Teaching Dandiya at a Beautiful Indian Thai Wedding
I had the pleasure over the weekend to teach a little dandiya lesson at my friend’s wedding. For those who haven’t tried it, dandiya is an Indian dance in which each dancer has two short sticks (or dandiyas) that they hold in their hands. The dancers tap their sticks together with a partner’s sticks, or on their own, in a certain pattern. There are many common patterns, such as the basic 5 count pattern that we started with. However an individual or group can also invent their own patterns (as long as they work comfortably) and use them with a group. I also taught a fun 12 count pattern that involves switching places with your partner and back again before rotating on to the next partner.
I was very excited / relieved / impressed that everyone at the wedding picked up the patterns so well and there were no disasters in the dandiya line! It can be a problem if one dancer (or more) get off time, or forget the pattern, the whole rotation can get thrown off and the dance falls apart. Thankfully this did not happen and everyone had a good time meeting different people and playing dandiya together. I think this is a great party dance, as you get a chance to interact a little bit with a whole lot of people. Specifically at a wedding, it is great to get people out of their groups and meeting people from the other family or sets of friends.
A big thank you to all the Gujaratis who have helped me learn this style in time to teach it to others! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you…
The wedding overall was very beautiful.
Neal and Ann looked absolutely amazing in their wedding finery. I could have stared all night at Ann’s beautiful dress and ornate hair style. They also looked pretty cute later when they changed into more comfortable dancing clothes for their first dance (a very cute, choreographed swing dance number).
Because Neal and Ann met in our dance group, Decadance, they had the troupe there to perform various numbers.
They performed a couple pieces that Neal and Ann had choreographed, and also a brand new Dandiya performance piece that was very cool.
Made me wish that I had brought my Gujarati friends to the wedding because I think they would have enjoyed the performance! Oh well, next time.
Best wishes for a long and happy marriage to Neal and Ann, and thanks for the awesome Henna lady on Friday night, I am so excited about the henna on my hands!!
Beautiful Photos (and hot salsa dancing) by Shu-Jon Mao.
Steampunk Dance Style Creation
If you were to imagine an alternate universe, would you be able to determine what the dance forms would look like in that universe?
Imagine, say, that something strange and apocalyptic happened during the turn of the century, so that the whole of society spun away from democracy and technological progress. Instead it stayed in a state of psuedo-Victorian “grey age”. This is the vision of many “steampunk” afficianados, who adopt a combination of love of historical items (from top hats to blunderbusses), do-it-yourself crafts projects (such as creating elaborate costumes, googles, props, guns, etc), and a modern sexy vibe that includes punk, lingerie as outerwear, and burning man creativity.
If this alternate “steampunk” universe were to exist, with it’s own separate path of history, what would the dancing look like? Would they still dance partner dances (such as quadrilles and mazurkas from the 1890s)? Or would they have had their own dance revolutions and have brand new styles not seen in this universe?
All of this comes to mind as I have been commissioned to choreography a modern quadrille for the short film being created here in San Francisco, Perpetual Steam Punk.
I will be creating the dance for the end of the film, which is set in the alternate steampunk universe in our current decade. The directors have asked for a combination of traditional quadrille steps with modern movement.
Which brings to mind the question, can you solve for what a society’s dance forms will look like, if you know enough about their culture? And which things in the culture determine what the dance form will look like?
I have never really had a chance to think about it before, but with many years of studying dances from around the world, I wonder if you took the following things into account, if you could determine what the dancing will look like:
1. 
What the culture values (order vs. independence, strength vs. elegance, academic intelligence vs. joyful spirit). If you look at cultures that value order, they tend to have dances with elaborate, ordered interlacing of the dancers in floor patterns. Cultures that instead value individuality and creative spirit tend to have more individual creative body movement, flexible use of the body, and less rigid posture.
2. Religious standards about touching. Religious idealogy frequently sets boundaries to the kind of body movement accepted in a culture, both how one dancer moves their body, and how dancers touch and interact.
3. Hygiene. Not sure if this is actually true, but it would seem possible that areas of the world that have extensive medicine and infrastructure for clean water / showering / etc. tend to have more close contact dancing. Dances from less infrastructure areas might have less close contact dancing.
4. Status of women in the culture. Are women valued for their hard work, strong bodies and minds? Or are women valued as decorative and delicate objects to be possessed by the men? You can tell a lot about the way the way women’s dancing will look by how they are valued in the culture. Are women allowed to make their own choices about who and when to marry / partner with? Or are these choices forced upon them? The power dynamics of the culture will also give insight to whether’s women’s dancing will be an appealing show for a male audience, a celebration of personal power, or an individualist show of strength.
