Healthy Diet For Dancers

When being a dancer, it is important to maintain a healthy body. To take on a healthy body its also important to have a healthy diet. When you dance it requires a lot of energy and movement. Each dancer should consume enough calories in their body to keep up with their physical demands and to be able to perform. The top five important food groups a dancer should consist of is carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and fluids. When following these food groups your dancing body will have the fuel it needs to perform the way it should perform.

Lets begin on carbohydrates. Carbohydrates helps the body provide energy. This can be found in pasta, cereal, breads, bagels, potato's, or anything from wheat or bread products. A dancer should have 50-65% of carbs in their diet. Eating a good amount of carbohydrates will help you keep a well balanced diet.

Protein helps you build or rebuild your bones or muscle. Good protein to eat is tofu, lean meat, beans, eggs, poultry, and fish. Protein is important to a dancer because you are constantly moving your ligaments, bones, and muscles. Eating enough protein can help you prevent any damage happening to any of these body parts. Each dancer should have at least 12-15% protein in their body.

Don't worry when I say a diet should have a good amount of fats in it. Fats worry a lot of dancers because they don't want to gain to much weight. But when a dancer does not consume enough fats, it can effect the way they perform and can cause serious health risks. A dancer should have 20-30% of fats in their diet. Such as, nuts, seafood, saturated fats, and avocados.


Vitamins and minerals play and important role for the dancers body unlike the above does. Vitamins and minerals give the body energy and help cell produce in the body. A dancer should eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables.

Last is the fluids. Fluids help the dancers body temperature and removes waste from the body. When dancing the fluids are lost when you sweat. You can lose a large amount of fluids before becoming thirsty. This is way a dancer should always drink small amounts of water before and during workouts or performances.  

The Chair Lift/ Hora Dance at a Jewish Wedding

Working for weddings can be an awesome experience. I got the chance to work my first Jewish wedding. Learning the traditions that are made during the wedding ceremony and reception is pretty interesting. From the beginning of the reception no one is allowed to speak until the Rabbi has giving his blessing to the challah, the wine, and to the bride and groom. My favorite part of working this wedding was being able to watch the Hora Dance.

The Hora dance is a tradition in the Jewish religion where the bride and groom are lifted in chairs above their guests, known as the king and queen of the night. Their guests will joyfully dance around the couple, normally in a circle and singing and dancing. The bride and groom will hold on to each end of a handkerchief while being bounced around in the air together.

No Jewish wedding would be complete without the hora dance. When getting the chance to watch this beautiful tradition it symbolized to me how happy family and friends were for the happy newlyweds. This is a very special time for the Jewish culture and its only making the Jewish culture bigger. This was a great experience and I would love to work for another Jewish wedding again in the future!

Teach Me How To Dougie

When you hear "Teach Me How To Dougie" come on the radio, whether your at home, in the car, or at a party you just want to get up and do the dance to the song. This no generation dance is taking over the nation and becoming a hit at dance parties. Cali Swag District the rap group who published this hit song in 2009 became a worldwide rap hit. A small group who came from California made it big from Capitol Records. When "Teach Me How To Dougie" first came on the air no one knew about the dance and as these past two years flew by nearly everyone ages 13-30 knows the dance.

How do you dougie? It's a very simply dance to learn and involves you to just relax and sway back in forth with a little arm movement.  Anyone at any age, race, religion, or gender can do this dance. Once you first see how to do it you may think it's a piece of cake, but you need to have the right vibe and now be stiff as a board. I'ts fun to know a dance when you go to a party, you want to show everyone up. You want to be the best one who can do it so practice!

Dirty Dancing, The Movie

My all-time favorite movies with dancing in it would have to be Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Even though this movie came out five years before I was born, my mother got me attached to this movie. I fell in love with the way the actors and actresses danced among each other. It brought connection between two strangers who happened to fall in love with one another and they came together due to dancing. There are a variety of types of dancing they do throughout this movie.

There were types of dancing that inspired me to learn more about dancing. Such as grinding, this movie here being based on the 1980's. If a boy and girl was to grind in front of family or basically anyone you could be looked down upon because of these vulgar movement between partners. Also there was other beautiful dance styles in the movie as well. Like salsa, cha-cha, and the final dance in the movie was pachenga. My all time dance was the pachenga, due to how beautiful and flow the dance was. My dream still today is to dance with a man like in the movie. 

  In 2004 they came out with a different version of the original "Dirty Dancing". This is a movie with a little bit of grinding in it but based in the 1950's. This was a big no no in Cuba and between two backgrounds. It all began when two teens decided to pair up for the Cuba Ballroom contest. They began to keep it a secret between there families. The day of the contest both of their families were stunned. Both movies are great and if your a dance lover like myself, you will love these movies just as much as I did.

