17. Training the Hypermobile Dancer with Jennifer Milner

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00:00:02 

Linda Bluestein 

Welcome to bendy bodies. This is your host, Dr. Linda Bluestein. I am so excited to bring you an interview  today with my guest cohost, Jennifer Milner, ballet coach, and certified Pilaets trainer specializing in athletes,  dancers, and post-injury recoveries Jennifer mentored under the dance medicine, pioneer Maricka Molnar, and  worked for Westside dance, physical therapy, the official physical therapist for the New York city ballet and the  school of American ballet. She has trained a wide variety of clients, including Oscar winners, Olympic  medalists, and dancers from New York city ballet, the Kirov ballet ABT, San Francisco ballet, Royal ballet, and  more. Jennifer is an invited speaker at international conferences and has vast experience working with pre professional and professional dancers from all over the country. Her ability to move between ballet studios and  cross training venues, addressing biomechanical imbalances and technique dysfunctions in a practical strength  training way has made her a sought after guest speaker for dance schools and companies.  

00:01:04 

Linda Bluestein 

Jennifer has been a great asset to the bendy bodies podcast as a guest cohost for many dance specific episodes,  generously sharing the knowledge she has gained from her many years of training dancers, all across the  spectrum of hypermobility, something she describes as a superpower and kryptonite all at once. In this episode,  the tables are turned. Jennifer shares with us, her unique approach to training hypermobile dancers, whose  bodies she compares to a partially played Jenga game. She shares how she trains dancers to be in tune with their  bodies and educate dance teachers on how to train hyper-mobile bodies and a healthy and efficient way. Other  topics discussed include the importance of constructive rest pacing and the hazards of flexibility without  stability. Today the tables are turned and I am so thrilled to be getting to interview my host, Jennifer Milner.  And so Jennifer, welcome to bendy bodies. Thank you. It's great to have you on today and to hear more about  how you train hypermobile dancers, super excited to hear about this. 

00:02:25 

Jennifer Milner 

I started out as a ballet dancer, like everybody else does, kind of where we are and did ballet for awhile. Had a  couple of injuries that I later realized were hypermobility related, that pulled me out of dance off and on as a  teenager to the point at which I thought if I have a chance to be an ABT, I would keep moving forward.  

00:02:56 

Jennifer Milner 

If I have a chance to be in not as big of a company, I just didn't want to push myself for that. It was really a  choice of, I was too lazy to do the work that would have to be done to keep moving forward. I had, ballet  apprenticeships, that kind of thing, and decided to do musical theater instead, had always loved it as a kid and  had always loved the singing aspect of it, which I wasn't super good at, but I loved musical theater dancing and  all the Broadway musical movies that were out in the fifties and sixties. I got into that and ended up having a  really nice career as a musical theater dancer and learned how to sing. I can do that as well and then had a  reasonably injury-free career. Because the older I got the smarter I got about how I trained and how I worked  and keeping myself healthy and, the maintenance aspect of it, and then just ended up having an injury, with my  knee, but my body just could not come back from.  

00:03:56 

Jennifer Milner 

I transitioned from there into teaching Pilates, which I had always done, were not always done. I had done it for  about two or three years, I guess, before I got injured, I had discovered that as a method of cross training and  maintenance and really enjoyed it. While I was injured, I thought, well, maybe I'll try this, see how it works,  trying to get my certification and see what it looks like. I got my certification and started teaching and, just  didn't look back. I was really fortunate to do my rehab for my last injury at West side dance, physical therapy,  which is the physical therapy clinic for New York city ballet and school of American ballet. The owner there  Marika Molnar, who's the mother of dance medicine, watched me as a Pilates teacher and offered me a job  working for Westside dance. I ended up working for them and working for New York city ballet dancers and  SAB and dancers from all across the world, Royal ballet, Kirov, American ballet theater, and then Broadway  dancers, international athletes and Olympic athletes.  

00:05:06 

Jennifer Milner 

That was just kind of what started channeling my career in a specific direction. I realized I loved taking what I  knew as a dancer and being able to apply it as a teacher, as a trainer from the other side of the table. So it just  kinda went from there. Wow. That's incredible. I love that your description, the only thing is having known you  now for two and a half years, I think, lazy is definitely a word I would never ever associate with you. We all,  when we describe ourselves, tend to be a little perfectionistic, as dancers, especially, right. That's true. That's  true. I should say, I think we all hit that point. After you've had an injury, I missed my most of my, being around  age 50 to 60 and I miss most of that year with an injury and that's a really crucial year to move forward as a  dancer and to try to get into that professional level.  

00:06:05 

Jennifer Milner 

I was at Pittsburgh ballet theater as an apprentice and they were very kind, or I was home for the years in  between. I went back to them and I could tell they were very kind and encouraging, but still I wasn't at the level  that they had hoped that I would be. For me, that was that idea of, okay, well I either need to double down or I  need to find a way to keep dancing that I love and I love musical theater. It was not a sacrifice at all to go into  that. I just didn't have that drive to push myself so hard to get to where I needed to be as a ballet dancer. I  recognize that about myself, but you're right. It's not laziness,  

00:06:46 

Linda Bluestein 

So it's not, it's definitely not laziness. It's, it's making an educated choice and really looking at your options and  that's important, right? I mean, that's something that you obviously, talk with dancers about all the time and it's  wonderful that you are able to guide them and really, use your experiences in this way and hypermobility  specifically, how did you're known as like the hypermobility grew and, how did you specifically get so  fascinated with hypermobility? 

00:07:18 

Jennifer Milner 

Well, I am hyper mobile and I'm somewhere on the hypermobility spectrum disorder spectrum, depending on  how it's defined either I'm in the HSD category or the hypermobile EDS category. So it's somewhere around  there. I'm not one of those super flexible people. I never thought of myself as crazy hyper mobile girl, but I was  the one that if you pull on my hands, my wrists subluxate and my shoulders come out of the socket all the time  and my hips do weird things. I've just always had these weird issues that I know you see all the time that by  themselves just seem kind of random, but then they start to stack up and add up and they're like, huh, well, I do  also have this. And I do also have that. As I was going through my physical, journey as a Pilates trainer, I was  learning more about my body and what to do with it.  