5. Status of men in the culture. Are men valued for their kindness, or their brawn? For their self-discipline, or their flexibility? I think men’s styles of dancing around the world vary a lot less than women’s. Perhaps this is because men are frequently showcasing their skills for women’s approval and tend to showcase the same things: physical strength, agility, and endurance. But you do see some variation, which perhaps leads to the difference between Irish Step Dancing vs. African warrior dancing.
6. Existence / ease of birth control. I think many dance forms from prior centuries kept the men and women separate because dance = hanky panky = unwanted children = societal problems. The simple solution – keep the men and women separate as much as possible. Certainly the kind of close dancing you now see in clubs would have lead to many problems before the advent of modern birth control! I believe the existence / availaility of birth control can tell you a lot about the way cultural dance forms will look, and the kind of partnering you see.
I am still thinking of various factors that might influence how dance evolves in a particular culture. What do you think makes an impact? The clothing style? 
Musical instruments? Types of footgear worn? Religious / story telling traditions? Performance traditions?
I am excited to try to take the alternate history of San Francisco steampunk, and try to create a dance style that matches wha might have been. In a universe like our own, but with changes to the technology and history, would we dance as we do today?
Check out more about Steampunk Dancing with Richard Powers.
Leave your thoughts below…
Featured in Times of India article – My Bollywood Classes!
All things India are quite “hot” here in the USA, and India is taking notice of our new “crush” on their styles.
I would be that the American interest is somewhat tied into India’s rising stature in the world of commerce and IT. Further, there are many Indian immigrants living here in the USA and sharing their culture with those around them. But the last push has been in the movies. I don’t think American’s recent interest in India started with Slumdog Millionare. Instead I think there has been a rising awareness of all Bollywood movies, and Bollywood dance appearing on such shows at “So you think you can dance” and “World Superstars of Dance”. As well, I think Bollywood itself has changed a great deal in the last 5-10 years. The quality of the cinematography and music has vastly improved. The costumes, lighting, and technical production are now superb. And the style has changed to look and sound much more American. The way the singers sing now sounds more like American pop than traditional Indian classical singing. All of this makes it easier for an American audience to appreciate Bollywood movies. Even if they don’t understand all of the culture, many elements have come closer to what they are familiar with.
I guess it’s not surprising that India is interested in America’s interest in India (every loves to be loved). So I wasn’t totally surprised when a reporter from India called me to talk about my Bollywood classes. She turned out to be quite a good reporter, asking many thorough questions (everything from when, where, and how I learned to dance, to which Bollywood movie was my favorite). I appreciated that she checked her sources, asking me for additional references at Google and Oracle that she could talk to.
And I was very happy at the result – check out the article in the Times of India!
Ballroom Beautiful
I may have my gripes with the competition ballroom world. It can encourage people to be obsessive about shallow things – their fake tan, long nails, fake eyelashes, and brand name accessories. It is, quite honestly, a terrible waste of money, with the five thousand dollar costumes, outrageous entry and ticket fees, and constant travel. It can create eating disorders and snobby behaviour. Worst, it can make people forget that dancing is beautiful and fun.
So I just wanted to throw up here a few of my favorite dancers and favorite routines to remind everyone (myself included) that competition styling ballroom dancing can be beautiful. Besides just beautiful it can be a creative, heart felt, and touching performance style. For any who feel like ballroom is only a bunch of people posing, and it has no heart or room for personal expression, I hope you appreciate these performances as much as I do.
First, Michael Malitowksi and Joanna Leunis, in a romantic and sweet rumba:
Mayo Alanen and Lisa Vogel dancing a smooth showcase to “Hurt”,
or the same couple with a more classical style:
One of my favorite ladies, Yulia Zagoruychenko with her former partner, Max Kozhevnikov, dancing a creative and smart samba:
and one of my favorite creative dances, from the same couples:
And even a tango, danced by my favorites, Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed:
As stylized as these dances are, there is room for beauty, emotion, personal expression, joy, anger, sadness… all the things that we feel in life can come through in our dancing.
If you have a fav. video, post below so we can all see!
Monterey Sunshine
Yes, I think I did get a little bit of suntan in Monterey, CA. That should be put on record!
