By B M Baisali
Odissi has its own
tapestry of sweetness and delicate splendour. It offers freshness and jollity
both to the performers as well as the beholders. It has a distinctive style
with pure elegance and grace, and is meant to show personality and attitude
when you put your own flair into it. An integral part of this dance form
is always to have a straight back and knees fully extended. This kind of dance
is full of sculpturesque postures, elegant bhangis and graceful movements using
the backbone and knee as its support system.
The basic postures of
odissi i.e tribhangi, chauka, abhanga, which is widely used in every item
includes a great involvement of torso, backbone and knee. The technique of
odissi requires the dancers to stay in chauka/ tribhanga for an extended period
of time. While dancing in these postures the lower back, spine, thighs, knees
and feet are at constant work. Extensive footwork exerts additional pressure on
the knees and spine. The chauka / tribhanga is not natural to the body. It
takes years of intensive training, practice and building strength to attain a
good bhangi. It can’t be achieved overnight. The body structure also
plays a vital role. So it is very important to be aware of the limitations of
each individual’s body structure and not push it to dance forcefully by
exerting heavy pressure.
Our backbone and knee
– we never really seem to realise how important they are to us till they give
up.
The knee is the
largest joint in the body which comprises of bony surfaces, cartilages,
muscles, tendons and strong ligaments. The motion that the knee is capable of
consists of bending (flexion) and straightening (extention) with a limited
degree of rotation and sliding. The spine is made up of 24 movable segments and
9 fused segments. Owing to the extreme ranges of motion and artistic demands
placed on dances, the lumbar spine vertebrae and the knee joint are the most
often injured segments.
“ Oh! I pulled
something in my back “, “ my knee cracks a lot “ , “ my back hurts at the end
of the day”, “ the front of my knee hurts when I jump “, these are the initial
phrases we often use which then leads to severe injury, if not treated
properly. If we neglect this at the initial stage then it may result in the end
of the dancing career.
There are several
reasons which leads to spine and knee injuries some of which are as follows :
Performance /
rehearsals on concrete floors.
- Lifting a heavy object
- Sudden movement or fall
- Use of improper techniques
- Working on the same movement over and over
which results forceful flexion of spine.
- Incorrect postures while sitting, standing,
running, walking, sleeping, lifting weight and dancing.
- Improper diet i.e junk food, spicy food
- Obesity
- Genetic deformity/ heredity
- Negligence of warming up before practice/
performance
- Negligence of cooling down after practice/
performance
- Precisely we dancers need to safeguard the two
superheroes who help us to achieve the perfectly etched bhangis. But don’t
panic. Where there is a will , there is a way.
- Fortunately we can do a lot inorder to avoid
or prevent the injuries in a very long run by following ways :
- Use of proper techniques especially which
stress the spine and knee.
- A good upright posture while standing,
sitting, running, jumping, lifting, sleeping and dancing
- Proper warming up before
class/performance/rehearsals.
- Proper cooling down after
class/performance/rehearsals.
- Avoid overtraining
- Proper balanced diet and pay attention to
hydration and nutrition.
- Proper conditioning
- Increase in training should be matched with
increase in resting.
- Proper medical care for chronic back pain and
knee pain. Treat even seemingly minor injuries very carefully from becoming a
big problem.
- Proper training surface such as sprung/ wooden
floors.
- Regular massage.
- Performing yoga, asans, cross-training methods.
This danceform
includes both ornamental and expressional pieces and so requires flexible
movements of the limbs, especially.
Well, here an
interesting question arises. Did the Devadasis ever warm up or cool down? Or
did they ever practised on wooden floors? Well at the same time their
lifestyle, environment, nutrition and physical activities are way different
than what we have today.
By safeguarding our
superheroes we can increase our active dancing years.
Now wake up! Protect your
super limbs. Dance with elegance and gaiety and earn appreciation and praise
yourself. ARE YOU READY ????