My posture stinks!!! Help....

[ballroomboilergirl]

I have THE HARDEST TIME relaxing my shoulders when ballroom dancing! My partner is always telling me to drop and relax my shoulders and its darn near impossible for me to do so...plus I just have a hard time trying to keep good posture as I'm moving. So basically I just need all-around posture help, both with Latin/Rhythm and Standard/Smooth. Any suggestions??? I'm desperate...

[pygmalion]

Hmm. Wonder why nobody replied to this one. Does everybody if DF struggle with posture, too? I know I do. Check the thread on developing good dance posture. (http://www.dance-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=979) There's some stuff there. Perhaps not enough, but it's a start. Good luck. :D

Jenn

[MadamSamba]

It's funny, you can always tell dancers, usually by their posture, ballroomboilergirl.

I've found that my posture has improved markedly since I started ballroom and without much trying either. People have definitely noticed the change, as have I, but as for advice, I don't suppose "keep your back straight and shoulders back" helps, huh? :)

[DancingMommy]

I have THE HARDEST TIME relaxing my shoulders when ballroom dancing! My partner is always telling me to drop and relax my shoulders and its darn near impossible for me to do so...plus I just have a hard time trying to keep good posture as I'm moving. So basically I just need all-around posture help, both with Latin/Rhythm and Standard/Smooth. Any suggestions??? I'm desperate...

Is your partner much taller than you? If so, you may be overcompensating for a perceived difference in height. I have this problem dancing with my coach, but not my husband. My coach is a foot taller than me, but hubby is same as me when I wear heels. You might try doing this yourself in front of a mirror:

1) Stand with your arms down by your sides - shoulders relaxed

2) Raise your arms up (still at your sides) to a comfortable level for you

3) Note where your arms are - if your hands are higher than your ears - that's too high!

4) Once you have your arms at the right height, bend your arms at the elbows - do not raise your hands yet - stay fluid and just move your arms in and out (picture bringing them into your chest and then out to the side) to loosen the elbow joints.

5) For a standard/smooth hold use your bent elbows this way: Left Arm stays bent at the elbow and does not raise itself. Right Arm rotates in shoulder socket to bring hand up. Don't just lift up the whole arm. The idea is to keep your elbows on the same level. For Rhythm/latin, you have a more compact frame, but the principle is pretty similar.

HTH

[Larinda McRaven]

Just thought I would bring this topic to the top. I am sure there are more posters now who would love to take a crack at this.

[swan]

Just thought I would bring this topic to the top. I am sure there are more posters now who would love to take a crack at this.

Well, I just did that w/ my husband the other day. He's not a dancer. He's a great golfer. I saw the way he was practicing his swing, and I was like you could really learn to dance. But as soon as he tried to hold up his frame, I shook my head...

I believe most people's shoulders go up or appear to be stiff is mainly due to the lack of understanding of "Holding Up" the frame. They would try to hold up their arms. So no Latts involved, the arms are not 'floated' up because your back & latts are working. But simply, people try to hold up the arms. Even at the right height & angle, it doesn't matter, it'd appear very stiff.

Also how many times people tell you to keep your shoulder down? Well, really, you need to learn to connect your shoulder blade to your spine, again it's a 'back' thing...

Been there, done that...what a process :)

The only suggestion I have for a shortcut of fixing this problem is to go up to someone you really admire about his/her frame. Tell them to start going into position, you put your hands on their back & feel what they are doing. Then also go to feel their latts.

Now, copy that feeling. If the person is willing to help, you can have him/her feel what you're doing, and they could mimick it for you & you could try to feel the difference.

This is assuming you have a good awareness of your own body & have relatively good body coordination. Some people (and I was one of them) do not have awareness of the body and would need some 'waking up muscles' to accomplish that in the learning process...

