18. Molding Healthy, Successful Artists with Mariaelena Ruiz

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00:00:00 

Jennifer Milner 

Welcome to bendy bodies with the hypermobility MD, your podcast, to learn all about the benefits and  challenges of being bendy. This is co-host Jennifer Milner here today with Dr. Linda Bluestein. Before we  introduce our incredibly special guests, a couple of quick reminders, please subscribe and leave a review. This  really helps get the word out because this podcast is for you today. We have the great pleasure of speaking with  Mariaelena Ruiz. Mariaelena began her studies in Caracas, Venezuela, where she was trained by prima  ballerina, Nina Novak at age 14, Mariaelena became the youngest member of the ballet. Nastia now to Caracas.  We have the great pleasure of speaking with Mariaelena. She won the best couple award in third place, senior  division at the barn international ballet competition, and also one at the in Paris as a professional Mariaelena  performed principal roles for many companies in the US and Europe, and between 2000 and 2006, Mariaelena  danced and all Balanchine repertoire in the Suzanne Farrell ballet. 

00:01:11 

Jennifer Milner 

In 2000, she began teaching part-time at the rock school for dance education and became full-time ballet master  at the rock school in 2006, in 2015, she started building and directing her new professional training program at  Kerry ballet conservatory, where she continues to coach and train the next generation of outstanding dancers and  has been featured on the cover of dance. Teacher magazine. Mariaelena has been a judge and guest teacher for  the youth America grand Prix, and Dan's America competition in Argentina, and has also worked with the New  York international ballet competition. She was featured in the award winning documentary first position. She  has coached medalists from major competitions, including Moscow IBC, Jackson, USA, IBC, Boston, IVC,  Preda, Lizanne, youth America, grand Prix, and American dance competition. Her former students are dancing  professional all over the world and companies and on Broadway. Mariaelena is now looking forward to even  greater success as a teacher and a coach she's been named the outstanding teacher at ADC IBC, and most  recently was the 2019 AGP New York city finals, outstanding teacher,  

00:02:32 

Linda Bluestein 

Mariaelena. Hello and welcome to Bendy bodies. Thank you. I am so excited to be talking to both of you and  thank you for that.  

00:02:43 

Jennifer Milner 

Absolutely. We're excited to have you here, right? Linda.  

00:02:46 

Linda Bluestein 

I'm so excited.  

00:02:51 

Jennifer Milner 

Yes, we have so much, we want to talk to you about, so let's just kind of jump into it. If we could start with your  training. You grew up studying under prima ballerina, Nina Novak, and then dance for the ballet Nastia now to  Caracas and then went to the school of American ballet. Before you were even an adult, you had studied the  Cuban and Balanchine method. How did that shape you as an artist?  

00:03:15 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Back then, I didn't know. I was evolving, but, I was incredibly lucky. I had the strength of the banana, what  training very early on the discipline that comes with that as well. The speed and the dynamics of Balanchine  training that was incredibly necessary for me as well. My Cuban teacher that after I came back from, I say be,  and actually if we jump forward years and years after that, my Valley Suarez, she's the one after a really bad  injury that kind of put me together again. Yeah, I was incredibly lucky and I've been trying and, to keep the best  of all those techniques in the winter each, and I think it made me, better dancer and also a better teacher.  

00:04:17 

Jennifer Milner 

It's interesting. You say that because one hand you can look at how it shapes you as an artist, right? And how  this technique gave you this. This technique gave you that and you can pull it all together and be a more well rounded artist, but it's completely different. How it shapes you as a teacher. Speak a little bit more about that.  

00:04:35 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Well, I would add to my bandana, Cuban and American training, I would add injuries and physical therapy. I'm  very lucky that I didn't have many, but the two that I had were major. I became very interested in alignment  because one of them was, I had kind of a reconstructed big toe. It was an infection that went bad and went into  the bone and then they had to reconstruct my toe and I was already at the end of my career. I spend a year in  physical therapy learning to walk again, alignment. I spent a year in a pool. I became prune because they call me  go to a pool twice a week. I would go, the dancers mentality, I would go five times and all of that. I became very  interested in how to do things, right, because I had very little time. I was already in my thirties and I had already  little time to recover and do it right. 

