The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Maia
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers podcast. This is your host, Maia. I have another super special guest joining us today, Erika Mayall. She is a Vancouver-based physiotherapist with a special interest in dance medicine and science. Ericka is also a former elite dancer, and her passion lies in treating dancers and other performing artists. She has a keen interest not only in treating injuries but also in injury prevention and maximizing performance potential in dancers. Erika has completed specialized training in the field of dance medicine in Australia, Canada, and the United States. She's a frequently invited guest speaker on the topic of dance, medicine, and science, both locally, nationally, and internationally, and teaches workshops on the same topics to dancers and dance educators.

Erika is also the host of her own podcast, the Dance Physio Podcast, where she shares her insight and expertise across a wide range of topics. So I would encourage you all to go listen to her there. But I'm so, so thankful that today, Erica decided to join us on my podcast just to give us a little insight focusing on injury prevention and management for casual dancers and how we as dance teachers can prevent injury and navigate issues of injuries as casual dance teachers. So without further ado, welcome Erika. Thank you for being here.

Erika
Thank you so much for having me on the podcast.

Maia
So to start out, Erica, what I want to know is, when I have a dancer coming into the classroom, saying that she has an injury, maybe she got in gym class or outside of the room, I really have a hard time assessing how accurate that is, how injured is a student, what can I ask her to do?
What should I be avoiding? So do you have a recommendation of certain questions maybe that we should ask or what the first couple steps are to see how we can work with that dancer?

Erika
Yeah, that's a great question. Because I think it's important for dance teachers to understand and remember that, like, you would not be expected to be able to diagnose or assess or really be able to assess severity of an injury, that's outside of the scope of what we would expect a dance teacher to be able to do. But students are always going to come into class and report things to you. And I think a lot of teachers feel like they should be able to, you know, manage that injury or be able to, in some cases, even like diagnose, you might have somebody who comes in who says my knee hurts today.

But I think it's important for teachers to remember that that's not sort of within your job description, or kind of in like the scope of practice, it's not something we would expect teachers to be doing. So there are some questions that you could ask the dancer. And one of the first ones would be whether it is an injury that's already been evaluated by somebody else. So if it's something that's happened, you know, a few days ago, or further in the past, they may have already seen a doctor or a physical therapist, or somebody who's evaluated the injury. So you can kind of ask that and you know, potentially then what the diagnosis was, did they give you any recommendations of things you should or should not be doing, if it has been evaluated.

In a lot of cases, though, dancers are not going to have seen somebody and especially those like kind of playground injuries and stuff that happened where a kid comes in and is like, Oh, I twisted my ankle on the playground today, I don't think I can dance. And so you have, you know, they've probably not even told their parent to that, like, you might be the first person they're reporting that to. So then we want to adopt a little bit of like a policy or procedure for how we deal with those dancers in the classroom, where we can have them participating to like the maximum of their ability, but without potentially compromising the injury. And so it's going to depend a little bit on like the area or the body part.

But I always recommend having a policy of still having that dancer participate to what they feel is the best of their capability. So say it is an ankle injury, maybe they're like, 'I can't put any weight on it, I have to sit down.' So okay, you can sit, but you're going to have that dancer still kind of participate in class. So what I always recommend is, we often end up having dancers who will sit at the front of the classroom and like watch the class. So they’re facing the dancers. But what I actually recommend a lot of the time is having them sit at the back of the classroom. So they’re still facing the front or facing the teacher. And then maybe they’re doing all of like the arms and the heads if they can’t put any weight on that body part. Or, you know, it’s an arm injury, maybe they put that hand on their waist or put that hand behind their back or whatever. So they’re not moving their arm, but they’re still doing all the feet or whatever. And so it’s going to depend a little bit on what the injury is. And we do have to leave it up to the student a little bit if it's not been evaluated in terms of okay, what do you feel capable of, but having sort of some sort of a strategy that's consistent across all dancers, that okay, if somebody is injured, you're still going to participate, but we're going to accommodate for whatever the injured area is, and you're going to do things that, you know, don't create more pain or that you feel capable of in that moment.