00:08:11 

Jennifer Milner 

I was also working with dancers, trying to bring them back from a rehab side. I saw the ones who were  classically defined as hyper mobile, just had different issues than I did, but I kind of went, Oh, no big deal. I  moved back from New York to Dallas and switched from professional dancers at the very high end of the  spectrum to pre-professional dancers. When I moved back to Dallas and started working with the team dancer, I  saw so much more hypermobility and so much more, towards that hypermobility strep spectrum disorder end of  it. I was like, where has this been all the time? ? And I gradually realized it's because it's kind of weeds itself  out. I see so many more in the pre-professional level and that got me really interested in how can I help these  kids and how can I dig deeper? I had dancers come to me, who said, I've been diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos  syndrome.  

00:09:07 

Jennifer Milner 

I'm like, huh. Okay. And then another one, six months later. And I'm like, wow, okay. It's so much more  prevalent as in the younger dancers, because it does tend to contribute to early career endings. It made me angry  on behalf of these dancers and it made me angry enough to want to do something about it. I just, I love puzzles  and I always have, and I love problem solving and thought, let's figure this out. Let's let's dive into this and I  can't solve it. I can't cure it. That's not within my scope. I don't have the knowledge to do that. What I can do is  say, well, here's where you are. Let's take where you are and make it better. That's been a passion of mine is to  help these dancers who are 12, 14, 16 years old, survive through this time period and try to have a career.  

00:10:01 

Jennifer Milner 

To have the older dancer older, 20 right, 20 or 24 coming to me saying everything hurts and nobody can help  me. And I'm like, Oh well. And being able to help them. That's kind of where I, I came from was just seeing that  need and wanting to help them, the way I didn't have a chance until I was older.  

00:10:23 

Linda Bluestein 

Sure. Can you go into more detail about what you observe in your hypermobile dancers? What do you'll go into  more detail, but what you're actually seeing?  

00:10:33 

Jennifer Milner 

Well, one of the big things is spatial awareness. If dancers, if their parents say, she's so clumsy and kind of  laugh that off, I'm like, Oh, okay, I'll put that down in my box is one possibility. Hypermobile dancers really  don't always know where they are in space. They, they can't, and I'm speaking in huge generalities. One of the  things about hypermobility as is that it's not one size fits all. In general, I see them, they have a huge difficulty  discerning where they are in space and they think their arm is straight and it is not, it is beyond straight. They  have to learn the difference between a straight line and range of motion for them. And those things might feel  really different. There was a study that came out, I don't know, 15 years ago. I can't even remember where I've  thought, looking at hypermobile versus non hypermobile people and what, how smart their joints were basically.  

00:11:28 

Jennifer Milner 

They would have a hypermobile person take their arm out to the side and move the arm from front to back and  just stop straight out to the side. They would have them do it with their eyes closed and they compare them to non hypermobile people and non hypermobile people would stop within, I think they said about 10 degrees of  straight out to the side and hypermobile people, the joint range was like 40 degrees. Like they could be as much  as degrees off and facing out to the side. They just, they were like, I think this is right because they can't trust  what their body feels. ? So spatial awareness is a big part of it. What I call short attention span of the body. It's  like the body has ADHD and can't really focus and pay attention. It's like, you want to smack your hands and go,  Hey, muscles pay attention to me.  

00:12:20 

Jennifer Milner 

It may make them, it may make it harder for them to understand choreography or not understand it, but to get it  and to really own it and keep it in their bodies. It'll feel like we're going over the same ground every week. Like  I have taught it to them and I have explained it to them and they have gotten it and they go away. A week later,  their body's like, you never told me this. It can be really slow going with them, that whole idea of being able to  grasp a concept within your body and really hold on to it. Especially the small muscles, the foot intrinsics, those  

local stabilizers, the really small stuff. That's really hard. Also I noticed with hypermobile dancers that when I  start working with them, I say, it's like, their body is a Jenga game that is like partially in progress already.  

00:13:10 

Jennifer Milner 

Jenga is where you stack the different, perpendicular pieces to each other and you start removing those pieces  and I'll look at them. From some angles, their body looks strong and ready and can do anything. You start  looking at it from different angle and you're like, wow, there's a big hole here. There's a big hole here and these  things are missing. If I try to remove this one piece, which I know isn't good for them, like if they overuse the  big back muscles, if I try to remove that everything's going to come crashing down. That piece is there for a  reason because it's needed because something else isn't working. I have to move really carefully and slowly with  them to make sure I don't take everything apart without having a support system ready to come online for them.  I see that much more on hyper mega dancers than a non hypermobile dancers.  

00:13:58 

Jennifer Milner 

I also see, again, just my own experience, but I see in hypermobile dancers, a higher incidence of anxiety, OCD,  depression, I see a higher instance of perfectionism and also being diagnosed as having attention deficit  disorder. I see a lot more of that and those patterns can also feed easily into self-harm disordered eating  disorders, things that can come along as ways to try to control that. I see that in them, I know that it's time to  refer out and I have a really great referral system that I use because of that as well. I did tend to see a higher  incidence of those types of issues, in dancers with hypermobility. Sometimes I see, because a lot of hypermobile  dancers, extremely hypermobile, right? We're talking the bigger end of the scale and not just a flexible thumb.  They can be living with a low level of pain all the time.  

00:15:05 

Jennifer Milner 

That level of pain all the time is emotionally draining. Those days when it's gone, if for whatever reason, it's  turned off, all of a sudden you're like, wow, this is what people feel like. This is amazing. I could do so much.  You don't realize it until it's gone for some reason, but living with that low level of pain can increase your  anxiety, your worries, your, sleep issues. I see a much higher incidence of those in dancers with hypermobility  as well.  

