Be quiet, or I'll make it worse. And by the way, you're fat.

Yes, a lot of dance injuries come from bad training. But other injuries come from a teacher's specific training methods, and an ingrained belief that recognizing pain means weakness.

When I teach classes, I often smile watching the children, because as wonderful as they look now, or how much they are enjoying a particular movement sequence- I know what comes next, how excited they'll be when they reach the next level and are able to do new things. And as I teach them I occasionally marvel at the idea that I could ever teach the way some of my teachers did. It's like those old 80's dance movies, and some of the 90's ones. Those scenes didn't develop out of nothing- they're based in a sad truth of the dance world. A truth that thankfully isn't encountered as much today, but nonetheless is what many dancer teachers, myself included grew up with.

I was in physical therapy the other day having my leg stretched past it's own thresh-hold. Part of me wanted to tell the person to stop, but I kept silent. My ballet training somehow got ahold of my common sense. Ballet training dictated that I remain silent, that the pain would last only a certain amount of time then stop. But what if it got worse and the muscle snapped? Be strong, keep your mouth shut. It will be over soon, and you'll recover, my training told me.
I obeyed my old training, and the muscle snapped. That's when I said ow. I silently kicked myself for not listening to my common sense instead.

I used to be stretched by my teachers, and was well trained to keep my pain to myself. Just one lesson was effective enough to drill in that point.

I was standing in arabesque at the barre, with my leg at about a 120 degree angle in the air. My teacher came up behind me and pulled my leg higher. Past where it wanted to go. I said ow, quietly under my breath. The teacher heard me, and where they'd been content to keep my leg where they'd lifted it to, quickly pushed it up to 160 degree angle. I felt muscles tear, but I knew better than to cry, or I'd end up with a worse punishment. The lesson? "That's what you get. If you'd kept your mouth shut I wouldn't have had to do that. You have to learn to take pain, or you'll never make it on stage."

That point was well understood in the dance world I grew up in. We'd watched as a girl red-faced with pain would silently have her body contorted pulled and pushed past it's limits, our faces reflecting silent pain at her torment, but equally glad it was not happening to us this time. This happened time and time again, in school after school I danced in, even at the college level. Working on our 'pain thresh-holds' was one thing my teachers seemed to love. Another was the steadfast answer to any dance difficulty- you're too fat. Oh, I could write a novel on that one.

And that solution worked about as well on us dancers as the "be quiet or I'll make it worse" idea. The point? I am so glad I learned from my worst teachers to NOT be like them, and to succeed in spite of them. And with my own school I am able to definitely say that you don't need to hit, shout at, belittle or physically abuse your students to create good, strong dancers.