Decoded: The 8 Steps to Achieving a Perfect Irish Dancer's Posture, Part 1: Steps 1 - 5

Irish dancing is very unique in one aspect:  the straight arms and upper body of its dancers!  Believe me, you will not find our particular style anywhere else.  Even our Scottish cousins performing their Highland dancing, our closest match, use their arms.

In general, having excellent posture will help you look and feel better at all times, not just when you dance, so incorporating it into your daily life is extremely beneficial.   Many Irish dance teachers may not take the time to fully explain how to achieve this posture to their beginner students and advanced students can always use a refresher course. 

There are 8 main steps/components to achieving a perfect Irish dancer’s posture! They correspond exactly to the 8 parts of the body involved and how each should be held or placed to master the proper position.  Most people should be able to apply these techniques very easily.  However, for anyone who has an injury or for children with their ever growing and changing bodies, slight modifications/compensations may be advisable.  Always remember when in doubt, to speak to your dance teacher about any questions or concerns about you or your child’s individual body type or ability.

I have divided the steps into two separate sections for easier learning and practicing.  In part one, we are studying steps 1 through 5:  

Step 1:   SHOULDERS

Shoulders should be held back while maintaining the natural curve of the spine. 

• Pull shoulders back and down by drawing together your shoulder blades and then holding them strongly in that position.
• The key is to hold them in place while relaxing the neck muscles.
• Never allow them to slump or “bounce” forward, be pulled too far back, or have one higher than the other especially while dancing. 
• Keeping the shoulders in this position is one of the hardest things to do and something that dancers have to deal with constantly.  (I do!)  A good way to practice this is to pull your shoulders back every time you think about it as you go about your daily activities: such as walking, sitting, working on the computer, eating, etc.  (This is currently working great for me.  The more I do it, the more natural it feels.)

Step 2:   ARMS

Arms must remain straight at the back side of your body near the buttock. To get position:

•   Begin by holding your arms straight down along the middle sides of your body.    
•  Pull shoulders back by drawing together your shoulder blades and then holding them strongly in place. 
• Allow the arms to follow with the movement until they rest on the back half of the body with the elbows falling naturally into the curve of the waist.   
•  Continue to hold them totally straight with no or very little bend in the elbow which should never be “locked.” 

 

Step 3:   HANDS

Hands should be held in “loose” fists.  To get the position:

• First spread hands out flat then close them and make a fist.
• The thumb can be held two ways:  inside with the fingers against the palms (the current trend) or outside with the fingers lying against the pointer finger.  If your thumbs are held outside, do not allow them to “stick out” from the rest of the fist. 
• Your hands should be held straight down with no bending at the wrist.
• Be aware of any “trigger fingers” which can occur when the rest of the fingers are curled against the palm but one or more fingers are pointing straight out and down.  In Irish dance competitions, adjudicators can deduct points for improperly held hands and arms but especially for “trigger fingers!”  The key is not to draw any undue attention to the hands.

 Step 4:   HEAD

Your head should be held in the “forward and up” position in relationship to the spine. To get the position:

• Begin by freeing the neck of all tension.
• Hold your head in alignment with the spine. 
• Now engage the neck muscles to gently move your head forward and then slightly up. 
• To practice holding your head correctly:   Pretend that a puppet string hanging down from the ceiling is attached to the top of your head.  Mentally give the string a gentle pull upward and let your head follow.  This allows your upper body and head to fall into correct alignment.

Step 5:   EYES

Your eyes should be held looking straight ahead toward a distant point or just above the heads of the spectators. 

• Do NOT look up at the ceiling. If you do, all the audience sees is the whites of your eyes, literally! 
• Do NOT look down at the floor either as this causes your head to tilt out of alignment creating a less than confident look. 
• Take into account any proprioperception issues you might have and compensate accordingly. (This will be discussed in great length later.)

So now you have the basic details for steps 1 through 5. Your goal is to master each over time at your own rate.  These steps are not always easy to maintain especially for beginner dancers.  To master them employ my "three P motto:"

Practice…………Practice……………Practice.  

The next blog will be explaining part 2.  Watch for it!

Have fun and enjoy the dance!!

Irish dancer posture from the side! (June 2013)

Decoding an Irish Dancer's World With Plenty of Tips to Excel: An Introduction

Irish dancing literally takes years of blood (the injuries – you dance long enough you will have plenty), sweat (you do this every time you dance a few steps) and tears (the road to being a good dancer is long and hard) but it the end, all of the effort is worth it!  This blog has actually evolved over my twenty years of being an Irish step dancer but especially during the last twelve years since entering the world of competition where you must continually strive towards improving your self all the time.  The goal is to assist fellow dancers to have access to information that will assist them in becoming the best they can be by decoding the many facets of Irish dancing that exist.   

A great amount of the information provided includes lessons, exercises, tips, tricks and tools that I have learned from my own personal journey and no one else’s.  Subjects will include learning and doing exercises to build stamina and strength, taking care of our bodies, healing from injuries, sharing stories of triumph and failure on the road to following your dreams, surviving feiseanna, improving your group dancing, combating stage fright, preventing injuries,  improving and exploring mind/body connections, extolling the merits of set and ceili dancing, and acknowledging special accomplishments of individuals or groups who ultimately inspire us to greater accomplishments as well.  

Another major focus of this blog will be about different aspects of Irish dance shoes and accessories.  I have been actively researching them for years but with greater concentration over the past year preparing for my new book to be released in the fall of 2013.  Also watch this blog for future videos especially on how to lace shoes properly both for your soft and hard shoes!  

On my bookshelves, self help books touching lots of different subjects abound including quite a few exercise programs. Over the years, I have tried Yoga, ballet, Pilates, Callenetics and a few other programs supposedly designed to help your life.  In order to benefit the most, you have to pick and choose from each and individualize your own program from all the sources available. Various yoga poses helped me get pass some of my own inflexibility problems in my legs. Likewise doing exercises the Callanetics way greatly improved my overall body strength while doing similar movements in Pilates did not.   The posts in this blog will be the things that I have PERSONALLY found useful and beneficial to the improvement of myself as well ones that have worked for others.

So often we focus on improving the physical side of training such as on technique, strength and flexibility exercises, and stamina building that we forget that dancing is mental as well as physical.  Both are necessary in the pursuit of being better dancers so we must strive to continually work on the mental side by changing our thoughts patterns and belief systems in positive ways.

The road to improvement can be a long one for most of us but ultimately it is well worth the journey. Keep in mind that each person is a unique individual with their own limits, needs and strengths. Do not measure your progress or lack of progress with anyone else’s abilities. Find out what works best for you in the material presented and then merge it into your life.

You will not agree with everything that you read and some things may just not apply to you but that is fine. In my years of research, I have found that many of the exercises or products recommended by others did not necessarily work for me.  Improving oneself is both a learning and experimental process for each one of us. Start it with an open mind and you will get greater results.

This blog is for any and all persons who might be helped by the information contained herein. Its appeal should not just be limited to Irish dancers but dancers of all other disciplines as well. Non-dancers are also invited to peruse these posts as they are written because they can learn just as much from this information as anyone else. The world of the Irish Dancer is challenging, fun, rewarding and a little scary but by participating in it we can keep it alive and prospering.


 Stay tuned. Enjoy the dance!