their competitive submissions.

Variety of Character & Emotion

One of the biggest considerations is developing a range of characters within the variations you choose, as well as the range of emotion and depth said characters and variations portray.  For example, if you choose to study Giselle, Act I variation, and Aurora Act I variation and La Fille Mal Gardee, there won't be much of a difference in the acting factor of the performance.  Of course they are different characters with very different story lines but the dynamic is simply not there to demonstrate a wide range of character depth and emotion.  So the objective becomes picking a wide range of characters and "emotional situations" that provide a comprehensive portfolio to your dancing skill beyond technical proficiency.

The expressions of joy and happiness, such as with a peasant or princess type role who has found her true love, is something that is socially acceptable for the younger dancer in most cases.  Or fanciful characters like birds and other animals.  Many instructors and coaches will hold the position that within many of the ballet/ Broadway stories, a young dancer does't have the maturity and life experience to portray certain roles.  I, personally, disagree with this way of thinking. I believe this to be a lazy out for coaches.  It's absolutely true that a young person doesn't necessarily have these personal life experiences to draw upon, however, a coach does.  A coach should be able to not only explain and articulate some of these experiences (again, keeping in mind age and level appropriateness), but also mentor the dancer in how to mimic and design the lines and facial expressions needed to portray a given character.

It has to be understood, even very early on, that a dancer checks herself at the door upon entry of the studio.  Whether that is part of the appeal of dance to begin with or if it has to be a deliberate action and decision for the dancer, this transformation must take place.  Whether it be real or, imagined.  And honestly, the entire world of the stage is imagined with the assistance of sets, music, costumes, etc. so why would anyone limit a dancer's access to a character simply because she may have never actually fallen in love yet?  (Like any of us knew right from left if we ever had actually fallen in love...) Or the feeling of betrayal? Rage? Jealousy? Confinement? Hope?  It is usually naive to believe that a teenager doesn't or hasn't felt these things on some level and in some great measures for them to be able to draw into their own character portrayals.  

So it is by no means that a certain age, around 14 or older can probably take on most roles.  How they portray it and if their lines and facial expressions are properly performed is cultivated by the coach or instructor.

And when seeking that dynamic, the student should be seeking a wide range of joy, anger, loss, betrayal, jealousy, revenge, justice, liberty, generosity, majesty, love found, love lost, coquettish-ness, arrogance, etc. when they are examining the roles and variations to build their repertoire.

Dynamic of Classical and Contemporary

Ballet and all dance, really is rooted in tradition and what has become generally accepted as the classics.  It is important for students/ pre-professionals to master the classics because it demonstrates a palate from which almost everyone can identify with on technical, performance and presence overall to your acumen at achieving a well-known character and conveying that story line to the audience. 

Equally as important, however, is being able to convey this translation with a completely new work, hence most contemporary works.  Contemporary pieces are typically wide open for the dancer and choreographer.  It can be a deeply emotional piece, or completely abstract; it may or may not tell a story; if it doesn't have a story, it may focus solely on designing shapes with the body; music tends to have more modern beats, instruments and sounds, etc. Contemporary pieces may be more liberating from an artistic stand point but it is equally difficult to perform if given the right coaching and direction.  In some cases it requires a deeper level of discipline because so many of us are focused on classics from very early on and throughout our dance training.

What You Should Work On vs. What You Should Perform
A common mistake I see both students and coaches making is having a student perform or compete with a variation that is technically above their level before they are ready.  This is not to say that a particular variation isn't good for the student to work on to increase their technical proficiency, but if they are still struggling with the steps, they should not compete with it.  For example, if you have a dancer who is not a good grande allegro jumper, Gamzatti variation may be a great piece to work on, but not necessarily to compete with, unless the dancer has put about a year or more into working on the piece.  

Once you are around 14/ 15 years old and are ready (potentially) to start working on the more advanced variations, be sure you have realistic expectations of the timeline.  Most pre-professionals should expect to work on an advanced level variation for about a year prior to competing with it.  In this case, this is how your repertoire is steadily built, because you have what you will be working with for that year and what you will be working on in the coming year as well as whatever you did in the past.  And of course no one expects perfection from a pre-professional and to perform something that you haven't put that time into may be okay and probably encouraged so you have performance experience with the piece. But as a coach, I recommend a minimum of 6-8 months under your variation belt with a piece before seeking to compete with it.  And once you have performed or competed with a piece, it doesn't mean you stop working on it.  Anything that you pull into your repertoire, should be kept fresh and something you could easily perform at a moment's notice.

Example Repertoires

Beginner                                                
Bluebird/ Canary                                                        
Cupid                                                                             
Doll  
La Esmeralda
La Fille Mal Gardee   
Intermediate Variations on demi-pointe                                                                              

Intermediate
Beginner Variations
Kitri Act III                                                                          
Lilac Fairy                                                                   
Aurora Act I   
Contemporary pieces                                                                  

Advanced
Intermediate Variations
Odile/ Black Swan                                                           
Giselle Act I 
Firebird
Mad Scene (Giselle)/ Death Scene (Juliet/ Odette)                                                                  
Sugarplum Fairy        
Contemporary pieces