00:05:50 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

That's also when I went to my golly and she retrained me again that year. I would be, I would say that a  combination of all those things, I became more interested in technique. I became more interested in how to  apply the best things of all those techniques and the strength I had known all along because I had done it as a  dancer. Like if we, in Cleveland Valley, we had people from the bank and trust, common set theme and  variations. I will immediately check my balance in training, with Suzanne Farrell, it was, turning your brain  immediately into balancing training, but keeping the strength of the vedana when the Cuban training. I I've been  able to mix all of that, what the injuries did for me, that was not that I was not aware, was paying so much  attention of doing things correctly and slowly, even if it was 10 repetitions, but then they were doing, they were  done.  

00:06:53 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Right. Of course, w when you do three pirouettes and when you stay at a balance and all that is great, but when  you are, Oh my God, I can bend my foot again so that I can walk correctly or that I can walk. It's a whole  different, it's a whole different spectrum. Of course the doctors are telling you're going to be lucky if you can  walk again. All of that, I was like, no, I'm sorry. I have you for the national ballet of Canada in a year, that's not  going to happen. I'm going to do it. So yeah. You I became very aware of physical therapy and cross training,  which I had done for my whole career, but it became, I became much more aware of it and interested in,  

00:07:39 

Jennifer Milner 

Oh, well, and it's interesting you say that because I always say, when I go teach a workshop at any studio or  company, I say the only people who sign up for an injury prevention class are people who have already been  injured. Yes. Because until that happens, people are like, I don't need to take that. That's fine. I'm fine. Once  

you've had that first injury, you realize, Oh, this matters. I need to cross train. I need to look at my technique. I  need to look at that alignment. I need to address it in a different way, whether you're doing Balanchine arms or  Chichetti arms, there are still some fundamental biomechanical issues that have to happen. So that's great. I love  that you learned that kind of, I mean, it's painful that it happens, at the expense of an injury, but you learn it kind  of early on in your career, at least as far as your teaching career.  

00:08:27 

Jennifer Milner 

That already started to shape who you are going to be as a teacher, which is fantastic. Now you also are hyper  mobile, right. Have your own bendy body issues to go along with it. Science is kind of understanding of  hypermobility has changed a lot in the past 10 years, and we've come a really long way and understanding it and  learning how to kind of work with it. You were training, were there teachers helped you figure that out, how to  use it and how to control it, or was that just,  

00:09:00 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I didn't realize. I, I, they focused on, strength and technique a lot. They didn't focus on my hypermobility. Like it  wasn't about let's show the extension and stay there for 15 seconds or anything like that. They were very  concerned about getting me stronger. If I go back also, I was the youngest and the tallest, and the most bendy, so  I would see my peers in the same class already doing fortes already doing, with stronger muscles, two to three  years in about when you have an 11 year old and a 14 year old is a very different situation. I became, I was part  of that group because I was talented and they were pushing me forward, but I couldn't do some of the stuff  strength wise that they could do get a line and have beautiful shapes and stuff like that they couldn't do as well.  

00:10:01 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

But I, I didn't have the strength. I didn't know where my center was and all of that. So I, they did not. What I  have to say is that they didn't focus on my band Denas. They focused on you need to get stronger. At the time  was, Relevate, repetition and all of that, it was Maranoa. We had the same class in the afternoon. We knew the  class. You could really work on strengthening and all of that, classical repertoire, I was introduced to classical  repertoire very early on. I think that's what shaped me too, because people say that I can see variations or things  that kids can do that are going to look really good on them. I think it comes from my training. My teacher knew exactly, what variation at what age, what comes next and all of that, and that you had a very good progression of  all of that.  

00:10:57 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

When you're that age, I was like, why am I doing Bluebird? Why am I doing, why am I not doing the rights you  realize when you look back, I understand her. She was, she was building you up. I think a lot of the answers are  in the classical repertoire and how you break it down, because you just have somebody do a variation, but you're  

not breaking the step. Where does that come from in class? you're not doing anything. I would say that, and I  would thank my early training that they never focused on my Vendini. I didn't realize that I needed more cross training and more strength until I went to SAB because I had long fourths to deal with. I had bad toes to deal  with. I had speed and accents in, I do a lot of accents in now, just we can connect more.  