00:15:37 

Linda Bluestein 

That's fascinating. I love your description about the Jenga game, because I've never heard anyone describe  hypermobility in that way and working with a hypermobile body in that way. I think that's really a great  description cause that's a great visual and a lot of us have played that game. So yeah, that's interesting.  

00:16:01 

Jennifer Milner 

Well, if, hypermobile dancers are often so lovely to look at that, we forget, Hey, there's a lot going on in them.  We need to not just take that structural beauty for granted. We need to look at the issues that are going on inside. 

00:16:16 

Linda Bluestein 

Right, right. That there could be some compensations going on that, maybe they're getting away with it now, or  maybe they're able to do the way they're doing things now, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be able to  continue to do it that way. Really looking at their movement patterns and all of that is, working with somebody  like yourself, who really is an expert in this really is important. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What are your  objectives and working with hypermobile dancers and how do you usually, solve the, how do you achieve those  

objectives?  

00:16:51 

Jennifer Milner 

Well, first of all, I want to give them some awareness, right? I want them to start being able to feeling where  they are and where their joints are in space. That is training them in close chain and doing variety of different  issues, different exercises and approaches to them. What I really want to give them a sense of where they are in  space, I want to help them feel where they are in space. I also want to give them strength and giving them  strength is difficult. A lot of times with my classic hypermobile dancers, the teachers will say, no matter what  we do, she just doesn't build muscle. There's that certain look to a certain type of pipe, mobile dancer that you  can see those muscles just won't, bulk up. That's a lot of times because of a collagen issue and trying to build  their strength can be really difficult, in a healthy way.  

00:17:41 

Jennifer Milner 

I need to teach them that it's not going to be picking up a 50 pound barbell. It's gonna be picking up a five pound  barbell and doing it. That's times that you feel it, but not so many times that you start to get tendinopathies from,  right. It's that fine line of learning how to build strength. Also working on their balance is a huge one. They just  don't have that proprioceptive awareness that other dancers do, and that comes with their awareness of where  they are in space. Training their balance, is really important as well. I will use like close chain as versus rather  than open chain. A pushup is closed chain and a bicep curl is open chain. I would rather do closed chain, which  will give more information to more joints. I would I'll use props, so squeezing a ball or using a small yoga block  or something that they can feel that tells their body where they are in space, changing their position to gravity.  

00:18:44 

Jennifer Milner 

Having them do please line down so that they're going through the same pattern, but in a different relationship to  gravity, so different muscles are working. Her body can't make assumptions and use their own habits. Those are  the main things that I try to do for hypermobile dancers.  

00:19:03 

Linda Bluestein 

That's fantastic. I love that idea about changing the relationship because right, we get into those patterns. I know  that you have, of course, quite a few hypermobile dancers, but you also have some non hypermobile dancers as  well. Could you go into more detail about how you train the hypermobile dancers differently than the non  hypermobile ones?  

00:19:25 

Jennifer Milner 

Every dancer is different and I will tailor each workout to what the individual dancer needs at that moment.  Looking at the big picture of them, in general, I'll move slower with a hypermobile dancer. They're experts at  problem solving just because they've had to be their whole lives at figuring out how to make their wonky bodies  do what we're asking it to do. Sometimes most of the time their problem solving isn't necessarily healthy. It may  be the shortcut or the best way for their body, with the strength that they have, but it's not the healthiest way to  do it. I have to retrain some habits that are pretty ingrained. The work that we do at the start can seem really  boring and really tedious, especially to dancers who are hyper mobile and who can't tell where they are in space.  It just feels like they're getting no input whatsoever when we're doing really small work.  

00:20:22 

Jennifer Milner 

And their body's like, I. Don't know. I don't know. I can't tell is this right? Is this wrong? 

00:20:25 

Jennifer Milner 

I try to give themselves that they can do by themselves right off, because I want them to go home and have  homework. I want them to do it daily to try to get it into that short attention span body. I want to give them  small stuff that they can take home and do usually dancers are frustrated enough with where they are that they  will do rather than be like, yeah. And then never do it. Right. I can tell who does it and who doesn't do it. But,  but it takes a while for those basics to get in. I ask them to hang in with me just for like a month and then we can  start to move them, but it still takes a long time to push them harder just because as soon as I give them  something harder than they can do, they'll reach for it, they'll find their own shortcut and they'll do it.  

00:21:11 

Jennifer Milner 

And I'll be like, yeah,  

00:21:11 

Jennifer Milner 

Yes. And I'm like no.  

00:21:17 

Jennifer Milner 

Long process. I really appreciate that my hypermobile dancers and their parents are in it for the long haul. I have  one dancer that I've worked with since she was 11 and a half or 12, somewhere around there. She is now, going  to be 16 soon. It has taken us four years just to get to the point where she can stand one leg and balance with her  

eyes closed for 30 seconds, which for me is a baseline for my pre-professional dancers. They should be able to  stand one leg and bounce with their eyes closed for 30 seconds. At the same time, she's beautiful on stage. She  does these amazingly difficult things on stage, but she can't do something as basic as that. She just got that this  school year. When she did, I just about started crying. I think I actually did start crying because it takes so long  for it to get to that point.  

00:22:11 

Jennifer Milner 

It feels to them very frustrating and very slow. And we do fun stuff. We we move, it's not that we don't move,  but it can feel like they're not making progress. It's really hard to get them to hang in there. In general, I move  with them slower. I want to educate them about how to pace themselves, but it's not all about push, just get  stronger. It's educating them what it feels like in class when they're starting to do too much, what it feels like for  their school year, what it feels like for their calendar year for their company. When they're doing too much,  when they need to maybe sit out of class, when they need to sit out jumps, when they need to go to their director  and say, Hey, can I have a rehearsal day off because I can feel this starting and training them what it feels like to  hold back so that they have a longer career is really key.  

