She is Stiliana Nikolova, Europe champion in 2024 and Silver medalist in world championship 2025. Her relevé position is very high. It's great.
One of important thing to do to make the relevé higher is flexibility of metatarsophalangeal joint. If the toes can't bend too much toward instep side, the instep and the heel won't rise higher.
Do some toe flexibility training (toward instep) when you do around the ankle flexibility training.
The classic ballet choreography shows us a sophisticated movement. That's a given, right ?
But It needs high ability to dance if the new choreography isn't unsophisticated despite it's never before seen and ingenious.
The choreography that even if a normal person do it, it will be hunchback and bow-legged drunker should be an interesting accent when the dancer who have mastered the basic.
But they will be entering puberty, and their body fat will become thicker and it restrict hip joint range of motion. Moreover, body composition and weight balance of parts of body will be change. No one knows whether they can move like now or not when big changes have happened.
I think you would be better to think you never.
But probably many good things may come to you... If you can keep flexibility on technically and mentally.
The dance of the high revel ballerina like Miss Maria Khoreva is beautiful and picturesque even if capture any moment. Try pausing the video above at any point.
Because they are doing try and error and hone a skill every day to make a beautiful and picturesque any time by bar lesson like video under.
You should do steady practice like it with a task without slacking off.
There is a point that is able to see because seeing first time or seeing after long time.
If an experienced people who know latest technique and training theory see you, it will point out something that you can't notice and it will give you advice of different approach. To be seen by different eyes sometimes is very good.
You have to be careful, because there can be "a personage who just was great person". "Great teacher" who never be aware is just "harm by elderly" in some case. I would like to be careful.
Have you been told like "Each movements are good but it's bad when you dance" ? No, there isn't.
A movement leads to next movement except when stopping for a pause.
A movement itself in dance is a element what appear something and it's also preparation for the next movement.
If its movement is unskilled, it can't prepare for the next enough and its dance all will be unstable. Even if its movement is skilled, if the preparation is obvious too much or moving to next is early too much, its dance seems restless and busy unnecessary.
Are you able to appear movement one by one and dance the routine smooth and stable ?
I can't understand easily what the artist say. Probably she is saying Hara(abdomen) is connecting physical and spirit. It's called "Tanden" in oriental medicine, right?
In Anatomy, from belly button to spinal through the outside, the muscles are arranged as follows: Rectus abdominis, External oblique muscle, Internal oblique muscle, Transverse abdominis, Quadratus lumborum, Erector spinae. And in the deep in the stomach, there are Psoas major, Iliac muscle, putting the two together Iliopsoas. Any of them is connecting upper and lower body and involved in all body movement. And they involved in breath and blood circulation and autonomic nerves.
That means, as she said, to control this area is very important.
However to control consciously each muscle of this area as to control each finger is very difficult. The motor nerves ain't arranged meticulously in this area.
If you can control, your physical movement revel increase. Because it's difficult.
An skilled dancer seems to be able to express subtle nuances unceremoniously. I have saw a man stand out in the circle of Bon odori. I have surprised because I heard later that he is teacher of Nihon buyo.
For example, it's like "Perfect form of fingers and exquisite movement of wrist". It may not be recognized if without paying attention in general. But if the professional of its department saw it, he can know immediately it isn't ordinary person.
The human body is not a machine. So, we can't repeating well the same thing over and over.
The drummer of this "Bolero" have to keep on beating the drum same rhythm.
I wonder it's will tire them out. Such repeating is my weak point.
Keep repeating the same thing meant to load on same point.
Then that point tire out and it become fragile, as I wrote last time.
Not only physically load but also chemically changes are the cause.
Lactic acid accumulates or muscle become oxidized or mineral balance changes by being tired. Thereby the muscle can't expansion and contraction or the balance of muscle movement or the nerve transmission is disrupted. And yet we are going to try to do as usual, so then our muscle convulsions or sprain or some accident.
Recess moderately, stretching, massage can prevent a such trouble. But you need warning when you take stretch and massage because they change the muscle reaction.
What would like to avoid is B. Chronic things - 1. by repetitive load to the same place.
Injuries that are likely occur are listed above in japanese. Translate they by yourself because they are terminology.
If you know injuries that are likely occur, you can prevent deterioration when you feel anomaly.
The symptoms of chronic things progress slowly, so response tends to be delayed. And the symptoms ain't often strong, so you don't rest perfectly and you need often a long time for recovery.
I recommend that you notice early, response quickly, and rest daringly when it hurts.