I guess it was good that we waited for this time of year to head over and have a quiet weekend, as the weather was beautiful. A little foggy in the morning but otherwise clear and warm and sunny.
We had a gift certificate to the lovely Martine Inn, which I highly recommend. The staff was sweet and uber professional. The room was a little stuffy until we opened the windows, but was very cute and interesting to look at all the antiques. The view from the dining room was awesome, and they had wine in the evening and tea and coffee and other snacks out all the time. The breakfast in the morning was very tasty and definitely held us till later in the day (very rich french toast, berries, sausage, etc)! The only thing I would say is to bring your own shampoo and conditioner. The stuff they offer is just fine, it certainly does the job. But I think whoever is in charge of selecting these things is a “man’s man” and chose really strongly “male” scented items. I sort of felt like I was washing my head with my dad’s aftershave. I wonder if guy’s get just as annoyed when forced to shampoo with flowery scented stuff? Well, perhaps that’s the bane of good B&B owners – who should they cater to? But anyways, if you don’t want to wash your hair with “Brut” maybe bring your own bottle.
To continue the eating tour, we had a fantastic lunch at Maha’s Lebanese cuisine in downtown Monterey. I highly recommend it to anyone who might be heading down there. The fare was very flavorful and tasty 
without being too much in any way. I had a stuffed pepper (huge!), with sides of baba ghanoush, salad, tabouli, etc. And make sure to try the jhallub, a sweet but refreshing raisen drink (sort of like Lebanese lemonade). They toss some pine nuts on the top and the whole thing smells and tastes a little like roses. The owners were super nice and gave us extras (coffee and baklava). The coffee was *crazy* strong but tasty (again with the roses), and the baklava was home-made, not too sweet like a lot of store bought versions. It actually had a balanced flavor of pastry, walnut, rose, and honey.
Oh – and all you bellydancers, they are looking to hire more entertainment staff. They already have a girl who dances Friday and Saturday night, but if you’re down some other time…
While we were still stuffed from Maha’s, we ran back across a tiny tea shop off the rec trail, quite near the Aquarium. It’s part of the Wave Street Studio, a TV recording studio / yoga studio / dance studio / general hippie hangout. The Quock Mui Tea Room had an impressive listing of teas on the menu, many of which smelled quite nice. Since we had just spiked ourselves with crazy Turkish coffee, we stuck to the herbals. I enjoyed my vanilla cream rooibus – nice when iced. If you find yourself in Monterey, make sure to stop into the tea house and enjoy the heated bench and waterfall.
Overall it was just nice to get away and remember to relax. It is so easy in the silicon valley to feel always in a rush. As soon as I finish one project, I look immediately to what I should be doing next. I feel like there must always be another impending deadline, something to rush off to. It’s very hard for me to settle down and remember that I do not always have to pack every moment of the day with the next thing. It’s fun to look at the Monterey photos and see this foreign look on my face – I look relaxed! I should probably do that more often…
Have you hugged your dance partner today?
I think the hardest part about partner dancing is the “partner” part, not the “dancing” part. Not to say that dancesport isn’t physically challenging – the sport continues to get faster and tougher in the physical sense. Ballroom dancers have to be strong, flexible, fit, sensual, expressive, tough, balanced, and in great cardiovascular shape. They are challenged to the max in every physical sense.
But I still think the hardest part of ballroom / social partner dancing is maintaining a working relationship with a partner. This seems like it should be relatively easy compared to the gymnastics you have to do, but it has several common pitfalls…
1. What it feels like to you is not what it feels like to your partner. Certain physical actions that might feel fine to you (raising or lowering your arm early, leaning backwards, stiffening your shoulders) but might feel awful to your partner. Many times people are inadvertantely affecting their partner without realizing it. This becomes a source of argument as people start to blame each other for doing it “wrong” without realizing that they are part of the problem.
Easy Solution: Avoid the words “You’re doing it wrong”. I think there is no sentence out there that is less helpful. If you want to try to fix what’s going wrong, try the words instead, “How can I help you to…” For example, if you feel like your partner is too far away from you, “How can I help you to end the pattern closer to me?” There is probably something you are doing that is blocking your partner from coming closer – by phrasing it this way you two can work together to find a solution.
Mention what you are feeling so the other person can become aware of how it feels to you. As I said, what it feels like on one side of the partnership can feel entirely different on the other side of the partnership. If you use the words, “When you do X, I feel Y. Instead, if you could do P then I would feel Q.” I know this sounds like cheezy relationship therapy talk (cause it is). But trust me, ballroom dancing is just like couples therapy – or couples therapy gone wrong if people don’t communicate clearly!
