In 2015 I wrote a book for dancers called Dance Stronger (which also includes a 4 week movement and strength training program).
My aim with Dance Stronger is to give dancers tools so they don’t have to make all the silly mistakes I made that led to me “retiring” from my dance career at age 22, battered from injuries.
In Dance Stronger I communicate a holistic, sustainable, and somewhat unconventional philosophy for how to approach dance training: Putting the individual human being’s needs ahead of the dancer’s (which is usually the opposite of how dancers are trained, quite the paradigm shift from the common old school training methodologies).
I think this book should be accessible to every dancer, so I’ve made it available pay-what-you-can can. Grab a copy of the PDF below, for whatever $$ amount you can or want to pay:
I wrote Dance Stronger when I was 25, still quite immature in the grand scheme of things, but I was on a mission to share what I’d come to see was the truth of what is necessery for a healthy, sustainable, and enjoyable dance career.Â
I was half bitter, half inspired.
Bitter about all the things wrong with dance training, and the often toxic environment in studios. Bitter about how slow the dance world is to adapt, unable to move forward from traditional practices that aren’t healthy.
Most dance educational instutions are not set up to support a dancer’s wellbeing and success in all aspects, including:
– Nutrition
– Mental health
– Cross-training (including strength training and restorative movement practices)
– Load management (between technical training and rehearsals and performances)
– Recovery
– Rehabilitation and injury prevention
– Misinformation based on tradition (like, you don’t need an off-season! Doh)
But I was inspired because, in spite of making every single mistake I could have in my own dance training, I’d learned how to take ownership of these things for myself, and communicate them to my dance clients.
The main message of Dance Stronger is “You are a human first, and a dancer second”💪
Yet we don’t treat ourselves that way. And if we’re going to do unnatural (and BEAUTIFUL!) things with our bodies, we’d best have strategies to unwind from it.
I hope you enjoy Dance Stronger 🙂 Please let me know what you think, and share this page with a dance friend, parent, teacher, or student that you think would benefit from this book.
