The Brain Forgets Much, but the Lower Back Remembers Everything.

A healthy and well-working body is essential tool for all of us dancers. Some dance styles are more demanding for the body than others and, let’s face it, Zouk belongs to one of the more demanding ones, especially what comes to followers. There are many unfortunate examples of different kind of injuries that have been caused by dancing Zouk, especially neck, knee and lower back injuries. I’m not here to scare you off, though, because all of these can be avoided with good and safe dance technique and body awareness. However, many dancers, especially beginners, are not aware that their specific posture or poor technique is slowly but surely doing them harm – it can start from a small and periodic pain that later develops into something more serious.

I was one of those dancers.

For a long time I have felt pressure in my lower back after dancing a lot of Zouk, for example after or during a Zouk festival. Sometimes that pressure has developed into more unpleasant feeling that might have continued many days after the dancing. Sometimes I’ve had to stop dancing and leave the party early because I was afraid my lower back couldn’t handle dancing any more. There have also been few occasions, unfortunately, when I have felt sharp pain during a certain dance move. Last time when the latter happened around a year ago my back was aching really badly for weeks afterwards – you can imagine how uncomfortable it was to intensively rehearse a choreo in this condition (let alone what rehearsing in that condition must have done to my back). Since then I have been a way more cautious if I have felt some pressure in my back as well as paid more attention to proper warming up before both dance practices and dance parties.

Nevertheless, I got a wake-up call the other day when I was receiving a massage to my lower back after the Amsterdam’s congress. It has been a long time since I danced Zouk so much during one weekend and thus my back got tired, as it is normal for muscles to react to such extra strain. However, there was one specific tiny spot found on my left side that caused unbelievable amount of pain when stimulated. It was definitely not a muscle but a nerve – a nerve that must have been compressed for a quite some time there. I think this is exactly the spot that has been causing pain earlier too; now I was just was to locate the source to the exact place. What scared me off, though, was the amount of pain stored in that tiny spot.

One thing I know for sure: pain is never good.

Now that this nerve was extremely sore after dancing and massaging I was able to feel any additional pressure any movement could cause to it, and therefore I noticed that some certain moves increased the compression. This is a good example of a slowly developing problem because if the nerve was not extraordinary sore, I could not feel this extra pressure I was causing by having a wrong posture in my lower back. You might think that it’s nothing, just one tiny spot, but the thing is that if I continue dancing as before the nerve will keep on getting more and more pressure – and maybe in the worst case scenario I won’t be able to dance in few years’ time! Life without dancing… what a nightmare.

I went to my Zouk teachers with my worries and it turned out they have also had similar problems with their back. We went through some moves where I felt increased pressure and they were able to advise me how to avoid having that pressure. It seems that I’m keeping my lower back a little bit too curved in many simple positions, like spins or a simple lounge/preparation. I guess I have been counting on too much to my (pretty strong) core muscles to hold everything in order but they won’t help if I constantly create pressure with a slightly wrong position. We’re not talking about a big malposition here but few centimeters can make a big difference. What I need to do now is to pay constant extra attention to my back’s position and learn away from my old bad habits. So if you see me curving my back at any point while dancing, I will really appreciate you pointing that out to me – I don’t want to do any more harm to my body.

Similarly, if you ever feel increased pressure or pain in your back, or any other part for that matter, please please please do something about it. Don’t wait until it gets worse. Don’t think that it is nothing. In most cases everything can be avoided with a small change of body positioning. Listen to your body: it’s the only one you’ll ever have.

Further, prepare your body before making any moves that can cause problems. I know it might feel awkward to stretch or warm up at a dance party but that short time can save your whole night. At least have a couple of warm up dances before putting in your 100 percent – and by warm up dance I mean (attention leaders!!) no cambres, head movements or other ‘unnatural’ positions or unnecessarily explosive movements for your body. One request for leaders: if a follower tells you she has not warmed up and wants you to take it easy, please respect her wish and be gentle (i.e. do not lead her into aforementioned positions). One request for followers: don’t throw yourself into a cambre or similar movement without you yourself holding your body because in the worst case your leader is not prepared and you will end up breaking his back when he is trying to save you from falling down. Let’s all take a good care of each other, shall we?

Last but not least, make sure you take a good care of your body outside dancing. Sorry to break the news for you, but dancing alone is not enough of exercise for a dancer’s body. Training core muscles is especially important as those will help to protect the body in many movements. Stretching and mobility exercises are other musts that I have noticed to make extra good for my body; in addition (and more importantly) to increased flexibility those release muscular tension and make energy flow more freely in my body. Slowing down and having a soft and gentle movement also puts the attention to the body and in this way it is easier to notice if there are some unwanted pressures or energy blocks hiding somewhere there.

I don't know about you, but at least I want to have a strong and healthy body to dance with. I might have not done the best job with taking care of it before but all the more so I want to do that now. After all, I want to have many more years of dancing, and that is going to happen only with a co-operation of a healthy body.