Does the contortion and tumbling on Dance Moms scare you?
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Does the contortion and tumbling on Dance Moms scare you?
By Catherine Horne
Date: June, 2013
Like many other performers, I enjoy watching the hit Lifetime TV show, Dance Moms. I am a
contortionist, aerialist, and acrobat at Simply Circus in Newton, Massachusetts. I took ballet
lessons when I was around three or four years old and looking back, I wish I had kept up with it.
I love to dance but it is not something I have experience with, therefore, I am always floored by
the talent that the girls on this show have, especially at such a young age. The girls on Dance
Moms are incredibly talented dancers. The technique and precision impresses me to the
hundredth degree.
Mackenzie Ziegler is adorable and very talented. Her tumbling skills are of good quality,
(more on that later).
Kendall Vertes has a way with dance. Her skills are exquisite and she performs each
move with the grace that it deserves.
Paige Hyland has a great personality that the audience sees when she dances. Her smile
and her dance moves are stunning.
Nia Frazier’s attitude is great. She has confidence that shines on stage as she performs
and she has fun with it. She performs extremely well and her dance abilities are great.
Brooke Hyland is a beautiful contortion-acrobatic dancer (more on that later). Her
movements are fluid and graceful, and she makes them look superb.
Chloe Lukasiak is a beauty. She dances incredibly well in rehearsals and performs even
better. She has great stage presence and is a natural performer.
Maddie Ziegler’s dedication and work ethic blows me away. One can tell that she puts
110% into every rehearsal and performance, which pays off as she always dances
beautifully.
Despite my love for the show, there are some aspects that scare me. The contortion and the
tumbling on the show cause me distress and being a contortionist and tumbler myself, this is not
something I usually say. There are safety risks with a lot of the contortion positions and the
tumbling skills. I wanted to take this opportunity to educate the world of dance on the dangers of
some of the skills dancers do.
Contortion
In the very first episode of season one, Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer, Abby Lee
Miller asked the girls to do a chin stand or a side shoulder stand and they were going to hold it
for a count of eight. While these have become popular in dance, both skills can be exceedingly
dangerous. A side shoulder stand should not be a position at all and the proper way to do a chin
stand that these girls are aiming for makes it a chest stand. A side shoulder stand puts the neck
and spine in a difficult position with pressures it should not have on the cervical spine. A chin
stand is dangerous because there is a lot of pressure on the cervical spine because the cervical
spine is bent backwards and the neck is in a position it is not designed to take force in. By doing
the skill as a chin stand, there is an enormous amount of pressure on the neck. By doing it as a
chest stand there is virtually no excess pressure on the spine (that is, there is no pressure that it
cannot take). In the chin stands that most dancers do, the chin is always touching the ground. If
done correctly, the chin should not touch the floor. When teaching a chest stand, the student
should only bring her legs farther when she can get her chin completely off the ground. A greatexercise to stretch out the neck and help the student learn to keep her chin off the ground is to
have the student lie on her stomach with her chin up on a stack of three yoga blocks. This gives
the neck a better stretch, without putting excess pressure on it. Holding this position for 30
seconds at a time will greatly increase the range of motion in the neck. If doing a chin stand, the
forearms and elbows should be locked into the rib cage. This transfers most of the body weight
to the ground through the forearms, taking excess pressure off the neck.
This picture is from
season one, episode one.
In Maddie’s chin stand,
you can see her chin
pushing into the ground.
This is putting an
enormous amount of
pressure on the cervical
spine that should not be
there. Her arms are all
the way back, so her
neck is the only thing
that is taking that
pressure.
(Performance from season one, episode one)
In Nia’s chin stand, the
bulging of the vein
shows that the muscles
in the neck are trying to
resist the pressure that
the position is putting
on it.
(Performance from season one, episode eight)Look at Paige’s
face in this picture.
She is potentially
doing damage to
herself and her
career because she
is doing extreme
back bending when
she is not yet ready
to. She appears to
be in incredible
amounts of pain
here trying to do a
skill that she is not
ready for. Her chin
is on the ground,
meaning that her
feet should not be (Season one, episode one)
going completely to
the floor yet. Again, this puts pressure on the cervical spine when it should not be there if done
correctly.
I would also like to note that most of these girls are too young to be doing chest stands. The right
age to start teaching chest stands is about 13 years old and even then some of the more extreme
back bends should not be done until about 16 years old.
In season one, episode eight, Nia performed a beautiful
routine but she did a move that caused me to cringe
with fear. Nia was in a side shoulder stand and rolled
into a chin stand without coming down. This is
incredibly dangerous because it is the exact position
that could break a neck. In karate, the way to break a
neck is by pushing the chin up and twisting the neck,
the exact motion Nia did. Notice that in the episode,
when she was practicing, at 16:55-17:00, Nia rolled
from the side shoulder stand to the chin stand and her
head jerked, putting a significant amount of stress and
(Rehearsal from season one, episode eight)
pressure on the cervical-spine.