Maia
Yeah, I really like that. I generally do have my students sit in the front if they're injured. So I'm thinking about the value of having them in the back and following along with the class. There are times when I feel like I don't want to overstep my bounds. And this is not my area of expertise. But maybe it's not my area of expertise. So I'm thinking about the value of; I'm feeling like the dancer could put weight on the foot, but it just isn't feeling it. Sometimes I feel like the dancer is dancing right along and shouldn't be. So at what point do you think it is the teacher's place to step in and say, 'I think maybe you should sit,' 'I think maybe you should modify,' or 'I think I should try and push you a little bit if you think that's appropriate'?

Erika
Yeah, it's a good question. And I mean, sometimes it comes down a little bit to like knowing who the dancers are, because you do often have dancers in a class who every week at something different. So you know, they have a tummy ache one week, then their foot hurts, then their finger hurts. You know, there is always a reason that they can't participate. And then on the flip side of that, you have those dancers who you can tell there's something going on, but they're, you know, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. And you're like, well, you're limping around. So I find that having a, like, fairly consistent classroom management strategy when it comes to injuries that people know about right from the beginning. That, okay, we're never going to force a dancer to do something that the dancer feels they're not capable of. But also coming to class and sitting on the side and not doing anything is not an option, because that sometimes becomes a bit contagious in classes where, you know, kids see one kid doing it one week, and then the next week, they're like, I don't know if I really feel like dancing today. So then they're doing, and it can become a bit problematic. And so really just having that policy or procedure, whatever you want to call it. And ideally, it happens at a studio level. So it's consistent across all teachers. But sometimes that's not going to happen. So even if it's consistent across all your classes, and people are aware of it at the beginning of the year, can be really helpful, because then dancers who maybe can put more weight on it, or that sort of thing, they might not be as inclined to sit out as much as maybe they would if they know they still have to do some stuff. And quite frankly, sitting at the back doing arms and heads isn't that exciting. And so they'd probably rather be skipping or dancing or doing more exciting things. So it kind of gets rid of that problem a little bit. And then also, for those dancers who may be, it seems like they're pushing themselves a little bit too much, for them to know that, like you saying, do you know what, I think maybe you would benefit from moving to the back and modifying things a little bit or whatever it is, that it's not a punishment that it's like, we really do want to take care of your body.
So having these conversations, especially at the beginning of like a dance year, that this is how we're going to deal with injuries in class. And so we want to make sure that everybody's staying healthy and staying safe. And so if something isn't feeling right, you could just say, you know, I'm noticing that you're not putting as much weight on your right leg. And I'm wondering if maybe it's bothering you a bit today, maybe instead of doing this exercise, you're going to stand on two feet, you're going to modify it this way. Instead, it depends a bit on the age of the kids how how much modification they can do. So sometimes it's a question of say, do you know what, okay, you're not going to jump right now, but you can do everything else.
So you do have to kind of feel things out a little bit, but just having that policy or procedure in place. So all the kids know that everybody's kind of doing the same thing when it has to be, you know, if there is an instance where they need to modify things can be really helpful.

Maia
Are there certain areas that you find lead to the most injuries or the most common injuries are coming from, let's say, pushing flexibility too hard or pushing turnout too hard or landing jumps or something like that? Are there any areas that you can pinpoint that you would say, we should really be focusing on injury prevention within these specific areas?

Erika
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think the biggest thing that we're seeing right now, especially more in the competitive dance world is just overtraining in general is probably where the most injuries are coming from. So dancers who are just like, training at kind of insane number of hours in a week and you know, training full time, like year round, they're not getting proper summer breaks or time off and that type of thing. So I think overtraining is probably the biggest thing we see that contributes to injuries right now. And then kind of second to that, definitely the like pushing flexibility sort of some of those stretching practices that we see either like that extreme kind of overstretching really pushing like unsafe stretching practices, or even just dancers who are doing a lot of stretching without warming up first.
And so there's still I mean, the dance world's gotten better for sure than when I was dancing. But there is still areas where you'll see that dancers are using stretching as their warm up. So if a teacher saying, 'Okay, let's warm up,' you just have these dancers doing like these dance moves. They're sitting in the splits or things like that, not kind of warming up properly. And then that combined with really trying to work on stretching can definitely lead to injuries. But I would say overall, it's probably more of the overtraining that we're seeing kind of right now. And especially, like I said, in that competitive dance world.