00:23:04 

Jennifer Milner 

My best dancers will look at their schedule. We sit down and look at it a few times a year and say, here's what's  happening. Here's the RX. What can we do? And my best dancers will sit down and look at their schedule and  go, what? I am tired sometime this next week, I need to take a day off and they recognize that now, and they  don't push themselves through it. And that makes me super happy. I have a dancer who trains with me twice a  week and she's hyper mobile and we have worked really hard to get her really flexible back under control. And  she's such a smart dancer. Now she will say, I think I want to come in and work with you, but I want to do just  release work, or I think I need to take a day off from dance tomorrow and I'm going to move this around and  she's 16, but she's taking ownership of her career and recognizing what she needs to do to stay healthy.  

00:23:52 

Jennifer Milner 

That's something that I really try to instill in my hypermobile dancers.  

00:23:58 

Linda Bluestein 

Wow. You're really able to take this, lack of body awareness, although it is funny. Because I think emotionally a  lot of people that have hypermobility disorders have increased emote, emotional sensitivity, we kind of are aware of what's going on in a room or, yeah, so it's kind of an intro. It's it's a very fascinating thing, but yes, in  terms of awareness of the body, but you're really finding that with practice, they really are able to make some  very significant improvements with that.  

00:24:34 

Jennifer Milner 

Yes, for sure. It's just training them to listen inward rather than be so focused, listening outward, ? Sure. Like  you said, so many hypermobile people are really good at reading a room and if they can turn that attention to  reading themselves and they'll be like, Oh, and even my dancers, like I have a dancer who is, a competition  dancer and she's incredible. She is going to have a huge career, but she has consistent issues because she pushes  herself too far. Now she's at the point she's 15, she's at the point where she realizes she'll come to talk to me and  she can barely move. I'll say, what's going on? She'll go. I did too much. I did this and this. And I knew it was  happening. I knew I shouldn't, but I just didn't want to hold back. And I did too much. At least you recognize  that and she knows she's making a choice.  

00:25:23 

Jennifer Milner 

Right. She's going into it. Right. Eventually, so it gets to the point where she recognizes it and make the choice  before she does it. That's, yeah, that's a huge part is that they can recognize that and make choices.  

00:25:35 

Linda Bluestein 

You're installing or helping them install the wisdom in their minds and in their bodies at a stage where it is.  Life-changing for them to be able to really get more out of their dancing and have a better quality of life. It's  amazing the work that you're doing with these, I started to say kids, most of, are you working mostly with pre professionals at this point or kind of a mess.  

00:26:05 

Jennifer Milner 

It's mostly pre-professionals, I'd say it's about 70% pre-professionals and then 30% professionals. Yeah.  Training them, it might, some of my proudest moments are my dancers who go off to be an apprentice in Miami  city or a ballet dancer with Pacific Northwest ballet. To hear them tell me stories about advocating for  themselves. Like someone in a position of authority will tell them maybe they should die at and they'll say, no, I feel my body. And this is how I do it. Or someone will say, yes, you need to come to another rehearsal. We'll  say, okay, what can we cut from the rest of the week then? Because physically I can't do more. That they have  that courage stand up for themselves and to move forward with that way. That's if that's my only legacy that  makes me super happy.  

00:26:49 

Linda Bluestein 

Oh, that's amazing. That's fantastic. We know that dance teachers play a pivotal role in dancers lives. What do  you wish dance teachers knew about hypermobility?  

00:27:02 

Jennifer Milner 

Well, first and foremost, the pain is real. If I know it's hard with children and preteens and teenagers to say, Oh,  you're just being a baby. Or it's hard to tell where that reality line is. With people with hypermobility it's, I've  never seen them faking it and I've never seen them overplaying it. I've always seen them underplaying that  because they're just so used to pain. So they're not being a diva. They're not being a prima Donna. They really  do need to sit down. They really can't dance anymore. That ankle really does hurt and telling them to push  through it is not going to be helpful, working with them to figure out what they're doing wrong. That makes  their ankle hurt. That would be great. Getting them in to see someone who can help them with it. That would be  awesome. But the pain is super real.  

00:27:51 

Jennifer Milner 

And so is the fatigue. I have had dancers who have danced with, EDS and with pots and they didn't realize they  had pots for a couple of years and they were dancing with it. I was like, have you thought about, but before they  had gotten diagnosed with it, they would just hit a point running snow for Nutcracker where they just couldn't  do it again. I said, you have to tell your director, I cannot do it again. You would see the blood pooling in their feet and you would see every, they would faint doing Porter brought forward in ballet class. I want those  teachers to know it's true. It's not just that they're deconditioned that they don't have good aerobic strength. That  might be part of it. But there may be another reason. There are really common comorbidities that go with  hypermobility and that fatigue is real and it's going to hit them.  

00:28:44 

Jennifer Milner 

It's not going to be helpful to try to push them past that. Also with dancers, with hypermobility, you have to  strengthen them before you can move them. Flexibility without stability is just a recipe for danger. Honestly, I  just, I don't find it that interesting to watch. I don't enjoy watching that super hypermobility being thrown all  around the stage. If it's not coming from a position of strength, if I don't see a grounding and a strength in that  standing leg and the support of their trunk, it's not interesting for me to see. If you have someone that's super  flexible and has the Archie feet and the crazy back and the crazy legs and hips, that's great. Don't stick them out  front and make them do a bird of paradise or a scorpion at the end of every number. Teach them how to hold  themselves, give themselves that strength in a smaller range of motion.  

