Effect of riding on Ballet

0

01100001

Member
Joined
9 March 2016
Messages
13
Visit site
I've had horses most of my life but have not been riding much in the past three years and I retired my horse.
Now I'm in the situation where i can get another, and i have found , what seems like the perfect horse - namely being sane :D
But i read regular riding effects your dancing negatively ?
Does anyone have experience with ballet and horses ?
:)
 
As someone who is now a dance/exercise professional, AND who did ballet (in my youth!), perhaps I can help you.

OK, so ballet -v- riding. Ballet is very much about cultivating graceful, athletic movements, with the emphasis on turning out the hip and pointing the toe. Certainly in the higher levels of ballet, where the dancer is taught to go "en pointe", there will be a lot of outward rotation of the hip and also a pointed toe. The mechanics of this, as far as riding is concerned, is that this will necessitate a shortening of the Achilles Tendon which runs at the back of the leg - the opposite of what you want to cultivate when you are riding basically. This is why a lot of girls who are "pony mad", but who also want to be Prima Ballerina's, have often got to make a difficult choice when they are around the age that girls normally start ballet, usually around 7 years of age (that was the age I did it).

A rider, conversely, seeks to lengthen the Achilles Tendon, and if the rider has a pronounced outward rotation of the hips, this will be evidenced by difficulties in keeping the lower leg in a useful position i.e. the rider's knees will come out and there will be a loss of lower-leg stability. Also because a ballerina will have trained herself to go en pointe, there will also be anomalies in the position of the pelvis, i.e. the back will be hollowed (the rider's bum will stick out, in common parliance!!!) and the rider is likely to have a pelvic/sacro-iliac imbalance of some kind due in some part to muscular over-strain and/or atrophy somewhere in the pelvic/lower back region.

All of this will impact on the rider's effectiveness and position, and her/his ability to respond to the demands of being in the saddle. Certainly there may be an element of remedial work required, but if a child has done ballet, and particularly en pointe, from an early age, and the Achilles tendon has thus become shortened from an early age, there will be very real difficulties presented if the child then tries riding.

A lot of ballerina's wear high heels all the time, Darcy Bussell the prima ballerina, being a classic example. Not because they want to necessarily, but it is simply because the Achilles tendon has become so shortened that they are simply unable to walk in ordinary flat shoes!

OP, to come back to your question: I wonder if you have successfully managed to combine the two, to enjoy your riding in the past, AND do ballet?? If you have, then you are obviously enjoying both disciplines - but I would suggest you are probably not doing "pointe" work???

I am a dancer/teacher, AND I ride. My qualification is in something called "Margaret Morris Movement" which doesn't work the same way as ballet at all, it is all about the body's own natural way of moving and utilising that. See www.internationalassociationofmargaretmorrismovement for more details. I also teach other types of dance, exercises for the elderly/chairbound etc. But we don't do "pointe" work or anything that compromises the body for riding, or any other sport for that matter.

There are many many types of dance and physical expression which do not involve any of the pointe work that ballet uses, and which horse riders can enjoy without compromising their musculature and fitness to ride. Pilates being one very obvious choice, but also ballroom dancing, folk dancing/square dances etc., and so on.

So plenty to enjoy!

Dance training and activity does help with riding a lot as it enhances balance, agility, posture, co-ordination, suppleness and control. It may well be possible to enjoy participating in a ballet class, on a low-level basis, for suppleness and posture - but if the activity involves pointe work then I would suggest that this may cause very real physical difficulties for riding and therefore would suggest at that point that difficult choices may need to be made.
 
Last edited:
If ballerinas have shortened Achilles' tendons how come they can put their foot flat on the ground in ballet shoes?...which they do.
 
cobgoblin said:
If ballerinas have shortened Achilles' tendons how come they can put their foot flat on the ground in ballet shoes?...which they do.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing MiJods is talking about the higher levels of ballet. I have no idea though :) Very interesting reading! My brother has a condition which caused his Achilles to shorten - believe me, he couldn't put his foot flat on the ground (until a nice surgeon fixed it). Hopefully MJR2BT will return to explain more!
 
Thank you for such a detailed reply, so helpful:)
I am en pointe, but can't say i have any problems keeping my heels down - viewed this new horse on Monday ( and going again today :D) and actually felt my lower leg was very stable. Probably to do with the increased strength of my core and balance.
Its very unlikely i will get near professional for mannnnyyy reasons, one being that i have no natural faculty for turnout (outward rotation of the hips) so maybe this won't impact too much on my riding...
To be honest i am worried about if riding regularly will impact on the little turnout i have. I think the key would be keeping my flexibility as riding muscles re-develop.
I do not plan to do much more than happy hacking and popping a few poles..
I am far too in love with ballet to contemplate changing genres unfortunately :D
I have had a chat with a ballet friend of a ballet friend and she's a competitive equestrian as well as a dancer and her experience is that one doesn't impact the other BUT stretching becomes even more important.
Thanks for all the replies :)
 
I too had to chose when I reached pointe work. I don't recognize MJRBT's description of ballet dancers at high levels being unable to put their foot flat to the floor - that absolutely isn't true. You don't remain en pointe all the time - you have to be able to move through the foot, dance with your foot flat and these days dance barefoot. And there is a reason flat shoes are called "ballerina" shoes!

Its been a long time since I danced and I'm was not qualified but were were told the choice had to be because of the hyper extension of the ankle forward to allow for a stable pointe, because of the way ballet uses the ligaments in the knee and because of the different use of pelvic / core muscles as described above. Good pointe work requires bony changes to the ankle which have to start before the bones fuse - but not a shortened achillies.

