Interview No. 9

Please briefly describe your ballet training experience and career path, including where you were trained, where you were trained, and what performances and jobs you were involved in.

I have been studying dance since I was a child, entered a professional college in a technical secondary school at the age of 12 for professional and systematic training, was admitted to university at the age of 16, and entered a professional dance troupe after graduating from university
What does your current role and weekly training gig look like? Every morning at 8:00~9:30, we conduct a professional basic skills training, and then conduct a rehearsal in the later stage
When did you first realize that you were highly flexible?
When I was in technical secondary school, I discovered my flexibility
Did the teacher or peers at that time think about this?
Yes, because the flexibility is better than that of other students, so the teachers will pay more attention to training. The attention is relatively high.
So as a highly flexible dancer, how do you feel about this physical trait? Is it an advantage or a challenge for you, or is it both?
I think it's both. Because soft opening has a certain advantage, but because it is naturally soft, others have to work harder in terms of strength than others.
Regarding an experience of injury, have you ever experienced a moment of injury due to high tolerance?

Yes, this is true. My current situation is that I have an injury to my waist, and then my wrist and ankle are also injured, which are all injuries that fell during training. It was during training.

Have you experienced multiple injuries in your dance career?
This is still relatively common, because in dance, we must have both flexibility and strength training, which is a complementary role, so in this training or performance stage. Injuries are common
Whether all these injuries have one thing in common, especially related to your high flexibility

I remember that the first injuries I had were my wrists and ankles, because it may be softness and flexibility, it reached a certain height, and then one of its own strength did not keep up, and then in the process of my training, because the strength was not up to standard, it caused an injury to the wrist and ankle.
Do you think these injuries are related to your high flexibility?
Yes, related. Because the first injury was when I was practicing soft opening, because I felt that there was no problem with my attitude, and then in some skills, I might use strength, so the strength of this thing was not raised, causing my wrist and ankle injuries. Then when I was an actor in the later stage, because there were male and female pas de deux, it was also because my strength did not keep up during the lifting process, which caused my waist injury.
Tell us about an injury that left a lasting impression on you.
My back injury, back injury. I remember that at that time it was the coordination part of the pas de deux of the male and female doubles, and then because of a lifting action, my strength was not up to standard, and then because the soft opening was too soft, it did not have a good support, and then it fell from the air to the ground, causing a lumbar disc protrusion in our waist, and we couldn't move this kind of situation at that time. Then he went to the hospital.

Did your physical and emotional reactions at that time have any impact on your later training performances?
It cannot be said that there is no such thing at all, but he will still have a certain influence. Because after this injury, he actually can't fully recover in dance. In fact, there will be a slight impact. Because in the later stages like after my previous waist injury, I was treated for this. Then after alleviation, maybe when he goes to train again after a while, his waist will still have recurring attacks.
Do you think this injury has affected your confidence as a dancer and a sense of identity?
I don't think it has any effect.
In my cognition, I have been engaged in this industry, and I have chosen a major, and I can accept that it will be injured to a certain extent, because the dance industry is not like vocal music, with the voice or something, because dance is after all, it is artistic expression with the body, so it is inevitable that he will be injured, so we have to accept the injury and then transform a motivation.
How did you deal with this injury at that time?
At that time, I was very impressed, after I fell, because I couldn't move immediately, some colleagues and directors immediately carried me to the hospital, and then performed physiotherapy and needle insertion.
What factors helped you recover from your injury and subsequent rehabilitation?
I think there is both, because when you are injured, when you are injured, you will not immediately judge the severity of your current injury, so there is a kind of panic in your heart, you don't know whether you can still engage in dance in the future, so at that time, my colleagues and teachers, including these, gave me a certain amount of encouragement and help, and then went to the hospital doctor to give me a diagnosis, and then to the later physiotherapist for a certain help in my body's recovery.
What forms of support have you received during your recovery? For example, who is involved?

My teachers and my colleagues, and then the most important thing is our rehabilitator, so I am of great help to me, and the teachers are constantly encouraging me, and then the rehabilitator gives me a long-term treatment.
What kind of method is the rehabilitator mainly used, such as physiotherapy, or what is the method of acupuncture in Chinese Chinese medicine.
Yes. It is a kind of physiotherapy for acupuncture rehabilitators, and I think acupuncture physiotherapy in China is quite useful. Including now after my injury, sometimes it may recur every six months to a year, and then I have a physiotherapy needle, and he will fully recover in three days to a week. I have been doing some of this kind of recovery for a long time. Yes, he still has to have a certain auxiliary role, otherwise we usually go to dance or go to the basic work training such as flexibility and strength, he will still have other possibilities.
What did you find most difficult throughout your recovery? Is it the recovery of some physical functions, or some psychological resilience, or some systemic obstacles? Yes, still.