00:29:36 

Jennifer Milner 

They can gradually increase that range of motion. I'm not advocating that they don't use their flexibility, but they  have to have that strength before they can use their flexibility. Speaking of flexibility, hypermobility, doesn't  always look like a Gumby doll. Like I said, with myself, I'm hyper mobile, but I didn't have a crazy back. I had  decent extension, but it wasn't super awesome. I have a dancer who is hypermobile and somewhere on the HSD  spectrum, but she has a terrible Arabic because she has so much tightness through her trunk from other parts of  her body being super loose. Your her shoulders pop out of socket all the time, her ankles, subluxate her wrists  somewhat like all over her body, but she doesn't have a crazy high Arab escrow back then. Teachers aren't like,  Oh, she's not hyper mobile. It doesn't always look like what you think it looks like.  

00:30:29 

Jennifer Milner 

They say so-and-so has told me, I have this set aside your preconceived notions and kind of dive with them into  it and say, well, who told you this? What's the criteria for it? How can I help? And that's a great place to start  from. You're going to have to be the one to hold them back. If you have someone who is hypermobile and super  flexible, you as a dance teacher have to be the one that don't put those crazy moves in the choreography that  don't let guest choreographers do that don't let, the dancer themselves do too much of it. They run into the studio  between classes and try to film themselves doing all this crazy stuff. Don't reward that, which sounds terrible  because when it looks cool on social media, of course you want to repost it and you want to get more likes, but,  teaching them their boundaries.  

00:31:24 

Jennifer Milner 

Just because you can doesn't mean you should, it's going to be helpful for them to have a long career and to not  get injured. I've had dancers have their shoulders dislocated because of guest choreographers, swings and by  their arms and pulls them completely out of the socket. The teacher's like, Oh, I knew she was flexible, but and  I'm not saying that was the teacher's fault, but knowing how to advocate for that dancer so that she can grow up  advocating for herself and giving them that. If you suspect that there's somewhere on that hyper-mobility  disorder spectrum, have the resources to help them get help, find people who specialize in your area or online  now that everybody's online, and be able to pass that onto them, be able to point them towards the website and  say, Hey, you might want to read up on this. See if there's anything you might get, that's helpful from it.  

00:32:12 

Jennifer Milner 

You might want to get checked out, having a diagnosis, isn't going to change, how you are as a dancer. It's not  going to, you can't get cured from it, but it will give you a baseline and it will help you to keep an eye on where  you are and compare it to where you're on the future and make sure everything is staying healthy and strong  there, just because it's such a complicated issue. I don't, I'm not saying you have to get a, but having some  support out there. If it's somebody that can cross train with them, if it's a doctor like you and, that can work with  them, it's a great, it's great to have that information to give to the dancer so they can get the help that they need. 

00:32:54 

Linda Bluestein 

Absolutely. Speaking of healthcare professionals, what do you. Wish that healthcare professionals knew about  hypermobile dancers?  

00:33:09 

Jennifer Milner 

Being hypermobile is like both a superpower and it's also kryptonite. It's like the coolest thing about you. It is  the hardest thing about you and the thing that makes you the most vulnerable as well. It can be really weird in  really weird areas. My dentist tells me that my superpower is how quickly I metabolize anesthesia. He says  you've never seen it. When I traveled on tour, he would literally write me a letter in case I had to have  emergency surgery. That would say, she's not a junkie. She metabolizes anesthesia really fast. I promise she's  not just looking for extra drugs. Know that there's going to be weird stuff that goes along with it and dig into it  and say, Oh, that might be, that might not be, it's okay. Not to know. It's okay for a doctor to have a dancer bring  up. I think I might have this, or it feels like I might have this.  

00:34:04 

Jennifer Milner 

And I looked it up. For you to say, I don't know that much about it, but let me look into it. I know we've talked  in the past about how it's great to have things in small bites and to be able to go into the doctor and say, here's  what I think might be going on. Can you look it over and can we talk about it? And next time I come in, right.  It's great for the doctors say, yes, I will dig into it more. It's real. My favorite doctors are the ones that go, I don't  know, let me find out, let me dig into it rather than kind of try to fake their way through it. Connective tissue  disorders can affect the entire body. It's not just hypermobility and making sure that their joints are stable, but it  can also be heart issues. It can be vision issues.  

00:34:43 

Jennifer Milner 

It can be so many neurological. There's so many different aspects to it. Using it to look at the whole body, is  extremely helpful. As the best preventative that I know of for whatever issues might come up with it, just  because a dancer can dance 30 hours a week, that doesn't mean she might not have cardiac issues just because  she can get through those things. You can't say, Oh, she's been she's healthy. She must not have a low thyroid or  she's thin and she's healthy. She must have a really strong heart and be great for cardio. Don't let those things put  you off from running tests that you might need to run, right? Dancers will just go until you tell them to stop or  until they pass out. They don't complain the way that a lot of people will. They don't go, Oh my gosh, I'm so  tired.  

00:35:35 

Jennifer Milner 

They just will keep going until tell them that they can stop. They, so they won't have that feedback. You won't  get that feedback. Isn't accurate guide. Right. When they're injured, they will absolutely take longer to recover  than most people, especially if it's soft tissue. I've had doctors, I've had nurses accused me of intentionally, like  

for my shoulder surgery, intentionally trying to make the scar heal worse to make it look bad because they've  been like, Oh, there's no way your scar would heal like that on its own. You know, cause that's what I have.  That's my issue. They're going to take longer to heal. They're going to take longer to heal with connective tissue  issues, like tend to not Puffy's. Not sticking to that four to six weeks and your back, but sticking to what you see,  is so helpful. Through all of this, they might need mental health support as well.  

00:36:30 

Jennifer Milner 

I see that because it's so crazy and it's such a big burden and you really can't tell what's going on and you might  be more inclined towards anxiety and OCD. Looking at their mental health support as well is great. That's what  I hope doctors would take away from it. Okay.  