If you really must say that they are doing something “wrong”, be specific and kind. Give a compliment first, and then say, “if you could not lower my arm until beat three, that would help me to finish my turn first”. People can accomplish specific items, and this can keep the critique from turning into an argument.
2. Take positive action and assume the best. Your dance partner, 99% of the time, is trying their best (if they aren’t… then maybe consider a new partner). You have to remember that they are not *trying* to make mistakes, forget the pattern, lead you into walls, or do that annoying thing that you’ve told them not to do. Why would they try to mess up? No really, most people are trying to get it right, but just can’t be perfect at everything all at once.
Easy solution: Try to practice only one thing at a time. Say one of you has a hand squeezing problem. Try practicing one whole hour focusing only on not squeezing each other’s hands to death. Neither of you is allowed to comment, complain, or focus on anything else. Do not allow yourself to point out the other mistakes they are making – unimportant! They are trying to fix one thing at a time. Be patient.
This brings us to a very important point – you can only fix yourself. And there is always more to fix about yourself, so focus on that, and allow your partner the space and time to fix themselves. For the most part, having one’s partner constantly pointing out the various things one is doing wrong only makes one defensive. Defensive people do not learn or improve very quickly. Avoid making your partner feel attacked! Their dancing will get *worse* not better. If you really feel the need to point something out, it should be phrased with the above communication tips.
For the most part, I allow my teacher / coach to offer my partner criticism. That is why we pay them to do so. We do this for two reasons – the teacher is more experienced and can offer corrections in the right sequence. Imagine that you were learning French, and you knew some words but could barely string together a sentence. Since you were just starting, your grammar and conjugation is very limited. However, your French partner, when trying to listen to you, keeps cutting in and correcting your pronunciation of “r”s and the particulars and the past tense. All of this further frustrates you and confuses you, because you can barely put a sentence together in the first place, let alone think of all these little details! On the other hand, an experienced French teacher would ignore the mistakes that are normal for the level, and correct the most important things that need to be fixed first. You cannot fix everything at once, and a good teacher chooses wisely the most important thing to be corrected so that future progress will be smoother. When a nagging dance partner cuts in with lots of other corrections, it can derail the student from focusing on what’s important.
Further, the dance teacher is an impartial judge. By allowing the judge to make the corrections, it helps to keep the partners united. This seems like a sort of trivial detail, but human nature is not always kind. When the partners start to critique each other, it is difficult for them to feel safe around each other. They cannot safely lead and follow with trust, and they feel judged by the other person. It is usually best to leave the judging to the judges and teachers, and make your partner just that, your partner.
3. Don’t imitate the big boys and girls! Believe it or not, many “pros” demonstrate very bad examples of how to care for your partner. You will frequently see pros fighting on the dance floor during practice, storming out of a room, screaming at each other, etc. Or the less dramatic examples, but equally insidious – in the middle of a step one partner will disdainfully shrug the other partner away and just walk off.
I must say, it is incredibly hard to live the professional ballroom competitor’s lifestyle. They are physically, mentally, and financially stressed constantly. There is a lot of pressure to perform well and win with all your students watching. All this stress means that many pros practice poorly by letting their egos interfere with their progress. Pro partnerships mix business with social life (and sometimes romantic life!) This mixing can create a lot of pressure, and when the two aren’t getting along after hours / days/ months / years of traveling, practicing, and performing together, they can treat each other quite poorly. Many pro partnerships stick together for years after the partners hate each other because it is too important to continue financially / business-wise together. This means that pro partnerships frequently set a bad example for students on how to treat your dance partner.
In short, do not imitate the big boys and girls. I see younger couples sometimes directly quoting their teacher’s rants to each other. You don’t need to do this to be cool! You don’t need to treat your partner badly to be a top competitor!
Instead, proper care of your dance partnership can result in a much longer partnership, which can mean greater success on the dance floor and a lot more learning.
Take positive action – bring your partner flowers. Or a cookie. Or a hug. Or just remind them how much you appreciate dancing with them. This sounds cheezy, but a good dance partner is your most precious possession. It might be easier to find someone to marry than someone to be a full-time dance partner with. If you have a good one, take care of them the way you would take care of your most prized possessions. Because of all those possessions are much more easily replacable than that person who allows you to take them in your arms, who trusts you to lead / follow and dance with them.