B-2 by deformed or altered body parts that happened to injury and the other cause
Bones undergo stress fractures due to repeated loading and fractures occur due to injury and it may be deform.
In the joint, articular cartilage is scraped. It may be loosen due to injury like a sprain.
In the muscle, scars of injury is stuck and hard to move.
So, deform and altered of locomotor is prone to new injury more likely occur.
They can't be helped because they ain't normal situation. However, people know that it isn't normal, so they should be careful according to the abnormal situation.
But the case is different depending on the person. So there is only one way what such people should find and build up an original way while consulting with experts.
C by disease
This case also is different depending on the person. So there is only one way what such people should find and build up an original way while consulting with doctors.
1st stage: Muscle fatigue which is limited to a certain area due to over load.
2nd stage: Muscle contracture due to fatigue accumulate.
3rd stage: Muscle or tendon damage caused by insufficient contraction of muscle.
4th stage: Muscle or tendon or other tissues chronic inflammation caused by continue more over load.
And then, if the overload continue, it may become irreversible denature or deformity.(We will think about it next part)
As I wrote last time, it takes a load to somewhere area when anyone train hard. Anyone have to be prepared for 1st and 2nd stage to a certain extent.
That's why, we have to do any method of body care like a massage, stretch, any other else for remove fatigue. If you keep those things in mind, you can prevent injuries caused by repetitive load to the same place.
It would be good if you can be cared by therapist who know where and how load by seeing movement or touching body.
No matter what, depending on the kind of sports, there are areas what are likely to be overloaded. i.e. There are points what are easy to injure.
But the affect of injuries to performance also differs depending on the event.
For example, the form of movement doesn't matter if it just throw a ball to targeted point. If any area become painful, it can try to different form that doesn't load to pain area.
However, In the events that aim to movement of the body itself, Gymnastics and similar to that and dance and similar to that, it will become a serious problem if it changes the fixed form in order not to overload. it same as giving up on its purpose. The movement what is closely related to aim, such as the pitching of baseball, the swing of golf, and the other is same.
It isn't an injury as a consequence of body movement, it means that the injury by the movement or the trying to move of muscle or joint itself.
For example. sudden muscle damage when dash training, achilles tendon rupture while trying to react to a ball returned in the opposite direction in tennis, elbow ligament injury when trying throw the ball quickly, etc.
Such any movement is always done and it's always no problem, but an injury may occurs suddenly.
The reason is that the condition of the human's body isn't same anytime.
For example. Muscle and tendon is made expansion and contraction by nerve function. When a command from brain and the other command from spinal cord are discrepancy, the achilles tendon that can endure 6t load may be cut easy. When any part of a muscle is convulsions, too much load to the other part of muscle and may be broken.
The reason of that may be fatigue substances accumulate in muscle, or may be loss of mineral balance in whole body. We can think other internal factors like hormone or autonomic nerves, and there are the reasons of external factors like temperature or field condition.
It's so hard to remove all reasons and to prevent injuries.
At least, you have to learn to understand your body by yourself properly. And you must learn many method for conditioning yourself good anytime.
You can do nothing if you are afraid such things too much, so you don't worry too much.
At first, I think about a prevention method of each classified item.
A-1 by incorrect body movement, by external cause
If you are going to try doing high level things even though you ain't train enough, you are more likely to get injured. If you learns step by step from basic to advance, you can reduce possibility of injury.
A movement or a reaction may change by any cause even if you have reached a high level. So, you have to check always your body movement and condition for any abnormalities that could lead to injury.
You can prevent injury by external factor if you manage properly tools and utensil and environment to practice. But there may be an unavoidable accident. You must have mindset to possibility of accident.
A dance performed with a large number of people doesn't require personal ability. If their motions are getting on the rhythm and are synchronized, it will look good accordingly. So, the dance what is simple but synchronized group performance was chosen over special individual performance when it wants to make gorgeously excitement in a big event like Olympic games opening ceremony.
However a group will be able to do more if member's personal ability became higher. If you want to aim for the top as the team, each person's effort is necessary.
Why don't you find issue just front of you and clear it one by one. Let you level up.
Guess what is the difference between junior and senior ?
I think the biggest difference is experience.
Junior people can demonstrate their explosive force. But sometimes they are not good at all. The swing width between good and no good is so wide.
Senior people can demonstrate stable performance always depending on acquired abilities by experience. It's like a correction ability or an unwavering strength I wrote in this column recently. However it depends on each person. Someone's ability converges to high, and someone's to low. Is it problem of how to make use of experience ?