00:36:48 

Linda Bluestein 

Yeah. Those those are all really great things. And right. I think so often when we hear things that if we don't, we  look for patterns right. In medicine and if we don't necessarily know right away what something is, we can tend  to, either directly or indirectly say, well, you're crazy. Or we, so many dancers I think ended up thinking that they're crazy. Right. The better thing to do is to say, I don't know what's going on with you. Do of research and,  or like you were saying, if they can come in with some information and say, Hey, have you thought about, could  this be potentially what applies to me? So well good. In terms of the past, like five, 10 or more years, have you  seen any particular trends,  

00:37:38 

Jennifer Milner 

And dancers? Yes. On the good side of the trends, I think that the hyper-mobility disorders and, issues like EDS  and Marfan syndrome are becoming much more mainstream. They're becoming much more talked about. 10  years ago, people in a large company wouldn't even have known perhaps what EDS was, and people would have  said, Oh, cool, pretty ballet feet or pretty ballet legs and just left it at that. I think that it's become much more  discussed. I think that in the past five, 10, 15 years, cross training has become much more mainstream. The  younger dancers are getting the help. They need to hopefully move them up into a professional career. On that  level, I think it's good. I think that it's great, that it's become much more commonly understood, on the not so  great level. The tendency to have dancers do things at a younger and younger age and pushing them to do bigger  and bigger tricks and fancier and harder choreography.  

00:38:43 

Jennifer Milner 

I, I don't think I could have done what a lot of my 14 year olds are doing. Even when I was 20 or 25 and at the  peak of my dance career, I don't think I could have done some of the things that they're asked to do. And that's  not even the hypermobile ones. That's just regular dancers. Reg dance has advanced so much as an art form and  has become so much more increasingly athletic. Add to that, the pressure of social media. All of a sudden we are  doing all the tricks and we're doing all the fancy extension and we're doing all those things. It's not helping them achieve a longer career. I, I see that trend and I see I've had 13 and 14 year olds quit because they're burned out.  Like they're literally burned out and they say, I don't want to dance anymore.  

00:39:29 

Jennifer Milner 

It's too much. I've worked too hard. It's exhausting. My body hurts every day when I wake up and walked down  the stairs, I had a ten-year-old tell me that and to say, to see them at 14 burned out when I could understand that  when you're 20 or 25, but to hit that point when you're not even old enough to go to a school dance is sad. So  that's the bad side of it. As far as what I've seen in the past few years.  

00:39:58 

Linda Bluestein 

Sure. I'm sure social media has a significant role on that with, as you were mentioning earlier about the teachers  and wanting to, sometimes maybe putting a front that they're particularly hyper mobile dancers, that's something  that, I think drawing more people into the school thinking, well, come here and you're going to become more  flexible because that's what most of us as dancers are wanting as much flexibility as possible. So yeah, that's  true. What have your dancers been experiencing in their medical care regarding their hypermobility?  

00:40:38 

Jennifer Milner 

So, on the good side of it, the best case scenario, there've been some of my dancers who have found doctors who  are really open to learning about this. I, as a non-medical practitioner, as a fitness professional who does not  practice or treat or diagnose or any of that, I will carry the current criteria for, hypermobility EDS with me in my  packet of information. If I see a dancer that I think may fit somewhere in there, I'd say, Hey, take a look at this,  read through it. Talk amongst yourselves, make an appointment with your doctor, perhaps, and talk to them  about it and see what you think. If this might be something that is worth researching more. I've had dancers who  have done that. They've had some wonderful doctors who have said, I don't know, but let's find out. The doctor  has really gotten down to business and looked into it.  

00:41:30 

Jennifer Milner 

I have one dancer who is completely symptom-free, but was diagnosed with hypermobility EDS based on me  encouraging her to go and the doctor being willing to look at it. He promptly sent her to an ophthalmologist and  a cardiologist, even though she had no issues, cause he said, I want to check these things. I just want to make  sure that we've got a baseline. He said, now we put them in our pocket. We don't have to worry about it again  until something comes up. Right. I love those doctors because they don't panic. They don't issue a ton of tests that aren't necessary, but they say, okay, let's learn about it. Let's find out what we need to find out. We can go  from there. I have great doctors like you. I have great doctors like you, that can work with people and you  weren't around five, 10, 15 years ago.  

00:42:19 

Jennifer Milner 

Like your practice, people like you are just now coming out in the past five years. It's been really helpful to have  people like you to refer out to that specialize in it. Some of my dancers have somebody who is taking charge of  it and is creating that umbrella and saying, I'm going to send you here for this and here for this, we're going to  keep an eye on it. Let's check in every six months. Let's talk about your vitamins. Let's talk about your eyes.  Let's talk about all of it. I've had some really wonderful experiences for that. The other side is doc dancers who  have doctors that don't really understand it, or aren't willing to listen when the dancers give feedback and say  that hurts, or my body feels different when you do that, then you expect it to feel, they've been pushed into  surgery when surgery is not, for me is not always the first option for hypermobile dancers because it's so  complicated how they recover and the issues that they'll have long-term because of it.  

00:43:18 

Jennifer Milner 

That surgery may not fix their issue. Some of the dancers have gone to a doctor who's been like, Oh, you've got  X, Y, and Z. The answer is a, B and C. That's what we should do. They have not had those issues fixed. They've  had doctors who say you're exaggerating it, that pain can't be real. There's no way you hurt all the time, and just  kind of dismiss it or say, Oh, you're just being dramatic with the fainting. I have a dancer come to me when she  was 16, 15 and a half, somewhere around there. She had such an obvious case of EDS and pots. It took her  about a year to find doctors who would listen to her and give her a diagnosis. Up until then she was having so  many injuries and she couldn't stand dance class. The dance teacher was pushing her to do her rehearsals and do  her run-throughs.  

00:44:11 

Jennifer Milner 

And she was like, I'm fainting. The teacher was like, you need to go do more cardio. You just need to jog more,  and she hit the point where she couldn't dance and she had to retire from dancing at age 17. Now she's just  trying to manage her health. If she had that intervention sooner, she would've, she, would've had a different  story to tell about those precious years. Like, so I see kind of the whole spectrum with doctors, but I'm  cautiously optimistic that it's becoming more mainstream and more people are talking about it and dancers can  find the help that they need.  