So, have you hugged your dance partner today?
Be kind to each other and see you on the dance floor.
Dance Resource Books
Dance is generally not taught.
It is demonstrated, so that the student can imitate. Teachers assume that over the course of time students will imitate better and better, and thus they learn.
Teachers sometimes add in little “corrections” that are phrased they were told when they were learning, like “use your legs” or “hold your center”! Although these phrases may be accurate and instructive to those who understand what they mean, they are completely useless for a student who does not understand, or worse, misunderstands the meaning.
Many teachers teach this way because it is how they were taught, completely ignoring the student’s forebrain and trying to rely exclusively on “monkey see monkey do”.
You can probably already tell my bias against this kind of teaching and towards the kind of teaching that engages student’s minds as well as their bodies.
Because of this predisposition in the dance discipline to non-intellectual teaching and learning, it can be difficult to find good writings on the topic of dance. The fact that it is difficult to know all the anatomy and physiology, physics, and dance technique involved makes it even harder to find a writer who can really explain what is going inside the body when a dancer dances.
But there are a few brave writers who broach this subject, my favorite of which is Eric Franklin. This Swiss-German author and ballet dancer approaches a wide range of topics in his series of books. Some focus on anatomy for dancers, while others focus on performance techniques or physical training. I have found ALL of his books to be chock full of great advice and information. In fact, some of his books are so densely packed with great information and exercises they are difficult to read. It’s a bit like trying to swallow an encyclopedia. But taken in small pieces or used as a resource manual on topics as needed, his books are priceless.
Also good to check out are:
Inside Ballet Technique: Separating Anatomical Fact from Fiction in Ballet Class by Valerie Grieg
The Ballet Companion: A Dancer’s Guide by Eliza Gaynor Minden
Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain
The New Rules of Posture by Mary Bond
If you know any particularly good dance books, please let me know – I am always looking for new writings on the subject!
Crazy Busy
I just finished a book called “Crazy Busy” by Edward Hallowell – and I think it’s well worth picking up for a read.
As far as I can tell, this guy has been working as a psychologist for upper class, highly motivated but also highly stressed clients for a long time.
He’s noticed that in the last 5-10 years the problems of these clients have changed, but not many people have been aware of the changes.
Basically, as computers, cell phones, the web, and other forms of data storage and transmission continue to improve, our brains are increasingly flooded with data.
The amount of friends we try to keep track of (facebook), the number of buying or selling opportunities we have (ebay or craig’s list), the number of hobbies we could have, newsfeeds we could read.. all of it has increased exponentially.
And that’s great. But it also makes us crazy. Or at least crazy busy. Take for example, back in the land of “before” – you were friends with whoever was around. More or less. Maybe you tried to keep in touch with a few people who were really special but far away. But for the most part, once you lost touch with someone they were gone. And that allowed people to easily and humanely trim their social circles to a manageable size.
But now you can easily retain many more people on your “friend” list than you ever could before. Should you remember all their birthdays so you can at least write on their facebook wall? Can you keep up with all of them via twitter?
Or do you just drive yourself crazy and spread the meaningful social interaction time that you do have so thin that you aren’t really friends with anyone?
Hallowell asserts that the data that overwhelms us these days can make us all act like we have ADD. We don’t have it, but we act like it in many destructive and unhealthy ways.
He offers a few solutions to combat the problem. Obvious ones, like pick what’s important and stick to it. Find big projects / problems / people in your life that take lots of time but don’t give much reward and cut them out, no matter how painful. He has a whole system for monitoring your time budget (as important as a monetary budget, but much less frequently done!)
I think there is a part of the world (most of it?) that would kill to have the problems Hallowell discusses. There are many parts of America, let alone the rest of the world, where people would love to have a Blackberry and latte addiction. If that was the worst of their problems they would be very happy indeed (at least at first?). So I did find some of Hallowell’s catastrophic language a bit shallow. But the problems of the successful and rich are still problems, even if they seem a little silly sometimes.
So if you have noticed that when people ask you how you are doing, you don’t say “good” or “okay” but instead say “busy” or even “crazy busy”, maybe you need to pick up this book. I know it did me a lot of good, helping me get some perspective on what projects of mine needed to be put to rest, and where I could better focus my time. If you have any suggestions of changes you’ve made to streamline your life, feel free to share with all of us below in the comments field!
Om Shanti Om
Soo… I haven’t really seen all that much Bollywood. But I’ve probably watched just about every great Bollywood dance routine available on youtube though!
