How a dance class made me a better runner.
So with this whole COVID situation, I’ve been trying to learn some new skills. One of them is dance, which is how I found myself signed up for online dance classes through Steezy studios. I took a house class, working on some footwork. However what was immediately apparent to me was how useful it was for me as a runner.
Dancing is all about weight shift. And so is running. Running is a one-legged sport and is ALL about how you shift your weight from one leg onto the other. A lot of people run into issues when they run because they aren’t very good at this weight shift. Rather than shifting through the hip, they tend to keep their hip still and shift with their pelvis or knee or foot, essentially around the hip rather than through the hip. And that’s when they run into trouble. It results in hip bursitis, ITB pain, lateral knee pain, back pain and even neck and shoulder pain (because of the functional scoliosis that ensues).
What this dance class taught me was a few things: firstly, how to slowly and effectively control my weight shift. I learnt more about how my body shifts its weight from two legs onto one leg onto the other leg in that 30 minutes than I have ever before. The other thing it taught me was how important intrinsic foot strength was for decelerating the foot, and controlling weight shift as it happens. You’ll see this in a lot of dance moves- they land on their toes and then slowly and with control bring their heel down to touch the floor. It’s a classic aspect of house dance and it is also exactly what happens when we run. It’s lengthening before shortening; everything I aim to teach in the Embodied Runner program.
It’s a hard sell and I know many runners probably won’t be taking me up on the offer to do a dance class to improve their running technique. However, for the ones that do, there is a wealth of information they can learn that will make them better runners.
I’m a runner but I’m also a human in a body, and that body can run, hop, jump, crawl and dance. Having the ability to express myself with all of those movements makes me free. It also makes me better at each of them individually. Running makes me a better jumper, crawling makes me a better hopper and dancing makes me a better runner. Movement coordination happens when we explore all our movement possibilities. It’s about variability and repetition, not just repetition.
Embody the change you want to be. Run, crawl, hop, jump, dance and be a fully expressive human.
