Now, the title is not the most positive one. Talking about cold and mistakes may not be the most encouraging way of starting your week but the aim of this post is definitely heading in the direction of improvement and realising what we may be missing out on as teachers or students taking classes/training and how to take the class experience/our skill to the next level while keeping the body safe and sound.
Before we get to the core of the post, let's quickly establish 2 major points that will ensure we are all zooming on this subject through the same lens so we can establish the importance of it.
What is a warm-up?
A warm-up is simply a physical and mental preparation for a chosen task (Mukhopadhyay, 2022).
Link between a warm-up and performance
Warming-up has been proven over and over again to be an essential element to elevate one's performance. Physical, physiological and psychological readiness is necessary to perform at a high level yet we see it way too often that proper warm-ups are not included in dance classes. The concern of a creative content often takes over and after years of taking classes, the students are still unsure where to start when the teacher is not around, and guess what - THAT IS A PROBLEM. Especially when the teacher aims to empower dancers/students to have a career in the industry.
To read more about the specific benefits to warming up please visit Bibliography 2.
So let's get straight to the point.
Dance Nation, RCSSD, Photo by Patrick Baldwin
1. Stretching before raising the body's temperature
Depending on the stretching technique this may not always be a problem but if we focus on static passive stretching and our students are yet to find out about actively using the muscle contractions and relaxation while expanding the ranges of the joints, please make sure the body's temperature is raised first. That will allow for the body to naturally open up and access ranges/positions that could otherwise feel too challenging.
Including a stretching routine in your warm-up?
Park et al. (2018) noticed that despite adding stretching routine in the warm-up not affecting the actual performance of non-athletic participants, the psychological readiness for the exercise was improved.
Stretching usually forces us to connect to our breath and therefore can build a stronger connection to self. As a performer, we know how important this is in any performing setting so adding stretching routine in the warm-up after increasing the temperature of the body could be a key factor in 'feel good' leftover in the performer's experience of training, class but also in increasing the performance all together. In this case, order is important.
2. Not specific to the class content
Going back to the top of the page - the warm-up has to serve the task you choose in your main activity. Let's say you end up teaching a choreography with a lot of high kicks but you spent very little to no time in your warm-up to properly target legs and activate movement patterns that will be then required in executing the routine. This can also relate to the quality of movement you want to focus on. For example if you want to exercise the hard and heavy way of moving the body, you will need to address awareness of the body's weight in the warm-up. In order to understand heavy you may also want to address light to be able to experience the difference but it would be counterproductive to only focus on soft qualities in warm-ups and require the students to execute well in heavy hitting part of the class.
This may seem extremely obvious but we all fall into habits that can sometimes take away from the core part of the class.
If your class is not entirely planned out and follows the needs of the room ensure you at least cover major basis (more on this in point 5).
3. Miscalculated duration
The typical one is too short of a warm-up, especially in choreography classes that jump near enough straight away into the choreography part of the class and as a student you are somehow expected to mindread what the teacher plans on doing and get ready for anything and everything.
There are plenty of benefits to that ability too, and as a performer, it is in your best interest to know how to properly warm up your body to be generally physically and mentally ready. This is where actors and dancers can have a great conversation. However, for the teachers, don't cut your warm-up short, use it to inform the movement qualities that will be needed in your choreography and make sure your students are ready to stand up to the challenge you are setting for them as at the end of the day, as much as the class needs to have a challenging element to facilitate growth, remember you are there for the students in attendance and not the class agenda.
4. Not considering performing element
I could just insert Galen Hooks' video in here and let her do all the beautiful and extremely convincing talking. This woman is a legend and I would highly recommend you to give her a follow @galenhooks, my in person experience is still yet to come but anyway.... back to warm-up.
I like to think of the performance as a body and mind as one rather than consider them separately. To see them separately, it is not difficult. We can see it or even experience it very often - amazing movement quality but no engagement through the facial connection and presence and/or lively expressive face but dormant and technically not so expressive body. As a performer you are required to be able to do both. And I am not talking about faking overly large expressions for the sake of an expression itself. I am talking about being spiritually present in what you do and letting the audience/other people in on the experience of it.
As a teacher it is in your interest to train/unlock that in your students. Performance and movement need to go hand in hand. In fact, they are one. And the sooner your students realise it (some have it naturally), more possibilities and quicker growth will be noticed. Performance also calls for being present and capable to feel what you do and what's exciting is that what is felt is learnt as it is remembered. We remember the feeling/sensation of a motion and that is then stored in our brain. Lack of consciousness, especially in the beginning of training journey can be associated to lack of progress, despite endless hours spent on training. Intention is the key. Neuroscience, especially neuroplasticity, is a great reference point for this topic.
5. Missing out on key areas of the body
The key areas of the body that need attention during warm-up are: spine, core, arms and legs. Activating the muscles and targeting the mobility in those areas serves for a great full body preparation base.
Consider how you activate the muscles in relation to what is needed in the class and the directions of the movement. Other consideration should also include the isolation vs integration of larger movements that serve multiple purposes (especially when you do not have a lot of time to spend on the warm up but still need it to be effective).
What I would also add in here based on the generational changes to the way we move day to day (a lot more sedentary lifestyle) is adding a form of balancing, reaching and lifting (resistance based exercise that could be a body weight task/exercice) in the warm up as it can significantly decrease the risk of injury and help produce a functionally strong body. See the '3 lost functional movements' article for more detail.
In a nutshell, make your warm-ups specific to the activity you are about to focus on, don't forget to include performance and key parts of the body, if you don't have a lot of time for a warm-up be intentional and efficient with your choices and do not rush through it, and make sure your warm-up has a reasonable structure.
Are there things that you have noticed working more than others? Drop them in the comments below!
With love,
Angie
Bibliography