00:44:46 

Linda Bluestein 

Definitely. That will better for more people to have more of an awareness. People don't have to travel as far at  the same time. Like you said, we are able to do more via telemedicine now, so that's right. That's a really, that's  a nice benefit that we have been acquiring over time. In terms of longevity for dancers, that's an extremely  important thing. What do you think are the most important things for dancers to have as much longevity as  possible?  

00:45:18 

Jennifer Milner 

I think the biggest thing is to keep your eye on the big picture, my dancers that do the best are the ones who  don't say I have to do this Nutcracker, or I have to do this. Why AGP? And they realize I want to dance five  years from now and not just next month. I may need to sit out for two months in order to guarantee that I'm still  dancing when I'm 30. Having that eye on the big picture is so important. Going along with that is pacing  yourself. Like we talked about earlier, being able to read your body and to turn that superpower for reading  externals, turn it internally and say, I may need to ease back. I may need to change my diet. I'm feeling tired,  doing the same things I used to be doing and not feeling tired. I may need to get some blood work done.  

00:46:04 

Jennifer Milner 

I may need to consult a nutritionist. How can I make sure that I'm ready for Nutcracker now in September?  What can I do in September to get ready to do what I know I'm going to have to do? And then in the December.  Knowing how to pace yourself as important, continue to cross train regularly. This isn't just a plug for working  with me. Find find someone right, but cross training, especially for hypermobile people is so important because 

Page 11 of 15 

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Transcript for Bendy Bodies Podcast, Episode 17: Training the Hypermobile Dancer with Jennifer Milner 

continuing to challenge your body is the big key for hypermobile dancers. I am constantly trying to invent new  exercises just as a way to make their body go. Oh Oh, okay. Let's try that. And it's the same. I just want them to  do a time too, but I can't get them to do it correctly. We tried this and we tried that. Cross training is something  other than dance that will surprise your body and challenge it in a different way.  

00:46:56 

Jennifer Milner 

Continue to cross train regularly and continue to have privates. As long as you can. I know there's a financial  aspect to that, but ballet privates, Maura McCormick talked to us about how they have technique coaches that  will do one-on-one work with the Royal ballet dancers to fix little tiny, small things. That's one of the things that  I have to do with my dancers is going to the ballet studio and fix their Tom do's or fix their PA's. Not that their  dance teachers aren't good, but it's such small adjustments that they've been making that the teacher's not  catching it with 20 other students or at our company members. Taking ballet privates is going to continue to  keep you healthy along with taking cross training privates, not just doing the cross training videos all the time,  but having someone physically look at you and say, Hey, you're doing that wrong.  

00:47:43 

Jennifer Milner 

You're cheating. Let's fix that Jenga board and let's go back and do it correctly. Or I noticed that you're doing  this. Let's not do these exercises and let's focus on this instead. Having a person give you that feedback, is going  to help you not get overused injuries, not, miss big holes in your body that you're going to have to work on later,  once you get injured. Finally make sure you have a support system. Have your friends to talk, to have a doctor,  on speed dial that understands you and understands the issues and can refer out to the right people so that you're  going to a specialist also understands these issues. Don't be afraid to talk about it. Don't be afraid to get a  counselor or a nutritionist or whatever you need, because there's a whole team that wants to be your pit crew and  wants to keep you on the road and running as many laps as you can.  

00:48:40 

Linda Bluestein 

Awesome. I know I've done some of your exercises and I love the creativity that you do because it makes all the  difference in the world to really feel the things that you're trying to get people to feel. I think that complete  changing up the way you're doing the motion really makes a big difference with that.  

00:49:00 

Jennifer Milner 

Yeah, it does. It does. That's important to keep challenging your body.  

00:49:05 

Linda Bluestein 

Definitely. Speaking of challenging your body, are there, hypermobile dancers that you have ever told, like  especially young ones that you prob that they probably shouldn't dance?  

00:49:17 

Jennifer Milner 

I never have, and I never will because that's not a decision that I feel like I can make. At the very most, I think  it's a decision that the parents can make if it's a younger dancer. I certainly am not ever going to tell a kid don't  dance. Like you don't have the talent or you don't have the style or you don't have the technique or the body or  whatever it is. If there's somebody who's very hyper mobile and we're really struggling and going uphill, I will  have regular conversations with their parents and say, I am seeing progression. If the teacher gives you feedback  

and saying, when's she going to be ready to do drop when she can be ready to compete in a competition when  she can just say we are moving slowly. Her, her team is seeing improvement. If the teacher wants to talk to me,  I'm happy to talk to them.  

00:50:06 

Jennifer Milner 

As long as I'm seeing improvement and as long as I'm not seeing them stay a hundred percent flat, I think that  there's hope. I think that there is a possibility for them to have that career. Now most of my dancers who are  dying well, all of my dancers who are diagnosed with EDS, who are above the age of 16, have gone to drop out  and not have careers in the professional ballet world. I have known some dancers in the professional world who  had EDS, who have EDS, but I didn't know them as pre-professionals. As I see them in the pre professional world, a lot of times they'll hit that senior year. Like the dancer, I mentioned, you had the pots and the EDS and  all that. It's so much, it's so much work. Even dancers who aren't on that extreme spectrum, I'll have dancers say  to me their junior year.  

00:50:57 

Jennifer Milner 

I just don't know if it's worth going through this much pain. My back is always hurting. This is always hurting.  I'm constantly doing so much work just to tread water. I'm constantly going to PT and seeing you and taking my  ballet privates. They may hit that wall and say, it's not worth it. That's totally fine. It is totally fine to walk away  at any point. It is also fine. If you've got that fire in your heart to keep going, as long as you can keep moving  forward in a healthy way and feel like you are able to move forward with a healthy support team underneath  you. I will always support them until they're the ones that decide that it's too hard. Yeah.  

