What I Learned About Fueling My Dancing from Cross-Training

Author: Stevie Oakes on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators’ Committee 

Preparing myself nutritionally for a long dance day has always been a little tricky. As a contemporary modern dancer, rehearsals alternately require endurance or short bursts of power (usually both, in my experience, throughout the course of the process); the “right” combination of preparing with solid meals before hand with adequate and healthy snack options while not feeling too full seemed elusive. And while my education and interest in wellbeing – plus lots of resources and publications from the IADMS team - gave me a starting off point for balanced meals, energetic needs, and nutritional considerations, I found out the most from tuning in to sensation. Challenging myself physically and meeting those needs with good eating habits.

5 Research Insights on Technique Proficiency for Busy Dance Teachers

Author: Clara Fischer Gam 

Dance teaching is a daily challenge. Being in the studio for long working hours, preparing different classes for the term and dealing with the individualities within a group of students are some of the struggles and joys of the teaching practice. As we work against the clock with dancers to keep up with the timetable and achieve aesthetic quality and mastery of technique, the time for reflecting upon experience and investigating new pathways for student learning becomes scarce.

Ipswich IADMS Regional Meeting: A Healthier Dancer Day on The Adolescent Dancer

Are you a dance educator, private school dance teacher, community artist, a parent, or involved in dance teaching and learning of children and young people?

If so, then this day-long IADMS Regional Meeting is exactly for you!

The Importance of Vitamin D for Dancers

Author: Derrick D. Brown on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators’ Committee 

Vitamin D has received a great deal of attention in the last 5 years both in popular media and in dance medicine and science research, and with good reason. While much emphasis is placed on its role in bone health, a key question revealed from the research is whether it also can provide other benefits for pre- and professional dancers. The purpose of the post is to highlight some of the research done on dancers and discuss why it might be important to keep an eye on your Vitamin D levels.

Are You Warm Enough to Start Dancing?

Authors: Brenton Surgenor and Andrea Kozai on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators’ Committee 

Warming up is essential before taking part in any type of dance activity, but it’s not always clear how to warm up effectively. This blog post sets out the what, why and some of the how-to’s of an effective dance-specific warm-up. This prefaces our new, upcoming Resource Paper on effective warm-up for dancers, which has much more information and advice on how to prepare the body for dancing.

2017 Regional Meetings - All the info!

This year we are working hard to reach new audiences through a range of international regional meetings, arranged by key members of the IADMS Dance Educators’ Committee. The aim of these events is always to widen our reach and ensure that information about dance medicine and science is broadly disseminated, especially amongst artists, practitioners, teachers, educators, clinicians, students and parents for whom these ideas are relatively new. This year we have events lined up in Australia, the USA and the UK, which seek to present ways in which dance medicine and science principles can be transferred to the classroom and applied in practice.

IADMS SEEKS NOMINATIONS FOR THE 2017 DANCE EDUCATORS AWARD

The Educators Committee of IADMS promotes communication and education for dance teachers, dance students, parents, dancers, and the medical and other health practitioners who provide their care. The Committee also seeks to recognize teachers who integrate principles of dance science in their teaching and is seeking nominations for the 2017 IADMS Dance Educators Award from around the world

Bunions in Ballerinas: it’s not really the shoes!

Author: Megan Maddocks

I have bunions, two in fact. They were never a problem while I danced, but they got worse when I stopped. As a podiatrist, this made me curious about the relationship between pointe shoes and bunions (more accurately called hallux valgus). Below is a brief summary of a literature review I presented at the 2016 annual IADMS conference in Hong Kong, outlining some extrinsic risk factors unique to female ballet dancers.

5 Questions With…Gabriel Gonzales

This month’s featured member is our newest Student Committee member, Gabriel Gonzales of University of New Mexico. Gabriel is a pre-med student with an interest in dance medicine. His areas of interest include biochemistry, exercise science and dance (ballet).

Developing a Personal Dancer Wellness Plan

Our focus for this blog post is on a new IADMS and Human Kinetics publication, edited by renowned dance educators and IADMS members, Ginny Wilmerding and Donna Krasnow. Dancer Wellness is a useful, one-stop resource for all dance teachers interested in embedding dance medicine and science principles into their practice and ensuring the long-term health and wellbeing of the dancers with whom they work. Here, Ginny and Donna give us a taste of how to design a personal dancer wellness plan as a foundation for long and effective dance practice.