00:11:52 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Sometimes I have to like, remind my team, my other teachers too, to like, remind me that it's not accent all the  time. So, I became, I'd be gone, Pilates and Gyrotonic when I went to SAB. That was also that's when I found  my core, it's because I, the speed is what got me. I was like, I would see, people, Diana White and people,  Wendy Whalen and all these people in New York city ballet dancing with that speed. They had long legs. They  had in a balancing company. That's not an option being tall, not moving fast. Right. For me, it was very difficult  that the long foot coming from a hyperextension and from my hyperextended legs, from a long bang forth with  the back leg, straight and pulling in, so that I needed a lot. I needed more strength for that. That's when I became  more into cross-training, but I do have to say, I didn't, I wasn't, my teachers were not into, overstretching me or  anything like that.  

00:13:04 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

It was just the normal, of course, they would see that it would go beyond what other people could do, but it  wasn't about that. I think I was lucky about that,  

00:13:13 

Jennifer Milner 

That your teachers worked kind of slowly and patiently, right.  

00:13:16 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

They focused on strength. They didn't focus on the, on the flexibility so much, they focused on the less  flexibility or more strength,  

00:13:29 

Jennifer Milner 

Which is we had an earlier interview with Beckanne Sisk, one of your former students. And she said the same  thing. She said that even with all her flexibility, I knew our listeners would want to know, how does she get  more flexible? And she said, she doesn't, she works on the strength to hold that flexibility. Thank you for  reinforcing that as well.  

00:13:51 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

It was great to hear that from her, because she had been injured at the time that I got her. She was so hyper. She  like her legs were away from her. I was just like, we need to focus on your strength, lower your legs. I never, we  never did anything above 90 until we got to or stretching, it's going to be there. It's not going to go away because  it's not like you're not stretching. You're going to do your stretching. Your normal stretching never sat her on an  over split. We never went over things. Of course there was choreography created on her, not by me that showed  all that, I didn't, wasn't like, grab your legs, stay for 30 seconds and wait for people to clap. It was, it was part of  

the artistry. It was part of showing how incredible her body was, but, training her was, yeah, taught me a lot  about myself and understood my teachers a lot.  

00:14:52 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I knew I had a diamond in the raw and I was like, I got to do this. 

00:14:57 

Jennifer Milner 

You have to do it right. That's exactly right. Going back to something you said earlier about, the importance of  picking the right variation at the right time. I think a lot of days, a lot of times these days, we feel that pressure  to let the ten-year-old do white Swan or whatever they think is going to bring them joy and let them show off  their flashiness and all of that. It's so important to have a long-term plan for a student and not just think what's  going to get me the highest numbers in this competition, or the highest amount of scholarship this year, what's  going to keep them dancing and what's going to bring them to fruition to all they can be, five years from now or  whatever. I love that you have that structure in that thought behind your head. Let's do this one. This one, and  it's about the work and bringing you up slowly.  

00:15:48 

Jennifer Milner 

Do you see a difference? one of the things that's hard for teachers, is when you see someone who is advanced as  a dancer, like you were, you want to move them up and help move them faster, but at the same time, you have to  hold them back, until they have that strength, like you talked about. Do you see some of that tension in classes  with, well, she's so good. I want to promote her, but also I want to give her a little more time to grow into her  body and give her that strength.  

00:16:17 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

That's a great question because, and people listening to this, that work with me and parents and teachers that I've  had meetings with, and students they'll know exactly because I have a say, an arrow when you pull it back,  where's it going to go? How far are you going to pull it back so that you can go where, so I'm pulling you back  slowly so that I can propel you forward so that you're going to have all the basics and all the strength to actually  move forward quickly. I said that the sooner we get this basic stuff, and this is with my lower levels, because  sometimes they look at me like we're going to do relevant, slow again. I was like this sooner, this three, or  you're going to be that is, that is very important. And, I think it comes with trust also with your teacher and with  your coach.  