00:51:37 

Linda Bluestein 

I love that. That's it? Right. It's their decision. So that's fantastic. And, and what do you hear dancers, saying that  they wish they could tell their younger selves?  

00:51:51 

Jennifer Milner 

Keep an eye on the big picture is by far the biggest one. I wish that I hadn't stressed so much about this and that  casting. I wish I hadn't stressed so much about that summer intensive audition. I wish I hadn't forced myself to  do this. I hear so much of that I would say that is by far the biggest thing. Don't don't worry about the little  things. There will always be another thing. There will always be another thing. This is not it. Even during this  time with the quarantine going on, people are afraid. I'm never going to get a contract. I'm never going to get  cast. I'm like, everybody else feels the same way. Like the everybody's in that boat. Unless all art on the earth  ceases completely, it's not going to happen. Okay. We know art's never going to see us because it's part of us.  

00:52:43 

Jennifer Milner 

I would, I always say, keep your eye on the big picture. That's what all my dancers will say back to me, and then  stay healthy. Definitely 100% stay healthy. They have, all of my older dancers is said, I wish that I told my  younger self not to feel myself with cool ranch, Doritos. Like it's fine to eat them. You want your entire body to  be made out of them. Right. Nothing against cool ranch, Doritos, right? Anything that you pick dancers will  obsess and they'll eat the same 10 foods this day. I eat this one food and this day, and so encouraging them to  fuel in a healthy way and the healthy spectrum of foods get help. If you need to get help with nutritionists, but  fuel yourself, well, train smart and lean on your support system. Those three things to do to stay healthy,  fueling, smart training, and lean on your support system.  

00:53:41 

Jennifer Milner 

That's what they all say they were saying then.  

00:53:44 

Linda Bluestein 

Okay. Okay. Speaking of quarantine, how are your dancers handling this very challenging and interesting time?  

00:53:55 

Jennifer Milner 

Yeah, it's hard. I mean, all of my dancers are having a hard time with it emotionally because of all this  uncertainty. Right. There's that sense of, I'm never going to dance again. I'm never going to perform again.  Should I even try to stay in shape? What's the point of trying to stay in shape? So running that gamut of  emotion, some of my dancers are seeking out counselors to talk to, which I think is excellent just to help them  process this. To acknowledge that this is a really difficult time. I keep telling my dancers, this is something that  hasn't happened, in our lifetime. To think that you should just be able to suck it up and keep moving. It's crazy.  It's really okay to try to process this and just say, I don't know what's going to happen over the summer. I don't  know what's going to happen over the fall. 

00:54:44 

Jennifer Milner 

I don't know if I'm going to get an opportunity to audition for a company. I don't know if my contract is going to  be offered again because my company may not be around again. Living with that uncertainty is really key. The  ones who are getting through this the best are learning to control what they can control their environment as  best. They can give themselves a healthy space to dance in and do their dance classes and stay healthy and in  shape fuel themselves. Well stay mentally healthy with support group, with friends, whatever it takes that they  need. Let go of the things that they can't and just say, I don't know what's going to happen. I know what I can do  right now. And that's what I'm going to do. Their training virtually online. There's continuing their privates with  me. They're continuing with their schools. My smart hyper mobiles will stop doing some of the center work if  they don't have a perfect floor for it, because they know it bothers their back or their knees or whatever.  

00:55:37 

Jennifer Milner 

They're continuing to be smart about that. They know that the quarantine will absolutely shape them, but it's not  going to define them. I think that's what we need to remember. The quarantine is going to shape us as a society,  but it doesn't have to define you as a person. It doesn't have to define you as a dancer.  

00:55:54 

Linda Bluestein 

Right. Right. I love that. That's a fabulous way to think of it. There anything else that we didn't talk about that  you would like to let us know about? And also, can you let people know where they can find you and learn more  about the amazing work that you're doing?  

00:56:14 

Jennifer Milner 

I feel like we talked about a lot, so, there's always something else I can talk about because I love talking about  this, but, you can find me at Jennifer with two NS, Jennifer period, Milner, M like Mary I L N E R on Instagram  and on Facebook, it's Jennifer Milner, bodies and ocean. You can find my website and either Jennifer dash  Milner or bodies in dash motion, they both point to me. I'm happy to answer questions and I'm happy to talk  with people. I do live streams on my Instagram page, and do obviously virtual privates right now. I love  answering questions and helping people connect with the people that they need to work with. If I'm not the right  one to help you. Fabulous. Well, thank you so much. It was so great that I get this wonderful information into  the hands of dance, teachers, dancers, dance, parents.  

00:57:13 

Jennifer Milner 

They will learn so much from your incredible knowledge base and the breadth of experience that you have  working with so many different dancers. Really appreciate your taking the time to chat with me today. Oh thank  you. It was fun to chat with you. Flip it, flipping the tables. I love it. That's right. That's right. Well thank you.  We'll catch you next time on bendy bodies with the hypermobility MD. You have Jennifer Milner today, so,  okay. Thank you. Bye-bye hi. Thank you for listening to the bendy bodies podcast, please visit our website  www.bendybodies.org for more information, and to access the show notes. If you are enjoying this podcast,  please remember to subscribe and leave a review. For a limited time, you can win an autographed copy of the  popular textbook disjointed navigating the diagnosis and management of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome  and hypermobility spectrum disorders. Just by giving us a shout out on Instagram or Facebook and tagging at  bendy bodies podcast.  

00:58:19 

Jennifer Milner 

The thoughts and opinions expressed on this podcast are solely of the co-hosts and their guests. They do not  necessarily represent the views and opinions of any organization. The thoughts and opinions do not constitute  medical advice and should not be used in any legal capacity whatsoever. We'll catch you next time on the bendy  bodies podcast.