I finally did get around to seeing “Om Shanti Om” just the other day, and it is well worth a watch.
I found it refreshingly different from Hollywood plots and drama – some of the images they used (Shanti in the fire) and some of the plot twists (Om part one before Om part two!) I would never see in a Hollywood movie. I appreciated the fresh humor and found some of the scary moments genuily scary!
The themes of death and rebirth and the natural cycle of the world was also a really nice non-Hollywood theme. I also appreciated how not everything worked out perfectly – it’s nice to have a movie that makes you think about what’s important in life (family, love, tradition, following your dreams) and not just success and glamor.
There are some excellent dance scenes and hilarious songs (the pain of disco is my fav). The ridiculous burning man-ish water chicks. The whole bucket of water splashing off his abs. The utter ridiculousness of “my heart is filled with the pain of disco” – it’s great to see Bollywood that can make fun of Bollywood.
I found it interesting that in Om’s first family (the family that gives him love, support, religion, and inspiration) there seems to be a mother but no father. And in Om’s second family (the family that gives him worldy success, connections, good times, and good fortune) he has only a father but not much of a mother.
There were some interesting thoughts woven in about how important family connections are to success in India. It sounded like some of the old caste system ideas are still strong in the culture although not spoken as such. A person of a lower family can’t make it in the real world (which seems unfair to the characters involved and to an American audience). But there seems to be an idea of cosmic justice. The universe is conspiring to make everything come out “right”. The evil villain definitely gets punished while the good hero gets at least some rewards. So on a mystical level everything seems to “work out”, but this runs in conflict to the “unfairness” witnessed by the lower class person trying to get ahead. This might only be a conflict to an American audience that expects good things to happen to good people during their lifetime.
Although there were some gaping plot holes (how does everyone suddenly exit the ballroom so they can confront the evil villian?) and some of the mystical moments are a little heavy handed, the movie over all was enchanting and beautifully done. If you want to see the who’s who of Bollywood, and some awesome funny moments from director Farah Kahn, check out Om Shanti Om.
Stretching
So I was chilling with some of the trainers at the one of the gyms I teach at. I had just finished subbing a Zumba class for a friend and was stretching before heading home.
As I was doing some more exteme stretches (yoga pigeon and full hamstring stretches) of course all the buffed up trainers thought what I was doing was impossible. Even worse, they all seemed to thinking stretching was totally unneccesary and a waste of time. Most of these guys couldn’t touch the back of their neck – their arms and shoulders were so bulked up and inflexible. But besides their own lack of flexibility, I was saddened by their complete dismissal of the benefits of stretching.
So I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the topic, in case any of my friends are taking with personal trainers like these guys.
Stretching is highly beneficial to your body. Stretching can:
- Reduce muscle tension
- Increase range of movement in the joints
- Enhance muscular coordination
- Increase circulation of the blood to various parts of the body
- Result in fewer in juries
- Decrease muscle soreness
- Increase energy levels (resulting from increased circulation)
Let me just take one of those bullet points – increased range of motion. That doesn’t sound very exciting, right? Who cares if the range of motion of my ankle joint, for example, is 6 degrees or 12 degrees? That’s not going to make me a better athlete.
Oh but it is! Take, as the example, the ankle joint. If one does not stretch one’s calf muscle, the ability to flex and point the ankle can greatly diminish. This loss of range of motion can mean you can’t squat as far. Without the ability to do a deep squat, you can’t jump as high or run as fast. So losing range of motion in just one joint in the body can horribly diminish your athletic potential.
It can even make daily living harder. Without a 10 degree range of motion in the ankle, it can be difficult even to go down stairs. But some simple stretching for the calf and ankle muscles can relieve all of these problems.
Take that concept and apply it to all your joints. Those buffed up guys in the gym? They wouldn’t be able to throw a ball like a real pitcher who has great range of motion in his shoulders. Or have the hip flexibility to be a good rock climber or runner.
If you are going to lift (and doing some resistance training is good for most every body), make sure to stretch inbetween your sets, and thoroughly stretch at the end of your workout – spending at least 15 minutes stretching can save you from slowly shrink wrapping your body into a tight little package that can’t move. I know it can be hard to make yourself quit lifting sooner and save time for stretching. It can be hard to think that this part of the workout is really “worth it”. Check out my post on the benefits of “rest” and perhaps you’ll be more likely to add stretching into your daily routine.
What do you do to stretch? Please share below in the comments field…