This is a side shoulder stand, without a backbend. Doing this particular skill with a backbend is
even more serious than without. Notice how the chin is both up and to the side. From this
position, she rolled into her chin stand (see previous picture).Turning the head in a chest stand (or chin
stand) is exceedingly dangerous. This
picture is of Brooke turning her head in a
chest stand. Mackenzie also did contortion
rolls (chest stand, roll to knees, roll to chest
stand, etc) with her head turned. Even
forgetting the fact that she is way to young
to be doing chest stands, the turning of the
head especially with the roll makes it much
more likely that an injury will occur.
In this performance, Brooke twisted out of
a chest stand (chin stand), turning her head
as she did it. This again puts enormous
amounts of pressure on the neck and
cervical spine increasing the likelihood of
an injury.
(Rehearsal from season one, episode three)
Not all of the contortion skills are putting a dancer’s safety at risk. Some of the contortion skills
are done beautifully. For example, when Brooke does her dive overs, (these may be known by a
different name in the world of dance), she makes them look flawless. She executes the skill
beautifully.
(Performance from season one, episode three)Tumbling
Some of the tumbling skills are not done properly,
therefore risking injury.
Both Paige and Nia did a round-off landing with their
legs apart. This loses power and makes linking skills
like a back handspring out of the round-off very
difficult.
The aerial walkover, (a front walkover with no hands),
is incredibly low to the ground. The head is nearly
brushing the ground. This works for a specific body
type, but as students get older the technique works less
and less. One way to teach an aerial front walkover is
by teaching a dive front walkover, (something that I
know these girls know because Brooke did one as she
was exiting the stage after one of her solo’s). Once the
dive front walkover, the unbalanced position, the kick, (Performance from season one, episode four)
and the throw of the arms are all there, the aerial front
walkover will come easily.
In this front handspring, you can see how the arms are
bent. This is caused by the hands being too wide when
they are initially brought to the ground. It makes it
harder for the acrobat to block, or shrug the shoulders,
which is completely necessary in order to land with
straight knees.
(Acrobatics class from season one, episode
four)
In this
handstand, the hands are going down too wide. For a
nice clean handstand, the thumbs should be almost
touching. Also, she is putting her hands too far.
Hands should go down a few inches in front of where
the feet are.
(Acrobatics class from season one, episode four)A good technique, (the best one I’ve learned), is called a Mongolian Handstand.
To start, all the weight is on the front foot and the back toe is
turned under.
The back foot comes up before the hands go down and the
hands go down a few inches in front of the feet. To keep
balance, the acrobat keeps all of her weight on the part of the
hand just beneath the fingers and she presses into the fingers
or the bottom of the palm depending on which way she is
falling, (if feet are falling towards the fingers, push into the
fingers and if feet are
falling the other way,
push into the bottom
of the palm).
In this photo, Nia’s hands are turned and facing
sideways in her front walkover. Based on experience,
this hurts. The hands and fingers want to be facing
forwards when doing front walkovers, back walkovers,
back handsprings, etc. This makes them cleaner and
causes less injury to the wrists.
(Performance from season one, episode four)
Warming Up
In one episode, (season one, episode eight), Abby told the girls, “Five minutes to warm up.”
Now I think Abby is great. Many dance programs incorporate warming up into the skill work at
the beginning of class, and this may be the case, but it’s not clear from the show if this is true.
Abby seems to be a great choreographer and produces very skillful dancers and on many things I
agree with Abby, but I do not agree that five minutes will give an athlete a sufficient warm up. I
spend about an hour warming up and conditioning and then another hour to an hour and a half
stretching - All of this before I start skill work. Any athlete needs more than five minutes to
warm up. The muscles need to be warm in order to perform their best otherwise there can be
muscles injuries. Since many of the girls on Dance Moms do contortion skills, I want to take you
through a typical contortion warm up.First we do seven laps around our gym: two forwards, one backwards, sashay facing
inside, sashay facing outside, grapevine facing inside, and grapevine facing outside.
Following laps, we condition. Your basic conditioning is a core exercise like crunches,
followed by a leg exercise like lunges, another core exercise, an arm exercise like push-
ups, and then a last core exercise. More advanced classes do more exercises and add in
other exercises for the gluteus and the pectorals muscles.
