The Ways Yoga Lessons Have Helped My Dance

I’ve already told you about the benefits of the physical practice to improve in Dance. Many dancers will also agree that Yoga brings great benefits to us: I have started doing Yoga only 3 years ago but I immediately fell in love with it and has helped me a lot, namely on the following:

1. Pain relief from intensive dance rehearsals. Yoga’s stretches have helped me a lot relieving my constant muscular pain (especially my upper body’s). Most Yoga poses relieve upper body tension and stretch the whole back alleviating pain we dancers get from intensive dancing (especially for constantly being with our arms lifted)

2. Improved Posture. In Yoga we strengthen our upper body which has helped me gain better posture. This is one of the biggest changes I feel in terms of body conditioning. My back and arms especially are much more ready to dance than before: my turns and use of arms suffered great improvement.

One of the Yoga positions you can learn in classes.

3. Increased shoulders and back mobility. Today I feel less “stuck” when dancing. I feel my arms and upper body much freer as in yoga you work a lot on increasing your shoulder joints and back flexibility. My movements became wider and more fluid, I became more elegant and effortless while dancing.

4. Increased Hip Mobility. This is also a huge advantage for Oriental Dancers. There are several poses that have helped me increase my hip flexibility, which made my hip looser and allowed me to perform wider hip movements. It has also help me a lot on my posture as I can move more freely.

5. Increased Body Awareness. Yoga is a slow and precise practice. There is a need to be completely attentive of our body – how our feet, hip, leg, shoulder, and so on are positioned. This made me become even more aware of my body, my joints and muscles, which in turn has helped me become a better dancer and teacher.

There are many other benefits from Yoga like its breathing practice, stress relief, improved blood circulation, increased legs strength, etc. but these five were those I felt made a bigger difference in my life as a dancer. What about you? Do you also practice yoga? What benefits did you witness?

If you are near Setúbal and you are interested in practicing Yoga, our studio offers classes three times a week with teacher Eva Piçarra. Get to know everything here.