I feel that I may be injured, which will have a certain impact on my dance, because even if you practice after recovering in the later stage, he will still have a little gap in his heart, and he will be a little worried about him. There will be some shadows because of the fear of getting hurt again. Physically, he will definitely have an impact, and he will also have a great impact physically, and there will be some soft attitude of movements and dances, which will not be too much to let go of themselves to dance.
Do you prefer to trust your body's feelings during the recovery process, or do you trust the advice of a professional?
I still trust the teachers, after all, they are still very professional. In the rehabilitation doctors, professionals still listen to some of their suggestions, including sometimes when practicing or performing, they will still follow some of their suggestions, saying what they should pay attention to, or that I may immediately go to needle therapy after the performance
In your recovery process, are there any moments when doctors and rehabilitators or some relevant personnel of the dance company can convey some of your injuries and recovery progress in a timely and clearer manner, and then some information about when you will return to the stage, that is, these contents can make you feel more at ease or more confident to recover.
My rehabilitator is actually a state of long-term contact with me, and then I will go to the hospital every year for another follow-up appointment to check my recovery from this injury and the current state, so that I will have a good understanding of my stage performance, including formal training, maybe I will be more at ease during the performance, after all, I have to understand my current physical condition.
Did you go back to training without recovering at all, or did some gigs?
No. I remember the first time I was injured, just after my waist was injured, and then I underwent a rehabilitative physiotherapy treatment, and then I may feel that it doesn't matter in the later stage, because if you don't hurt, you will feel that it doesn't matter, and then I immediately returned to the stage, and as a result, I danced for two days, which happened to be a national performance, and my back pain recurred two days later, so I immediately went back to the hospital and then had a check-up.
So do you think the rehabilitation advice really targets a physical characteristic of your high flexibility, that is, you mentioned earlier that your rehabilitation may mainly rely on the rehabilitation therapist to do some physiotherapy and acupuncture, so does he target you as a highly flexible dancer, and then what different ways do I want to make you adjust your body?
Yes. Because from the very beginning, my physical therapist had communicated more deeply about one of my physical conditions, so from the beginning of his treatment, he did not say that he treated me as an ordinary person outside the art industry, because after all, we still have to dance for a long time in the dance industry, including the content, I still have to stand on the stage, so his treatment methods and methods are still more biased towards the flexibility of my body. In fact, it still has adjustments for you, that is, it has done something for this characteristic of your body. There will be certain adjustments, because after all, if I am not engaged in the dance art industry, the doctor suggested that I give up the dance major, that is, he did not recommend that I be in the crew. The injuries were serious.
In your experience, do you think high flexibility has increased the risk of injury, and do you think your injuries are caused by high flexibility?

Yes. When I entered a professional college when I was a child, I saw that it was very painful to see others practicing the attitude, but I myself would not feel that it was very painful to practice, but after everyone practiced this softness in the later stage, I found that my soft attitude actually had no way to better reflect it, because it may be that when you have a good soft opening, the strength will definitely be weaker than others after all, which is a big weakness. So take this kind of leg lifting as an example, the soft opening may be easy for me to lift my legs, but I don't have a certain amount of strength support, so I can't control my legs on the top, including my standing stability will also be affected to a certain extent.
Can you give an example, for example, where high flexibility increases your risk of some injuries?

The most difficult thing is technique, because the flexibility is too great, and the body needs to spend more strength than others to control its own body. Then in the process of rotating these techniques, it will often be easy to collapse, if the waist collapses, my spine may not be able to keep upright, rotation will be affected, I felt that I had been practicing rotation for a long time, including I remember very clearly, because my flexibility and strength are not good, so in the later stage, when others are still practicing soft attitudes, I am frantically practicing strength, practicing the strength of the abdominal and back muscles, And it is easy to get injured when practicing these skills, because it is easy to fall without strength, including ankles and wrists, he has no strength to support.

Maybe in the early stage, when training, your flexibility is as an advantage for you, but in the later stage, there may be some technical skills, for dancers with high flexibility, he is a relatively weak point,
I think this is really difficult. For me, it is very difficult to be in the technical skills section. It can be said that it takes twice or even twice as much effort as others, and it can be said that it is a weakness to spin in circles, bounce, and control legs.
Do you feel that because your body is too soft, it is more difficult to control certain tricks?
Yes, because I have practiced spinning for a long time, it took a lot of effort, and then because it is too soft, I can't control my mid-section strength, and it is easy to rotate badly. Secondly, there is a lot of rotation, which is actually after rotation or before rotation to add control rails, these soft opening plus force such a display, I can't go to a better connection to show it. At that time, in order to practice these skills well, I focused on the back muscles and back muscles, including bouncing up and down, and then training strength in these aspects, because in order to do these technical skills well, and I was a relatively soft situation, so I spent a lot of effort in terms of strength.
Have you ever come across a training method that is not suitable for dancers with high flexibility? For example, for high-quality dancers

