Being a dancer has made me a better runner

For seventeen years I was a dancer. I spent well over thirty hours a week taking class, practicing, rehearsing and performing. In all of my years of dancing I never sustained a serious injury, only minor sprains and strains. As I got older and the passion for dance started to dwindle I went into panic mode. What would I do that challenged me like dance did? I'm not sure what drew me to running initially, especially since my history with running was not a pleasant one.

I had a very brief track career in middle school. When I made the team the coach gave me the mile and I hated every minute of it. Once my ballet teacher found out that I was in track she told me that I had to quit immediately because running would bulk up my thigh muscles and ballet dancers needed long lean legs. I can't say that my teacher's words resonated with me and prompted me to quit but it certainly helped. 









Now that dance was no longer the primary activity in my life I decided to give running a try. The first couple years of running were rough. I had this notion that because I was a dancer for so many years that my level of fitness would be high, so transitioning to running wouldn't be hard. Boy that was an incorrect assumption! Running uses the leg muscles in ways that I was not accustomed to. I actually felt sore! After many stops and starts I finally committed to running. Now that I've got some years under my belt and have done multiple races running has taken the place of dance. 

In the past couple of months I've gotten compliments on various things about my running. The compliments that I've gotten the most are about my form and how did I get my legs to look like they do. After I explain that I was a dancer people often reply with Oh so that explains it. Hearing this a couple of times made me want to take a deeper look into this. Has my dance career helped me with running? Well I think that it certainly had something to do with it and here's what I discovered:

1. Running form The same way that I would check my back, turn out, toes and arm carriage in ballet is the same way I review my form when I run. At some point during a run I do a body scan from my toes up to my head. When something feels off or slightly out of whack I'm able to zone in and correct it. I can thank all of ballet teachers for yelling, guiding and correcting me on my form all of those years because it certainly comes in handy now. 
2. Breathing I remember being in modern class, doing Graham technique and my teacher telling me that I need to breath with my movement and the breath should be so loud that she can hear it. She would say Holding your breath is like holding back your movement. You don't breath, you don't move. I didn't understand what she was conveying at the time and honestly I felt silly doing it. Exhaling so loud and using my breath to move through the space felt weird to me at the time. Though I thought my teacher was a little eccentric I did as she asked. As I got older a did more contemporary pieces the use of breath helped me. Now those same breathing techniques help me when I'm running. And she was right, you don't breath you don't move.
3. Stretching Every dancer that I know stretched. It's what you did. This was the golden ticket to getting your legs high in the sky. If you didn't stretch, you were tight and if you were tight you were prone to injury and that couldn't happen. You never heard of a dancer not stretching and if you did you questioned whether that person was a REAL dancer. I remember spending hours in my room sitting in the most unique positions trying to increase my flexibility. I will admit that my stretching is not nearly as structured or as frequent as it was when I was a dancer but I still do it. There was a period when I didn't stretch after my runs and after a couple of weeks I was feeling the difference. Now, even if it's something as small as touching my toes or doing lunges, I make sure I stretch. 
4. Diet and Nutrition Many people assume that dancers (ballet dancers in particular) have eating disorders. While there are some dancers out there who go to extreme measures to keep their weight down, many dancers understand the importance of eating well. You need fuel to be able to fly through the air with the greatest of ease. If there's nothing in the tank, then you got nothing to work with. Of course at the time I was young and didn't always eat the best foods but when it came to what was cooked at home, that was always healthy. My grandmother was the cook and made healthy and delicious meals. I credit her to this day for laying the foundation for how I cook today.
5. Practice, practice, practice I didn't think this was a concept that applies to running but now I see that it totally is. If you're someone who does races, all of your daily runs are practices that lead up to race day. If you aren't into races you may have some goal that you are working towards. Maybe you want to reduce your pace or lose some weight. No matter what the motivation, each day you lace up your sneakers and step out the door is a practice run to get you closer to your goal. 
6. For performances, leave everything you have on the dance floor and HAVE FUN I admit that this one is still something that I have to work on when it comes to race day. I do enjoy myself and try to be in the moment. But I do tend to check my pace to see if I'm on schedule and I get caught up in my head. The first race where I completely let go and didn't pay attention to time or pace felt like such a breeze. I talked with other runners, laughed with the volunteers and fell in love with the whole racing experience in a way that I hadn't felt before. The whole point of practice is to put the work in so that come race day, you can rely on your training and just enjoy yourself. The race (like the stage) is your time to shine and you don't want it to be a fleeting moment. Soak it all in and remember to smile! :)