OP - unless you are a professional dancer then there is probably no reason not to combine your hobbies. If your livelihood does depend on dance, then a hobby where you risk falling off and breaking is probably better left until after you retire or move to teaching only. If you aspire to be (and have a relatively realistic chance of being) a professional ballet dancer then you are going to be no older than your mid teens at this point and you probably should focus on dance for now and see how things pan out. But if your chances of going professional are not high - or you have other aspirations - do both!
 
Sorry, allow me to clarify if I may. A high-level ballet-dancer WILL be able to put their foot to the floor when in flat shoes, yes! BUT...... what I was saying in my earlier post was that if the dancer is going to pursue ballet to its higher levels, and particularly if the dancer is young and the bones and body are developing, that for riding, the dancer may well encounter some difficulties as ballet seeks to employ and train certain movements and postures which may not be helpful if wishing to ride, with the particular muscle-groups that that entails, particularly as the ballerina begins to train for going "en pointe", as "Shay" above has pointed out. The opposite is true as well: we all know as horse-riders that we do tend to develop certain muscles around the core, the glutes (bum!!) and upper & inside leg and thigh area, hamstrings etc, and these can often tend to become heavy, unweildy, strong muscles which can sometimes act as an antagonist (i.e. unhelpful) and also add bodyweight - which may cause not only bodyweight in the wrong place but also be aesthetically unpleasing, to an aspiring ballerina.

From my observance, albeit from afar, of modern ballet and teaching practice, in recent years there does appear to be significantly less emphasis on pointe-work and far more encouragement given to expressive dance. Of course, there will still be students who are purists and wish to progress through the Ballet Examination Syllabus with a view to either becoming a professional dancer and/or teaching at some stage.

Any sort of dance will help with balance, agility, co-ordination, grace & suppleness, as well as general limbering, toning & spatial awareness. All good things to consider as an ancillary exercise when riding!
 
Last edited:
Really interesting read! Can't add much as I'm not a ballet dancer, but I did used to pole dance competitively for a while. The biggest issue I had was stretching - for pole I needed super flexy hamstrings, but riding (and working in an office really) would shorten them. So yes, stretch stretch stretch!! I definitely found my riding improved from dancing, thanks to more core strength/balance and stretchier hip flexors.

Good luck with the horse hunt!
 
With regard to the Achilles' tendons I would have thought that riding would be beneficial to a ballet dancer. Given that these tendons are subject to a great deal of strain, fasciitis and tendinitis...surely the stretching that riding involves would be beneficial in aligning the tendon fibres and maintaining tendon length. Contracted Achilles' tendons should only occur where such injuries have been repeatedly ignored.
 
I'm more of a ballet dancer (amateur, but well over 30yrs experience) than a rider and my experience is that yes, the two don't go together entirely naturally. However I'd imagine that the biggest impact in either direction (but more so of riding on ballet) will be potentially permanent injuries. Day to day additional fitness and balance, as well as self discipline and hard work, can complement each other.

It is entirely wrong to say that a ballet dancer will arch their back at rest/on horseback, a gymnast may(?) but a classically trained dancer certainly won't.

The point on Achilles tendons has already been well covered and I agree that correctly trained ballet will not shorten them (although sometimes extreme ballet training can snap them as they are in fact too stretched on eg jump landing!).

One point where the two disciplines are very aligned is in strengthening the pelvic floor. I suspect OP is rather too young to consider such matters but she may, in later life, find partners benefit greatly from the joint disciplines(!) and that she herself wonders if childbirth will be all that great considering (it'll be fine actually and the recovery much better than for some of her saggier friends!).

My lower leg position is fairly awful on horse back and I naturally turn out (not enough to be a professional dancer but certainly more than a good equestrian!) without thinking. I'm sure it would be possible to overcome that with more training, it is simply that I started riding a lot later than ballet.

Go forth and enjoy both I say!
 
I did ballet from 3-19 and rode from 7 upwards. Both to a reasonably high standard but neither professionally (ballet to the end of grades, riding to novice dressage and jumping open crosscountry fences but I didn't compete for financial reasons). By coincidence I recently started both up again, last year, as a result of finding an adult ballet class and my baby pony starting to be ridden. I actually felt they complimented each other quite well in terms of keeping a well balanced body - because each strengthened the opposing postures of the other, and helped to stretch the areas the other tightened up. Core strength is essential for both, as is balance in different positions. The main downside from my pov is that of muscle bulk - riding can just create more muscle bulk that isn't necessarily useful or wanted to a dancer. But that would also depend on your physique, not everyone gets bulky with strong muscles.
I wouldn't avoid riding unless you discover a problem, you will soon know if it isn't compatible for you. The risk of injury is probably a bigger issue but you can minimise that with the right horse and safety equipment etc.
 
Not related to ballet, but an amusing story about the effect of riding on the general stance of a person.

I was asked to be chief bridesmaid for a friend two years ago. My friend used to be a model, and although I haven't been hit with the ugly stick, I am certainly not model material. I am relatively slim though, slightly slimmer than the bride. When signing the register, the photographer came to take the photos and I was stood behind the bride and groom, with the best man. I stood in my usual stance- very much shoulders back, open chested... I don't realise I'm doing it as that's just the way I stand. Let's just say I should have taken note of the way my friend (the bride) was positioned, as there is definitely a right way to pose for photos and wrong one!

In the evening do, they had the days photos running on a slide show on the wall and I was horrified to see that I looked like a bouncer in a bridesmaid dress. Honest to god, it was horrific. You wouldn't have crossed me in a dark alley that's for sure!

I've since learnt that there is a knack of slightly angling your body for photos, but I totally blame riding for the way I stand!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top