Ballet

Body: 

I've done 3 years of physiotherapy with little to no results. I am so excited to report just one month in with the exercises and whole woman posture stress incontinence is almost not a problem at all anymore. I am thrilled! I also just love standing tall, I feel more confident being given this permission to carry myself in such a loving, strong, empowered way! Hooray for WWP!

I'm now thinking about my 3 year old daughter and what's best for her body. She LOVES to dance and I'd like to enrol her in classes. Is ballet ok for the body? Especially a developing little body? I was initially so against ballet because of the body dysmorphia that can come along with it but after getting the WW exercise bundle I see that it has lots of ballet moves in the dance class.

Thank you!

Forum:

As with everything else, it's not what you do, but how you do it. This is a article by Christine that shows the natural way children move, and how they are often re-trained in classical ballet instruction.
https://wholewoman.com/blog/?p=1145

If the class is low-key and does not force young children into a harmful body position, then it should be fine. But anything that requires suck-and-tuck posture is what we need to avoid, and what so many of us were brought up on, which is one reason we are so prolapsed today! If only our natural shape wasn't trained out of us from an early age. - Surviving

I'm so glad to hear such great progress and it reinforces that the traditional PT route is not the way to go. I search for stories online and I hear so many women struggling for long periods of time while following traditional methods and I'm just so glad we have Christine....

I recently signed my daughter up for ballet and I never really thought of this... I think hers is pretty laid back (it's 40 minutes once a week for 4 year olds) but I will definitely have to watch what she's being taught there. For now she's got beautiful whole woman posture and she's belly breathing like a champ. I really just want her to socialize and get to do a stage performance but maybe different dance might be better. I know Christine takes and likes Scottish dancing, I wonder if that's something to look into.

I feel like a killjoy when I comment on the possible pitfalls of ballet lessons. And for the littlest kids, there is probably no harm being done. But it wouldn't surprise me, even in a laid-back little kids' class, to hear them talk about standing up straight and pulling their tummies in. Once you have internalized the concepts of true pelvic organ support, it's impossible NOT to look at virtually everything from that perspective. I seem to recall that Christine actually spoke to her granddaughter's Irish step dancing instructor about this. Not many of us would be that brave! - Surviving

yeah - i mean her class for the most part is like trying to wrangle 12 little girls to go in a circle and jump over a thing etc. They're practicing for a show in June and there's a lot of just trying to get them to listen and follow.... But they *are* learning plie and jete and arabesque - all the real terms for the real moves. I wonder if she's asking them to suck and tuck to do it "right"? definitely will need to watch for that and decide what to do after her show... I for one would not be brave enough to confront the teacher - I'd just pull her out of the class....
luckily i'm going to try swimming next since i want something i can take both kids to at the same time. or something like soccer since I want them moving as much as possible.