Maia
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Maia
So, if the dancers are in a particularly taxing part of the season, so for example, they're in dress rehearsal, they're going to be running pieces a lot, and they're going to be putting a toll on their bodies. Is there anything that you would recommend maybe we do before a dress rehearsal starts or that even in the classroom leading up to that time period, maybe we give them the skills to say, 'here's something that you can do on your own to prepare your body for that without overworking it and leading to injury?'

Erika
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing, especially in those like, kind of like leading up times, is making sure that dancers are warming up properly, I kind of come back to that like proper warm-up and making sure they're ready to perform, especially like at the theater.
So before a dress rehearsal, before a performance, things like that. Sometimes we forget a little bit about that, because you're just going on stage for, you know, four minutes or whatever to do your number, but really making sure that the dancers are prioritizing a warm up and still doing like a really thorough, proper warm-up, even if they're just doing one number on stage, or, you know, however many numbers. So I think warming up and like teaching them the components of a proper dance warm-up, that's definitely something that can help minimize injuries in those more taxing parts of the season. And then it's not necessarily something you can do in the studio. But we know that like rest and recovery is so important for injury prevention.
And what we often see leading up to recitals and stuff is there's loads of extra rehearsals. And whether that's, you know, general rehearsals, or tech rehearsals, or dress rehearsals, or things like in the theater, and especially for younger kids, that sometimes means their bedtimes are like much later than they should be or would typically be. And so sometimes we see that they're not necessarily getting enough sort of rest and recovery. And so if as a studio, we can like take a look at that and say, 'Do you know, like, maybe we need to shift the hours of this, or maybe we don't need to run two dress rehearsals on the same day, or what have you? I know, we see all sorts of different ways that studios run their rehearsals.' Like recitals and things like that, just to keep that in mind.

So we know that our dancers are coming into the performances, like well rested, because it can be problematic. Or, you know, if you're doing multiple recitals, and they end really late, like if you have young kids, and the recitals aren't ending till nine or 10. And by the time they get home and get to bed, that can be quite late for a kid who's maybe used to going to bed at 7:30 or 8 most nights. So just taking that into account is huge for injury prevention as well.

Maia
Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. I know you have, you've talked about this on your own podcast. So I don't want to necessarily duplicate too much. But would you mind maybe sharing a couple quick tips about components of a proper dance warm-up, as you mentioned?
Are there any go-to exercises that you're really a fan of?

Erika
Yeah, so that's a great question. And like you said, there, there is a podcast episode that's sort of all about it. I also think did a blog post about it probably as well and have some resources on my social media accounts. But we use something that's called the ramp protocol. So it's like an acronym R-A-M-P. So the ramp part of it is like raising your heart rate, basically. And so we always want to have some sort of a cardiovascular component to a warm-up. So that can be anything, it can be jogging around the studio, it can be jumping jacks, it can be high knees, it can be, you know, whatever in little kid classes, you could play like breeze tag, or, you know, it doesn't matter what it is.

But it's just something to get the heart rate going. So you're going to raise your heart rate. And then the RAMP. So then the A is basically for like activating our muscles. And so we want to work a little bit on, I think of it as kind of a bit of like a strength component. And so just getting the muscles firing that we're going to be using while we're dancing. So big muscle groups. So that might be doing, you know, planks or plank modifications, it could be squats, it could be lunges, we're thinking like big muscle groups, and just kind of getting those muscles firing. And then the M stands for mobilize, and so this is where that sort of like mobility or range of motion.
So we don't want to think of it so much as stretching, because in a warm up, we don't want it to be like static stretching. But we do want to mobilize or kind of do some dynamic stretching. So this could be things like, I mean, really any dynamic stretching. So we'll use things like hamstring scoop type things. It's always hard to explain exercises. I'm like, do people even know what I'm talking about? But yeah, just more dynamic stretches. And then the P, it actually, you know, it's kind of like a little bit of a technically in the ramp protocol, because this comes from the sports world, and we've kind of adapted to the dance world. So in the sports world, the P stands for potentiate, but nobody in the dance world knows what that means.
So I always just refer to it as practice. And so the P is your chance to like, practice any skill, especially if it's like before you're going on stage that you need to have. And so I always throw some balance or proprioception into that. And so it might be practicing some turns or just like practicing standing on your, like finding your center, like whatever it is. But if it is before you're going on stage, oftentimes dancers want to if there's like a skill or a trick or like a big jump that they do or something, that would be the time that you would throw that into the warm-up so that you've at least practiced it a few times before you go on stage. So that's kind of the like protocol that we use.

