English National Ballet, Tamara Rojo and Self-care

     ​The second week of research classes are done! This week entries however were a little different than the first week, I decided to not do a summary of each day. This week was very mentally draining and struggled to push through for various reasons but I was still inspired by these classes.
      The company that I took YouTube classes from this week was English National Ballet. The gorgeous Artistic Director/lead Principal Tamara Rojo taught the classes. She posted a series of 40 amazing classes during the entire quarantine in London. Rojo’s stellar leadership and resilience really shined during this pandemic. By providing these classes, she encouraged and reassured many professional ballet artists throughout the world to “keep calm and carry on”. She also made us sweat! I have always been a fan of Tamara Rojo, but I have an entirely new respect and fascination with her technique, artistic perseverance and adaptability. She made me rethink how I dance with an injury and how to heal without sacrificing my technique.
     The English National Ballet was founded in 1950 by Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin.  Even though it is a fairly young company, it has a produced talented and technically sound dancers. It also has an amazing repertoire with works from everyone from Ailey and Balanchine to reworked Petipa ballets. Tamara Rojo was named Artistic Director in 2012 after 12 years with Royal Ballet where she was also a Principal dancer. In addition to her prima ballerina experience, she also has a PhD in Performing Arts, which makes her more then qualified for to lead a ballet company. Rojo’s training, artistry and achievements are truly admirable but what I admire the most about her is how she recovered from two major injuries that nearly ended her career.
     During the early 2000s she had two major injuries. The first was when her appendix burst during a performance of  the Royal Ballet’s “Nutcracker”. She had a surgery where she was told to not dance for six weeks. She started dancing again after only 2 weeks and had to have surgery again(yikes!). Then in 2003 she had to have emergency surgery on an infected bunion that swelled to the size of a tennis ball, due to a long plane ride to Australia during a tour with Royal ballet. It was this injury that completely evolved her as a ballerina, in my opinion. She had to retrain and began to take self care seriously. After a few months of physical therapy and rest she was able to dance again but her foot was never the same.  Now she was faced with a new dilemma: pointe shoes!
     One of Rojo's trademarks are her hyperextended legs and gorgeously shaped feet. Rojo said her feet were never the same after the surgery . But, she loved her shoes and did not want to change them. It takes some ballerinas years to find the perfect shoe so when they find it, they never want to part with it. This is a major mistake that could lead to injury. The feet of ballerinas change for many different reason from surgery to childbirth so it is important to be able to change or adapt to pointe shoes periodically. Rojo was able to find a beautiful middle ground, she and her father invented a genius device to widen the shoe to make space for the scar tissue from her bunion surgery without softening the entire box, which would make it impossible to turn and balance. This is a truly innovative tool since many ballerinas have bunion issues. 
     Last year I herniated a disc in my lower back and instead of resting it I pushed through and continued taking class(so dumb!). This obviously made it worse and I had to have an MRI in December  of 2019. I nearly fainted when the doctor showed me the extent of my injury. The disc in between the vertebrae was nearly gone, it was almost bone on bone! I was really sad because I could not do anything, but the silver lining was I had an entire month to heal after a minor epidural procedure. It has been a long time recovering and I still have pain sometimes. I also had to listen to my body and get strong again while still taking classes to get my Master’s degree. I started working from 1st position more and keeping my leg extensions low(so humbling for me!). I also had to mark jumps which I am still doing since I now have to dance in my living room. Pilates, yoga, physical therapy and barre has played a major role in my recovery. What makes me sad is that I can’t dance the same way I did in my twenties but I also feel like my technique and line have improved significantly. Seeing Tamara Rojo talk about her injuries really gave me hope about dancing in the studio again. She also inspired me to dance smarter and to not just muscle through class. My body has changed but I can still dance. I still look good, just not as good as I looked in my twenties and that’s just a fact of life. You can’t be young forever but you can be an artist for eternity. Alessandra Ferri is another is a beautiful example of this philosophy that many ballet dancers try to ignore.
     The classes were really hard for me this week. They were company level classes and even though I had the technique, I struggled stamina wise. The entire time I was fantasizing about the 22 year old version of me and how I would be able to slay her class back then(probably lol). Rojo is excellent at incorporating musical dynamics within combinations. This is great for muscular development as well. She used speed and repetition to shape the muscles of the legs while keeping the port de bras fluid and "dancer's choice".For example, she would do the tendu combinations on both sides at a moderate tempo then repeat them at a faster tempo(without stopping in between!) After only 2 classes my legs felt more sculpted. I will definitely be putting this in my curriculum. She also uses many pas de chevals and fondus throughout the barre, which articulated my feet. I did not take a set class for this week. I decided to randomly take five random classes out of the 40 she posted online. This really did not make a difference because A: all the classes were equally hard and B: each class focused on a different theme. For example, one of her classes had a pirouette combination with fondus in the center, so every barre exercise had relevés and double fondus to strengthen the standing leg while maintaining rotation. Another exercise at the barre that I will now be using in my syllabus is 20 single leg calf raises at the end of the barre. This made my jumps higher. I also noticed that my balances improved because of the calf raises.
     Unfortunately I was only able to do 3 out of 5 classes this week because I have been having back issues. Not so much because of my herniated disc but just from taking classes on my living room floor. I really miss dancing in the studios at ABT, I never took that for granted and now it's gone (that's the closest I'll ever get to being in the company lol). That makes me really sad and it was really hard to focus a lot  this week. Maybe my mental state played a role in all the random body aches I had this week.  I replaced the last two classes with Pilates sessions. This was also inspired by Ms. Rojo, who is a Pilates junkie like me. You can definitely see the benefits Pilates has had on her career. Pilates also helps with my panic attacks because of the inhale/exhale sequencing. The "jinn" were really trying to sabotage me this week but I persevered and maybe that's what I needed to really focus on this week. I'm doing better then most in the world right now(mashallah!).
     This week taught me that my curriculum should not just include technique but also self care and injury prevention/recovery. Ballet is very hard on the body and it’s not a matter of if you’ll get injured but when. All dancers experience major and minor injuries and it is important to be able to mentally and physically recover. I want to teach my students that recovery is not just about physically healing but also mentally readjusting with time in order to have a long and healthy career. Tamara Rojo not only has an amazing physical gift she also possesses an amazing attitude and intellect. This has given her the ability to go with the ebb and flow of this unpredictable world. That is what makes a great artist, teacher and leader. The next series of classes I  will be researching will be from Paris Opera Ballet!🤎

"You have two choices: to control your mind, or let your mind control you."-Buddha

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