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Dancers discovered the benefits of Pilates long before it became known to a wider audience. Martha Graham and George Balanchine were among Joseph Pilates’ most devoted clients at his New York studio.

Pilates provides dancers with a range of tools to become more aware of their alignment and protect them against injury.

Benefits of Pilates for dancers include:

* Increased core strength, balance and coordination

* Improved hip, foot and ankle alignment

* Muscular symmetry and balance

* Proper hip turnout

* Decreased joint and ligament stress

* Decreased muscle strain

* Improved flexibility

* Controlled hypermobility

At Laban (contemporary dance conservatoire), I have worked extensively with both injured and healthy dancers wishing to improve their performance. Common dance injuries such as tendonitis, shin splints, ankle sprains, plantar fasciitis, lower back pain can all be treated with Pilates, by looking not only at the injured area but also at the whole body alignment to avoid falling back into harmful postural habits.

Not only do dancers need superior core strength, balance and control but they must also build awareness of the effects movement has throughout the whole body. Pilates teaches breathing control and mental concentration to increase awareness of the sensory feedback from the nervous system. This mind-body connection is a way to increase control and detailed movement.

I will soon offer mat classes for dancers.
I offer discounts on private and semi-private classes for dance students and dancers, please get in touch for more details and to be included in my mailing list.