Stretching follows conditioning. Stretching is one of the most important parts of any
class. A lot of athletes skip over it because it takes time, but all athletes need to spend
time stretching. Not all athletes need to spend as much time stretching as a contortionist
does but a dancer who is doing a lot of back bending and splits needs to spend a
significant time stretching. This is my laundry list of stretches that I do every day. (Note
that each stretch should be held for at least 30 seconds)
-Head/Neck rolls (Three in each direction)
-bring head back (look up)
-bring head forward (look down)
-look to one side and then the other side
-bring head to one side and then the other side
-Shoulder Stretches
-arm behind head and grab elbow
-straight arm against pole or wall and twist opposite way
-bent arm (90° angle) against pole or wall and twist opposite way
-facing wall, bring hands up to shoulder height and bend forward
-grasp arms behind back and slide arms back
-Wrist Stretches
-palms on the floor facing forwards, rock 10 times
-palms on the floor facing self, rock 10 times
-palms on the floor facing away from each other, rock 10 times
-palms up, fingers facing self, rock 5 times
-Ankle Stretches
-roll the ankles 20 times in each direction
-walk on the outsides of the feet
-walk on the insides of the feet
-Back Stretches
-upper back cobra sequence (shoulders should not be hunched)
-lie on stomach with hands under the armpits
-only the head comes up, looking up/back the whole time
-slowly bring the shoulders off the ground bending only at the top
of the back (you should not feel this in the lower back at all)
-mini-cobras (shoulders should not be hunched)
-start with the upper back cobra sequence, leading with your head
and keeping the head back the entire mini-cobra-bring forearms in front of chest on the ground (you are only
stretching the top of the back, nothing should be felt in the lower
back)
-cobras (shoulders should not be hunched)
-start with the upper back cobra sequence, leading with your head
-without coming down, follow with the mini-cobra, keeping the
head back
-extend the arms out straight and walk them in closer to the body,
keeping the head back and the eyes looking back all the way
-scorpion (extension off of the cobra)
-once in a full cobra, bring the feet to the head
-bridges/backbends
-push up to a bridge from the ground or bend backwards from
standing
-keep the legs, knees, and feet together
-push to the shoulders
-spinal twists
-bend left leg in and cross right leg over it…twist to each side
-bend right leg in and cross left leg over it…twist to each side
-Forward Stretches
-pikes/over pikes
-pike: keep the back flat and bend forward trying to reach toes
-over pike: put feet up on a block or mat and pike over
-plow
-lie on back, bring feet above head
-bend knees
-Split Stretching
-dynamic kicks (30 kicks on each leg for each variation)
1. Lie on back, bending one leg (keeping foot on ground). Kick
straight leg up to the opposite hand (both legs)
2. Begin on hands and knees. Kick leg up and back (both legs)
3. Start standing. Kick one leg up to the opposite hand keeping the
other leg straight (both legs)
4. Hands on the ground close to feet, kick up and back with leg
(both legs)
-pre-splits (both legs)
-lunge forward with back leg on the ground (make sure your front
knee is in line with the ankle, not in front of or behind it)
-without moving the feet, straighten the front knee, flexing the toe
hard, and bend forward with a flat back
-bend the front knee again and come up onto the back toe
-bring the back leg down, bringing the ankle/calf up and grab the
ankle with the opposite hand
-let go of the ankle and straighten the front leg again pointing the
toe this time. Bend forward keeping the back flat-bend the front leg again and come down to the inside of your leg
onto your forearms or chest
-splits
-when sliding into your split, always slide back rather than
forwards
-assisted splits (both legs) (note: these should be done every other day at
most)
-person being stretched lies on her back and brings one leg up
-another person holds one hand below the knee on the calf and one
hand above the knee on the thigh and pushes that leg down (not
hard but enough to keep it from coming up)
-the last person in the group holds the leg that is being stretched
(the leg that is up) and pulls that leg towards the nose of the person
lying on her back until she says stop
-split up the wall (use hand balancing table to push) … (start with hands
on the ground and then bring up to hand balancing table so arching back)
-Middle Splits Stretching
-dynamic kicks (30 kicks on each leg)
1. Keeping stationary leg straight, kick up and to the side with
other leg (both legs)
-sit in a straddle…shoot forward arms (25 times)
-sit in a straddle…shoot forward and hold for 3-5 seconds (25 times)
-legs at a 90 degree angle…shoot forward, shoot side
-frog
-full straddle
-sit in a straddle…lean to either side/pancake down onto stomach
-assisted middle splits (note: these should be done every other day at most)
-one person sits against a wall straddled out
-two other people push on both legs until person being stretched
says stop
-split against the wall
-straddle out facing the wall
I can only hope that this information is taken seriously and that if it doesn’t change the Abby Lee
Dance Company and Studio, it changes other dance companies and studios.You can also read
