Brea

Hi all,

I generally teach the tucked-pelvis, bent-knee posture for dance (I know there's more to it than that, but for the sake of brevity). However I just read a thread on Bhuz saying that's incorrect.

What's a dancer to do? I want to teach the proper posture and not harm my students. Anyone have any thoughts?

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Moon

My teacher says the pelvis should be kind of relax, in the middle. So not tucked but also certainly not duck-butt.
For people who are used to standing with a duck-butt though, they could come out at the right posture when you say "tuck your pelvis", so I think you should just check whether the student is standing right or not. People on Bhuz might be saying a completely tucked butt is not right, while you might be talking about a little tucked, but not completely tucked.

Same for bend knees. I used to stand with locked knees so I stood right when my teacher said "bend your knees", while strictly spoken, they are not really bend, but just unlocked and relaxed.

Suheir

It's sometimes called "neutral pelvis" which is slightly tucked and not obviously tilted to the back or front. Knees should be relaxed and not locked. Sometimes they can be more bent for Beladi.

I'm sure you're teaching the correct posture, Brea!

Brea

Hi,

I teach "not duck butt but not pelvic thrust", ie, a neutral pelvis instead of sticking out your butt. I care a lot about my students and want to make sure I am doing right by them, and that thread really surprised me! I also teach 'slightly bent' knees; not deeply bent and not locked.

They were also saying that backbends were scary...

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Moon

Well Brea, sounds to me like you're teaching the right posture.
They probably say backbends are scary because they are dangerous to do without proper technique

Salome

Did she/he give some kind of context as to why she/he thinks it is incorrect?

Generally I would say that feet under hips, soft knee, gently tucked pelvis, good overall upper body carriage, i.e. relaxed shoulders, rib cage not sunken... is the posture I use and teach as a spring board for a dynamic activity...

sedoniaraqs

Its mostly semantics. One person's "tuck" is another person's "relaxed" is another person's "neutral". It *is* possible to tuck too much. What is important is what you actually have the students do, not what you call it.

RE: legs bent. I teach that the default alignment if you will is to have the legs as straight as possible without being hyperextended (locked). Of course the knees bend from this homebase to allow various hip movements. I check my students individually very carefully for locked knees to remind them not to do it. Also, part of this default alignment is having the body weight distributed to both the heels and balls of the feet, and the ribcage aligns slightly forward of the pelvis. This is for the most part really just good posture, as you would see on a poster in a chiropracter's or orothopedic's office.

I teach mostly from the perspective of the Egyptian style. To me, having a more bent position, especially combined with a bit of leaning back and the weight back over the heels, is very NOT Egyptian for most movements. I see alot of American dancers do this and I don't really like it.

sedoniaraqs

Yes, except that the benchmark of correct posture generally has little to do with how far out your butt sticks, because that is due largely to muscle and fat. Also, people have different degrees of lumbar curve, which is separate from pelvic tilt.

So there can be people with a very deep lumbar curve, large glute muscles, and junk in the trunk whose booties stick way out but whose pelvis is perfectly neutral.

I think a better benchmark is feeling the most prominent points of the iliac crests and the pubic bone on the front of the body. These points should define a triangle oriented perpendicular to the floor. This is a more accurate way of assessing "neutral" pelvis than looking at the lower back or how far one's butt sticks out.

sedoniaraqs

Funny that the ad I'm seeing at the bottom of this page is for a "posture correcting" device. It looks like a cut-under-the-bust costume vest made of white ace bandages. I wonder how it would look sequined and with bedlah?

adiemus

You are quite right that lordosis can affect whether the pelvis looks tucked or not...and the pubic bone and iliac crest alignment are much more accurate - but it's amazing how few people know how to work it out!!
I do have quite a deep lordosis, and shortened quads and hip flexors, so I have it bad from both sides! I do call it a 'neutral' pelvis, but I quite like the way that some people describe it as having an elongated spine - that way the emphasis is on both pulling up and out of the torso as well as ensuring the pelvis and lumbar spine are in a neutral position.

You can also check this by how much pelvic tilt the person can do while lying down or while standing against a wall (although both will be influenced by the muscle/fat on the butt). But at least it's a little easier to get the movement and it's possible to feel the iliac crest/pubic bone alignment.

Re the knees - 'soft' knees works well for me, rather than 'bent'.
And yes, back bends can be difficult because they require not only extremely strong abdominals, but strength in both sets of muscles in the thigh - quads and hammies. And if you've got any osteoarthritis in your lumbar spine, this is a great way to find out about it!! Because the facet joints move against each other as you extend, and this can trigger irritation from any osteophytes or slight irregularities in the joint surfaces.

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