[Chris Stratton]

I think the first thing to do is to let the arms hang at your sides absolutely dead. Posture is created from the spine within, and so you have to get the feeling of holding that up while letting your shoulders stay very down. Only when that is secure can you progress to holding your arms up and trying to equalize the sides. Of course one would still be dancing during that phase, so this is more something to do alone, like when practicing figures without a partner. Practicing without the arms and imagining where your partner is can also help with learning to track the partner with rotation of the shoulders, and not simply from the arm sockets. The idea in both posture and partnership is to create the motions inside the body, and have the arms be mostly just an extension of those internal qualities.

As a final thought, when picking up the arms, do it from the wrists, not the the arms. It's a really hard thing to sort out in your mind, but the idea is to have meaning in the position of the hands, but softness in the arms.

[Joe]

I don't understand why dance teachers always tell people that their lats is what holds their frame in place, when it's really the delts. The lats connect bones under the shoulder, and since muscles only work in contraction, there's really no way the lats do much for keeping your arms up.

[Angelo]

I don't understand why dance teachers always tell people that their lats is what holds their frame in place, when it's really the delts. The lats connect bones under the shoulder, and since muscles only work in contraction, there's really no way the lats do much for keeping your arms up.

The lats don't hold the arms up. They help to hold the scapulae down. Deltoid contractions work mainly to manipulate the humerus. At least that's how it seems to me.

[swan]

I don't understand why dance teachers always tell people that their lats is what holds their frame in place, when it's really the delts. The lats connect bones under the shoulder, and since muscles only work in contraction, there's really no way the lats do much for keeping your arms up.

The lats don't hold the arms up. They help to hold the scapulae down. Deltoid contractions work mainly to manipulate the humerus. At least that's how it seems to me.

Clearly I do not know much human anatomy :) All I could think of is 'floating' your arms up, as if there's balloon underneath & just got inflated. Whatever muscles it invokes, that's what it is...The best way is just to feel what the right way is...Feeling the person's back & the sides ought to do.

[Chris Stratton]

I think it depends on where you consider the pivot point to be. At first we would assume it's the shoulder and use the deltoid to pick up the arm - but I'm guessing (yes, guessing, I'm not looking at an anatomy text) that this is connected a bit out on the arm. So using this will also pick up the shoulder, since the arm socket is not really fixed relative to the body.

Perhaps there is a second approximation in which the attachment of the deltoid is a fulcrum and the lats raise the outboard end of the arm by pulling the inboard end down. This part of the task is non-obvious, so it's the part dance teachers would have to talk about more.

[Patapouf]

I had similar problem, I think the main reason why we'd subconciously raise our shoulders is because we are trying to maintain the frame. For example, when you tell someone to stand straight, stretch up, and have good posture, a lot of times the whole body tense up and shoulders go up immediately. However, in dancing, think about a zipper that goes through your spine and all the way down, and you have to zip it up from the bottom to the top, meaning, when you try to maintain your posture, do not immediately lengthen yourself on your upper body like most of us would tend to do. But do it like the zipper, you first start from the bottom, to your waist, and up. The results is a lengthen posture and relaxed shoulder. In other words, do not try to maintain your posture from your upper body, but do it from below. Pick up your center and leave all the tension at your middle part. I hope this makes sense??

[Chris Stratton]

And then you can add the puzzle of trying to get taller in the upper body, even as lowering into a step makes you shorter in the legs... without raising the shoulders.

[madmaximus]

About Lats and Delts.

Make a fist as tight as possible. Now relax it to the point where it's soft enough hold a bird safely (without strangling the poor thing). When we begin to hold the arms up, we tend to *over tense*. As we begin to know better we relax it to where a minimal amount of effort is required. Much like the fist example.

That the deltoid is used is not the question. Rather, how much it is tensed.

If memory serves, the Lateral Deltoid, Anterior Deltoid, and Supraspinatus muscles are involved to some degree (depending on where the arm is to be raised).


There are two key points really. One is to lessen the tension on the muscles being used to raise the arm. Second is to pull the shoulders down. Which involves, in part, the latissimus dorsi.

madmaximus

[Angelo]

I think it depends on where you consider the pivot point to be. At first we would assume it's the shoulder and use the deltoid to pick up the arm - but I'm guessing (yes, guessing, I'm not looking at an anatomy text) that this is connected a bit out on the arm. So using this will also pick up the shoulder, since the arm socket is not really fixed relative to the body.