Do You Dance At Weddings?

When you get together with family, friends, or loved ones do you dance with them? Working as a banquet server at the Doubletree Hotel I see many men and women who sit there while the music is going at wedding receptions. A wedding is a time to celebrate to whom is getting married. It's time to have fun! Kick off the heels and take off that jacket your wearing and go have a blast with everyone around you. Dancing is a way to interact with people to show the happiness you have. No matter if your a good or bad dancer if they love you they won't judge you for having a smile on your face and moving your hips around to the beat of the song playing. This is also a great way for you to meet new people. For the single men and women out there this is a great way to meet another single mate as well. Don't be scared to ask someone to dance. If they reject don't be insulted just move on to the next person you may want to dance with or just let it happen on the dance floor. You will be surprised who may groove their way up to you on the floor.

Now to the people who sit there at their table with the drink in your hands, is it fun to watch people around you have a good time? I feel nobody should be embarrassed to dance. Dancing is away to express the way you feel and the type of person that you are. If you know there is a wedding date coming up that you were invited to, now you know there will be dancing of course. Its easy to prepare yourself if it is necessary. To avoid a mess up or even an embarrassment if you feel like you may encounter one go a dance lesson, or there are websites and videos do help you not slip up on that night of dancing.

Typically at a wedding they play a variety of music to slow music, to high beat music. To whatever you may feel comfortable starting out on the dance floor with is up to yourself, but get yourself out there. Towards the end of the night you may regret not even getting out there. Also the dj or band playing music that night normally take request to songs everyone enjoys to hear. Don't be scared to request a song that you know will get your body moving. This is a way for you to help yourself get out on the dance floor and enjoy yourself along with many others around you. Just enjoy yourself that one night you get the change to dance away.

About Polka Dancing

Polka dancing came about in the mid 1800's. Polka was brought over to the United States from European immigrants. The polka name is "Czech" for half-step because of the rapid movement from one foot to the other however; Czech is a term for Polish Girl, the word Polka means Polish Woman in Polish. After coming to the U.S. polka dancing became very popular among us Americans. . 

 Polka is now very popular among the country-western dancers. The polka music is a fast tempo that normally has 190 beats per minute. The most popular polka song is "Beer Barrel Polka". Many of these polka songs are ballroom music just with an upbeat tempo. When "Beer Barrel Polka" was released by the Andrews Sisters 350,000 was sold. If you are to hear this song you better watch out because you will see people obsessed with polka dancing hopping and spinning across the room.

Polka dancing in American is danced by couples rotating around in a circle. It consists of small jumps on one leg at a fast speed using some simple steps and some hopping. Polka dancing is a happy, fun way to dance that is very easy to learn but needed a lot of energy to dance. The movements of polka can be somewhat compared to at galloping but in a fast way while spinning around. It's like the two step, but it's fast and normally danced on a large dance floor.

A Little About the Pointe Shoes

"Pointe shoes, which elongate a dancer’s legs and accentuate the beauty of classical ballet technique, come with their own set of biomechanical principles—and their own set of risk factors for lower extremity injury."
by Selina Shah, MD

 Pointe Shoes have been designed in one way and hasn't been changed. They are made of fabric, a toe box, a shank, a flexible rubber that is held on the dancers foot with elastic and ribbons. Fitting a pointe shoe should always be done with an expert. No wrinkles should be noticeable when standing in any position or standing on pointe. When standing on pointe your shoes should fit like a glove. The elastic should fit tightly around your ankle and standing on pointe the ribbons should be sewn on. A pointe dancer normally starts at the age of 12 because pointe requires strength, flexibility, proper placement, balance, to listen, and correctly learn choreography.

Even though ballet is a beautiful form of dance that has its own art on dancers toes it can cause extreme foot injuries that are painful. The first thought would be ballet injuries are normally foot and ankle and yes this is true because ankle and foot sprains are the most common in ballet. Sprains can cause a lot of stress to their body which can cause dancers to lose balance on point. Other injuries that can happen from ballet are bunions which is painful swelling to the joint of your toes, traumatized toenails are common because dancers will cut there toenails too short which leads to ingrown toe nails and causes infection, and calluses because of the tight fitting of the pointe shoes.

For many years ballerinas have been dancing on pointe and still today is still considered a beautiful art that amuses people all around the world. It takes skill and flexibility to capture this form of dance. Though this dance causes injuries there are ways to help prevent these injuries from happening to yourself.