Yes, for example, the waist control and waist control, in fact, I think a situation of hanging the waist, it may still be on the basis of practicing soft opening, it may assist in training strength, but in fact, it is not specific to strength, in the later stage, so I didn't focus on the waist. Because after all, because it is very soft, you hang there, it is actually not up to the standard, he still can't hang it, so he has been focusing on training the abdominal and dorsal muscles, and I found that the abdominal and dorsal muscles are still very good at practicing this mid-section strength.
Has anyone given specific advice on your flexibility problem, such as your coach or therapist or doctor?
With my rehabilitator, he still gave me certain advice for a long time, including my teacher until now, he is also giving me advice, focusing on making me pay attention to this strength aspect of a training, or to practice less flexibility, because after all, my flexibility has reached a height now, and if I practice flexibility, it may actually not have much effect, including for my body now. So you still need a training in this kind of strength.
Did these suggestions help you with your overall training adjustments, prevention, or career planning?
Yes, I think it's because after a long training session with this strength, I found that now when the strength improves, the flexibility has reached a balance, so the chance of this injury in the later stage is almost non-existent, including listening to some of their advice. Their physiotherapist explained the structure of the body, or told me some ways to avoid it, which I think is still very useful.
Do you think there is enough discussion about high flexibility in dance education or injury prevention?
Yes, because there are still some people in our group who are more flexible like me now, and then there is no way to be with others in training, in fact, the training method cannot be the same, so we will have targeted training, maybe this group of people with good flexibility, we will take the initiative to train strength, strength may not be relatively flexible people who are not so good, generally will be targeted training flexibility. Then we will also discuss how our flexible body can better say to avoid a situation where we are injured, and then improve ourselves. Right.
So based on your personal experience, what do you think is the most overlooked aspect of dancer health support?
I think it is important to warm up before training and move your body completely, which is the biggest way to avoid injury. When your body feels that something is wrong, there must be an appropriate adjustment, because when we may be practicing flexibility, you may feel that I increase my strength, and the flexibility may have a growth, but often at this time your flexibility has reached a limit, and it is easy to get injured.
So if you could design a health support for a high flexibility dancer, what would you think would be a better addition to it?
There must be a belly. Abs and back muscles, then bounce. Yes, because the abdominal muscles and back muscles are mainly training our middle section, it can actually be of great help to our waist strength. For example, after my relative training, it can be said that it is a great help in strength compared to the hanging waist. Then the second is to practice more bounces, the strength part will give our ankles a great help, including the tightening of the body, or our usual basic training is also very good, without this help, the basic skills, our ballet rubbing training, control, these for our overall body muscle line, Muscle ability will also be a great help.
If you could go back to the early stages of your dance training, what advice would you give to your flexibility and injury prevention at that time?
I think if I were to sum up my current long time, for children who are initially learning to come into contact with dance, my suggestion is to train more basic ballet skills and master ballet. Because of the flexibility of the right, you just entered the college and started to come into contact with dance, you found your own body flexibility, and it is difficult to control your body, then ballet bar training, these differences just now, control the movements of squatting on one leg is very good, which can allow us to find muscles. For example, the muscles control their own strength and development, how to exert their muscles, and under what kind of action, our abilities include attitudes to better control ourselves, so I think it is more important
If you were asked to design a warm-up or strength training program specifically for highly flexible dancers, what would it include?
Wipe the floor and put on all the training. Then include kicking training, because in fact, it is completely in control of our hip joints, the crotch bone, because the flexibility of the legs is too soft, in fact, it is because your hip joint is ignored, and if the waist is too soft, it is because of our human bone structure. In fact, all your softness is because of the human bone structure, not because we may blindly say that these meridians are soft, in fact, most of them are because the bones are softer than others, then you may need to pay attention to training the hip joint, including some training for the bar and following our muscles, when your muscles reach a certain energy, your body will also have a certain amount of help to control our own body.
Is there anything else you would like to add to your high flexibility, including some of all of this that was discussed above?
What I want to say most is that you must be active before training, and you must warm up to warm up, yes, this is a certainty. Then secondly, when you are injured, you don't continue to train, don't insist on doing it, you must seek medical attention in time, and then listen to our physiotherapist, and you must listen to some certain suggestions and opinions, so that our body can better protect our body. Otherwise, if I hadn't followed some advice from my physiotherapist, including the doctor, I might have been more and more injured now, and he wouldn't have said that he could better protect himself.