It is really important for a dancer to warm up their body throughly before they participate in any movement, as this will prevent injury and fatigue. Every performer is different in the way that they need to warm up, for example someone may have to focus on stretching out their muscles and then other may be more about raising their blood pressure. But it is important for everyone to balance all of this out so that they are fully prepared.
when warming up the aim is to raise the body's temperature by 1-2 degrees, this is done by increasing the heart rate, and then making blood pump around your body at a faster rate, allowing it to get to your muscles, to loosen the movement up, rather than cold muscle that don't move. An example would be blue tack, when it is cold it is brittle and doesn't move that much, and then once it has been moved about a bit, it is much more pliable and can stretch further. Another benefit of warming up is the body produces synovial fluid into the joints. This is a fluid that has the constistace of egg whites, and the more movement that the body does, the more is produced, which is between the the bones, and works as a lubricant that makes the joints slip over each other without injury. It is also good for mentality for dance and movement, it gets up in the mood to dance and want to get involved and creative.
The first step of a warm up is to participate in around 10 minutes of rhythmic movement, that has a range of moves, that involve the whole body. This could be a simple phrase, that has some simple movements, working its way down the body, incorporating all the body. This would help to start to raise the body temperature and allow the blood to flow through the body. The next step of a successful warm up is to stretch out the limbs and pull the muscles to their fully capacity, this would be different for every individual, so personally my flexabity is not the same as a trained gymnast. The last stage of a successful warm up is static stretches, this should be mainly focused on the main groups, that are used in movement, legs and arms, and the torso area. These should be held in a comfortable position, and held for a long amount of time, during stretching you should never bounce in a position, this is because it tears the muscles, and can cause pain, and once you feel any pain you should reduce the tension of the stretch.
As important as it is to warm up before movement it is just as important to cool down after as well, this helps the body to return to it natural temperature and state, prior to movement, this should take just as much time as it does to warm the body up. This should begin with reducing the amount of movement and intensity of movement as the rehearsal comes to a close, and then ending with some static stretches, but held for a shorter amount of time. These final stretches begin to reduce the body temperature, and then gets rid of the waste fluids in the joints, such as lactic acids, and this will speed up the healing process of the muscles.
When planning to do some movement it is really important to plan well what you wear. The first factor to take into consideration is the amount of movement available in the clothing, first of all in the lower body, to be flowing enough to allow full movement, and the same in the top half. The next factor to dance clothing would be in the temperature that the clothes make you. A good way to stay on top of this is to have layers. It is good to start off the movement with lots of layers during the warm up, to ensure that your muscles are not going from cold to warm in a short amount of time, and then as your body warms up you have the freedom to remove items do you do t overheat. This is the same for the cool down, you can add more clothing as you cool down, so your muscles don't got to another exstreme temperature when you stop moving.
A dance space is as important as a dancers body. The ideal space is to have a object free zone, to prevent collisions with anything and causing injury to the body. More modern dance spaces will have sprung flooring, this is key as it creates a softer surface to land on, and makes it easier to land on and allows your joints to follow through onto. If an injury was to occur during practice, there are some strict rule to follow on how to treat it. The first step is to protect the injury, for example if you were to sprain your ankle, you should put some support onto it, and then rest the limb, by elevating it, and keeping it still, the next step is cold, it is always good to relax your injury and cool the temperature with ice. This will cool down the muscles and prevent swelling. Before putting anymore weight or strain onto the injury it is evaluate how it feel to you, if after all of the prior steps, if it feels any better, and if it doesn't you would need to rest and ice even more.
As discussed it is really important for a dancer to look after themselves when performing and getting ready to, wether this is prior to movement with a thorough warm up and then cool down after, or with the materialistic items, such as clothing and surroundings, and keeping a heal thing and balanced life, to ensure the safest practice.
