Improving flexibility, technique, and strength are constant goals for dancers, no matter their age or skill level. Studio conditioning and regular morning and night stretch routines are great ways to achieve regular progress. If you’re looking to diversify your training and explore new hobbies, yoga is another approach.
When you think of yoga, you probably think of it as a way to relax or focus on your breathing. However, it offers more than peace, especially for dancers. Whether you are working on your tilt or tap routine, incorporating yoga into your dance routine can help with a variety of strengthening and conditioning skills that will improve your overall technique.
Increase Flexibility
It is difficult to overstate the importance of flexibility in dance. It is an essential base for everything from kicks to pirouettes to leaps. Yoga’s pigeon pose, downward dog, and child’s pose are great for targeting flexibility and stretching your hip, leg, and back muscles—muscles that impact your turnout as well as your range of motion for kicks, splits, and jumps. Working these exercises into your routine gradually can help you improve your skills while avoiding injury from sudden changes.
Improve Balance
Yoga is a great way to improve your balance. Balance (and the muscles needed for it) impacts your ability to successfully perform moves like pirouettes and kicks and maintain poses to dramatic effect. Poses like yoga’s tree pose are good for improving your balance and stability. Improving your balance happens gradually, and consistent yoga routines will help enable that improvement.
Cope with Stress and Anxiety
Yoga has a reputation for relaxation. This is a definite benefit of the practice, for your mind and your body. A heavy dance schedule is an easy way to accumulate physical stresses and tense muscles as well as performance anxiety. If you feel stressed or anxious, putting on music and easing your way through a yoga routine can help you clear your mind. Balancing and holding poses as well as staying aware of your breathing require a focus that makes everything else disappear.
Injury Recovery
It isn’t fun being injured, but a dance injury doesn’t mean you have to fully stop moving. Yoga is a low-impact method of getting your body moving, so it is a great option for recovery exercise as well as post-recovery muscle building before and after practice.
