Fighting For Flexibility

Any dancer, professional or recreational, knows that it is crucial to stretch before dancing. This is important because if you do not, it will leave your body tight, causing pain and increasing the risk of injury. This also goes for any other type of workout or sport, but dancers usually have more of a reputation for stretching because they work to increase their flexibility. Dancers constantly stretch to maintain their flexibility and improve their abilities in dance. Dancers benefit from being flexible so that they can do splits, straddles, and have better extensions in leaps, leg holds, and other skills and techniques. Some dancers, like my sister, are naturally more flexible and do not have much difficulty with keeping their flexibility. These dancers do not need to have an intense stretching routine to maintain their split and flexibility, but others have to constantly work hard to keep it. I personally have had a difficult journey with flexibility, which is frustrating as a dancer.

For 11 out of my 13 years of dance, I have focused on hip hop dancing. This style does not stress needing to have a full split and the tricks do not require much flexibility. Because of this, I never stretched more than necessary and did not focus on stretches for splits. However, when I joined the dance team in high school, I was exposed to a variety of dance styles and skills to work on. This meant that I needed to work on my flexibility, which was never a major priority for me before. I was not close to getting a full split, but I knew I needed to achieve that in order to improve in all other skills. This was a challenge and required several weeks of stretching daily. Some days I would feel lazy and not want to take time to stretch, but I remembered my end goal and how determined I was. As I continued to stretch, I saw major improvement and quickly got closer to a split. However, I hit a point towards the end where I was not making progress and was stuck in the same spot. This was discouraging, but I kept pushing through and worked hard. Soon enough, I achieved my full split. It might seem like a simple goal, but it made me so excited to finally be the flexible dancer I always wanted to be. Since then, I have had some regression, but progressed again with my split more easily than the first time around. Although this is the case, I still feel accomplished and I am more flexible than I had been before.