And within each of those categories, like, honestly, the options are endless. And there's no sort of, you know, perfect, like you have to do this. But if you're hitting all of those elements, then we know that it's going to be like a pretty comprehensive warm up and be hitting all the areas that we need for it to be effective.

Maia
Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you so much for sharing that. Are there any other like little tips, any practices that you think, again, casual dance teachers that maybe don't have a background in this or probably for the most part don't have a background in this should be aware of?

Erika
The key things just in terms of injury prevention, especially for a more casual dance teacher are yeah, being aware of like making sure we're warming up properly, not practicing sort of some of those unsafe stretching practices that we often see.
So we have to be prioritizing rest and recovery in our dancers and really trying to like, teach them about that, because obviously, you're not the one who's actually doing the rest and recovery with the dancers, but like passing that information along to them. And then I think just like really teaching our students or the dancers about the importance of them taking care of their body, like there's still a lot of narrative within the dance world of, you know, no pain, no gain, or like it's meant to be painful, or, you're not hurting, you're not working hard enough, and like all of those narratives. But in reality, we only have one body. And if we want to continue to dance and to continue to be healthy, we need to prioritize that. And so we want to teach our dancers not to ignore things that are going on in their body, we want to address them so they don't become a bigger issue. Because I still see dancers all the time coming into the clinic who are just kind of like, Oh, yeah, this has been bothering me for a few years, but I just ignore it because I can dance through it. And it's like, well, what if we dealt with it, and then you don't have to ignore it. So there's still a lot of that narrative. And I think like teachers play a big role in being able to change that narrative within their own classrooms, and really like embracing a culture of health and wellness.
And yeah, teachers are probably like the most powerful people to be able to change that narrative, because they have the most influence with the dancers and are seeing them the most regularly. So that would probably be the additional thing I would add to the other stuff that we've talked about.

Maia
Yeah, thank you. Obviously, you have so many other things to talk about. So I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you so much for adding. So would you mind sharing where people can find you on your social media, as you mentioned?

Erika
Yeah, so I'm mostly on Instagram. I'm Dance Physio Erika, and it's Erica with a K. It's the same handle on Facebook on threads on all the social media platforms, but I don't spend as much time on any of the rest of them.

If people message me on Facebook, I never see the messages they go into the Facebook oblivion, it feels like.

Maia
So that happened to me. So yes.

Erika
If people do want to reach out, Instagram is the best. I see those messages. You can also reach out to me via email. It's on my website. My website is my clinic's website, so it's Allegroperformance.com. Or the podcast is the Dance Physio podcast. So that's a whole bunch of places, but Dance Physio Erika on social media, Allegro performance.com for the website, and the Dance Physio podcast on any major podcast platform.

Maia
Yes. Oh, thank you so much. I'm really, really honored that you're here.

Erika
I'm so happy to be here.

Maia
You came on my podcast and shared all that with us. So thank you again.

Erika
Yeah, my pleasure. I'm always happy to chat about anything dancer health and wellness related. So thank you so much for having me.

Maia
Hey, guys, it's Maia again. I'm just popping online post-interview, of course, to say thank you again so much to Erika for sharing all of this information with us. As always, I want to thank GB Mystical for the theme music at the beginning as well. And thank all of you who have been participating in the Casual Dance Teachers Network on Facebook. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode and how you have dealt with injuries in your classroom as well in the network on Facebook. I also have one last shout out to share with you today. This is something new for the podcast.
But I've been recording all of my interview episodes via Squad Cast since the beginning of the podcast. And it occurred to me that Squad Cast is an amazing platform for anyone that does any kind of choreography feedback or teaches classes virtually. I live in a rural area where the internet connectivity is often very poor and Squad Cast records all sessions locally. So, that at the end of your call, you can download those local files and not have to worry about connectivity ruining the sound quality or video quality if you're doing any kind of video recording.
So I thought that that might be a really good benefit to other dance teachers who are you know, out here hustling like me trying to put something new together to be able to share their voice with a wider audience virtually. So for anyone interested, I have posted a Squadcast link in the description on the podcast, and I'll be sharing that on Facebook as well. So I encourage you to check it out.

For today's quote, I found one that I think lines up with what Erika was telling us perfectly. This one goes way back. I'm quoting Ovid. A field that has rested gives about a full crop.