Perhaps there is a second approximation in which the attachment of the deltoid is a fulcrum and the lats raise the outboard end of the arm by pulling the inboard end down. This part of the task is non-obvious, so it's the part dance teachers would have to talk about more.

Just testing it out on myself, it seems the force of contraction of the latissimus to raise the humerus seem to be too excessive to maintained for an appreciable length of time and thus does not seem to be conducive to holding a stable frame for very long. It seems more likely to me that the contraction of the the latissimus is most useful to counteract the action of the trapezius to lift or shrug the scapulae, which tends to be a common phenomenon in non-ideal dance frames

[swan]

I think it depends on where you consider the pivot point to be. At first we would assume it's the shoulder and use the deltoid to pick up the arm - but I'm guessing (yes, guessing, I'm not looking at an anatomy text) that this is connected a bit out on the arm. So using this will also pick up the shoulder, since the arm socket is not really fixed relative to the body.

Perhaps there is a second approximation in which the attachment of the deltoid is a fulcrum and the lats raise the outboard end of the arm by pulling the inboard end down. This part of the task is non-obvious, so it's the part dance teachers would have to talk about more.

Just testing it out on myself, it seems the force of contraction of the latissimus to raise the humerus seem to be too excessive to maintained for an appreciable length of time and thus does not seem to be conducive to holding a stable frame for very long. It seems more likely to me that the contraction of the the latissimus is most useful to counteract the action of the trapezius to lift or shrug the scapulae, which tends to be a common phenomenon in non-ideal dance frames

Guys, interesting technical (or scientific) discussion. But, Dancing is Arts...It's all about body coordination, body language & expression...If all we can think about is to invoke this piece of muscle, that piece of muscle, I think even we invoke the right one, just by thinking about that, we may be dancing like robots :lol: And I'm sorry that I ever brought up the Latts!

[Angelo]

Guys, interesting technical (or scientific) discussion. But, Dancing is Arts...It's all about body coordination, body language & expression...If all we can think about is to invoke this piece of muscle, that piece of muscle, I think even we invoke the right one, just by thinking about that, we may be dancing like robots :lol: And I'm sorry that I ever brought up the Latts!

The esence of dance is the movement of the human body. Muscles play a primary part in these movements. Sometimes it is appropriate and even necessary to think about which muscles are engaged or relaxed, and to what degree, in order to advance your movement toward your goals of expression and coordination. Especially since the topic of this thread is about correcting posture.

I do however, take your point that just thinking about muscles in an isolated way is not enough or even physiologically correct, since when producing movement, multiple neuromuscular units must act in an integrated and coordinated fashion.

Science and art are not mutually exclusive

[dancin_feet]

Doing exercises for this in class last night. Maintaining closed dance position with arms by your sides. I was maintaining it OK, but everyone was laughing at me because I had my arms all tensed up resembling a gorilla!! :lol:

Seems I still have some work to do in relaxing the arms and shoulders during closed dance position. :wink:

[Joe]

[quote=swan]
Science and art are not mutually exclusive
Right. You can't have paint without chemistry. :)

[bordertangoman]

This is one of those problems that I can solve quicker in five minutes with a person than describing it:

to relax arm shoulder etc take a partner since he she will be doing the work: they put one hand on your shoulder to anchor it then they take your hand and start moving the whole arm around it. All you have to do is let it happen (not that I'm saying that its easy) To test the partner holds the arm out at shoulder height and lets go: if relaxed it flops.

This is harder becuase your doing it on your own: try and follow a path of least resisatance; do one arm at a time and ask your arm where does it want to go; don't think too much; just let your arm dance on its own.

Its a technique I learned in shiatsu which I call unwinding(copyright); you just let the body unwind itself and it always seems to know what it wants to do.