Would you believe if you heard that ballet dancing and gymnastics can complement each other and improve both skills?
Gymnastics can help teach you how to control and manage your breathing while performing, enhancing overall flexibility and improving your ballet dancing posture and balance.
Many athletes that do ballet are also involved in gymnastics. Both sports are complementary to each other and one sport can help improve the other’s skillsets and vice versa. Additionally, crossing from one sport to the other is extremely possible due to their similarities.
However, keep in mind that ballet skills and gymnastic skills something you can learn overnight. Both sports require significant amounts of practice and dedication.
How does Gymnastics Help with Ballet?
Breathing
Gymnastics will teach you how to breathe properly during physical routines. Some people believe that breathing is the easiest thing to do, however, do you know it requires some practice?
Breathing should be included in all workout routines. This is because as humans, it is the most important thing aside from drinking water, and many individuals do it wrong when it comes to exercising.
Proper breathing isn’t only good for your overall wellbeing, but it can improve performance!
Inhaling deep breaths through the nostrils and exhaling through the mouth is a popular approach when learning how to breathe. Taking deeper breaths will help you release and control any stress during performances, and help you focus on what’s happening at the moment.
As a ballet athlete/dancer, you’ll be moving around a lot during sessions. Taking fast, short breaths can interfere with your performance because you will not get the required energy or oxygen.
Improper breathing can also lead to injuries and can even throw you off balance or cause you to skip a beat. Gymnastics will teach you that breathing throughout routines brings life, uniqueness, and elegance to your dance performance.
Flexibility
Flexibility is the ability of the body to get into a routine of stretching and exercising. Gymnastics and Ballet are both competitive sports that use strengths from all body muscles.
Flexibility is therefore important as it avoids muscle pulls or tears and gives you the ability to bend, flip, spin, and twist in ways you might have earlier described as impossible.
Similar to gymnastics, ballet routines require flexibility as a major component. It’s natural for our muscles to lose flexibility over time, particularly if we stop exercising and stretching.
Your muscles become tense without proper conditioning and if you dare perform a skill you learned some time ago and haven’t practiced since you will most likely hurt yourself.
Gymnastic activities will benefit your flexibility as they will keep your muscles intact. Gymnastic exercises and stretches can also help you redevelop any lost muscle and/or joint strength; especially if you don’t do ballet all year round.
Balance
Balancing skills take significant time to master regardless of what activity or sport you participate in. Balance is critical because if you lose it during a dance performance, points may be deducted from your score, or worse, you will physically hurt yourself.
If you don’t have balance, how else do you want to excel in ballet?
Just like ballet dancing, gymnasts perform skills on beams where they too must learn how to control their balance. Gymnastics will also help train your core, which is the epicenter of all strength.
Gymnasts use several lower muscles, hence, it will keep you on your feet when you are not doing ballet. The foot and leg power from gymnastics can go a long way because your body will become used to working your legs.
In gymnastics, you are always expected to land on your feet with such soft power that can help you perfect your balance when next you are in a ballet routine.
Additionally, gymnasts walk/run on their toes which is of great benefit as you will constantly be required to dance on your toes. Staying on your toes isn’t an easy feat and can take a prolonged period to master. The more you practice and work your muscles, the stronger your balance will become.
Posture
Many people struggle with posture, even as adults. Having bad posture could affect your overall health by giving you back pains, plus hunching over doesn’t look good either.
Great posture doesn’t only help your ballet skills, but it’ll also boost your confidence because you will be learning how to keep your head up and stand tall.
Posture controls how your body lines up, which will do good to your movements during dance performances. If your body isn’t lined upright, you might not be able to produce your best performance.
When your body is properly aligned, the muscle and bones can play a significant role and help the ballet skills be executed smoothly with the body support that you need.
Gymnastics allows you to learn your body and movements without relying on a mirror. Ballet dancers are used to performing with a clear head and being aware of their environment and surroundings. If you are having problems with your posture and being more aware of your body and surroundings during dance routines, then a gymnastics class will be a perfect solution.
To execute specific skills in ballet or gymnastics, it is great to possess the appropriate posture so that you can execute that skill accurately. Some skills wouldn’t even look right if your posture isn’t correct.
An excellent trick to perfect your posture is to think that you are a string doll. String dolls have a string connected from their head to the back of their heels. To make the string tight and sturdy, you have to stand upright. If your posture isn’t upright, then the string becomes loose and wiggly.
Like stated earlier, learning proper posture takes more time and practice. Gymnastics can improve your ballet balance skills by teaching you the different approaches to try out and determine what works best.
Is Gymnastics Harder than Ballet?
Gymnastics and ballet are both forms of aerobic exercise – they increase heart rate, improve cardiovascular health and contribute the overall body fitness.
They also involve a sequence of movements that require strength, flexibility, and balance. Most people argue that gymnastics is a sport while ballet is an art.
Generally, gymnastics is performed competitively to demonstrate strength and fitness. However, ballet is a type of dance used to tell a story. It’s an artistic expression, just like all kinds of dance.
However, their overlapping qualities mean they both require power, grace, and physical strength. Some kinds of gymnastics may also include elements of dance e.g. rhythmic gymnastics.
Furthermore, ballet and gymnastics equally use flexibility, strength, and balance through various body movements. You require coordination to perform one move or skill after another.
Basic moves in gymnastics include cartwheels, handstands, and forward rolls. You can also include beam balancing and springboard jump in your gymnastic activities.
Five basic dance positions exist in ballet. These positions require specific feet and legs placements. In position one, the heels should touch and the toes should point outward, forming a straight line. Other basic moves include plie, releve, and saute.
Although ballet dancing is predominantly done with the legs and feet, the arms and hands are used to enhance artistic expressions.
Additionally, both activities burn calories. Ballet and gymnastics are both moderate-intensity sports, but they can be performed at higher or lower intensity levels.
Despite these similarities, each activity challenges the body in unique ways. It is safe to say that they both are exerting individual stress levels on the body and depending on the level of intensity, one may appear harder than the other.
Can I Do Take Both Ballet And Gymnastic Classes Simultaneously?
Dancing and ballet skills are often incorporated into gymnastic routines and vice versa. Given the similarities in moves of ballet and gymnastics, it is not uncommon for several dancers to love to undertake gymnastic classes too.
With many skills like showmanship, flexibility, and resilience common to both, it is often easy to feel at home when crossing from one sport to another.
Also, given that all gymnasts are required to know at least a couple of dance moves, they can take ballet moves to help their movement on the gymnastics floor. Ballet dancers will equally take tumbling classes for similar reasons.