00:17:09 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I try to convey that I have your best interest at heart. I am not perfect. I have not done things perfect, but I've  done this for a long time and I've done it. And I've done it with some success. I don't expect you to be my first  mistake, my mistake. If we realize that we've made a mistake, we'll fix it along the way and we'll move forward.  But I think communication is very important. I think coming from the right place and the right experience, I, I  know that slowing you down and doing breaking things down is going to make you better. That is my, and if  you accept that, and if you give me the time, because the other things that they want things yesterday, and I, I, I  do too. All you have is the work that you can do today and in this minute and, communication and trust and  giving the coach the time and the teacher at the time, even yourself.  

00:18:13 

Jennifer Milner 

Right, right. I do see a difference between, a dancer. That's not hyper mobile and a dancer who is hyper mobile  in general, the hyper mobile dancers just take longer. I think it was Lisa Howell, is it right? Linda? we  interviewed with Lisa Howell and she talked about how, when she has a hypermobile dancer, she'll pull her  aside and say, listen, you may go on point later than others. Like I may keep you off point longer. I may try to  keep you in a lower level longer. I want to give you time to get control of your body and to get you stronger so  that when you are ready to do those things, you just like take off. It's probably the same concept as the arrow,  giving the, those bendy crazy bodies, a chance to.  

00:19:00 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

They're going to bendy the whole lives, but then once they, it's fabulous. It's so beautiful to watch, but you're  going to have to work at it the rest of your life though, because it's going to be the same bendy body. It's just  going to get stronger, but you're going to have the tools, the important things that you have, the tools.

00:19:22 

Jennifer Milner 

You will, and you were, starting to teach, even while you were still performing. Do you feel like the fact that  you were performing and dealing with injuries and teaching all at the same time, kind of made you a better  teacher because you were still dealing with those things yourself?  

00:19:41 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I divide my teaching career. I started teaching because the contract we have with the Kennedy center was not  full time. I needed something to do all the, while the company was off and making money and stuff like that. I  had just moved to Philadelphia and, they gave me some part-time work at the rock school, and I'm so grateful  for that. I, I'm a firm believer that you have to be done with dancing to become a good teacher. That's interesting  because it's not about you anymore, or you have to be able to leave your dancing shoes outside the door. When  you come into a studio to teach, it's not about how beautiful you do things and how my pirouettes look it's about  how your kids are going to look at how I'm going to help you, how I'm going to help the student. I, I was still in  dancing mentality, and then the injury happened.  

00:20:43 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

And then that's when I divide. That's when I, I say, I said it in the other podcast, I said, teaching found me. I was  also going through a very difficult personal time. The injury and the personal situation happened at the same  time everything comes together. Right. Right. And I teaching found me. I mean, I was in the studio trying things for the students. I had just, they had just promoted me to full time. I became like obsessed in getting better at  what I was doing. The injury also helped me because I knew that I wanted to get better. I had this very small  window of opportunity to dance for that last year, because I knew it was, it would probably be done. I wasn't,  after that surgery, I wouldn't be able to keep up with eight hours a day or somebody creating a Valley on you or  anything like that.  

00:21:47 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

So I wanted to do it well. I became very interested in how to help other people do it well.  

00:21:57 

Jennifer Milner 

Oh, I love that. Sometimes teachers aren't quite finished with their own career and you can see that in the  classroom sometimes, especially with the, some of the high-profile guest teachers that my dancers might walk  out from a masterclass feeling almost worse about themselves, just because they're comparing themselves to the  teacher, that's there and doing these beautiful demonstrations and thinking, Oh, I'm never going to get there. 

00:22:21 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Nothing wrong with that. I just, you're going to be a coach. If you're going to take somebody's career from a to  Z, it takes a different type of relationship. It takes a different type of the coach you have, and the teacher you  have, has to be on about the dancer. I mean, I can still show certain things on my feet. I'm going to point and  stuff like that, but it's not about that. It just has to be the teaching and the dancer and the student has to be your  focus.  

00:22:54 

Jennifer Milner 

There has to be that emotional investment in it. Yeah absolutely. Now that you are teaching, dancers, full-time,  you've transitioned into that. You said that you had started finding cross training and working on proper  technique while you were injured. Do you find in general, ballet classes sufficient for dancers, or do you  encourage cross training? Do you try to add conditioning exercises to your class? how do you help them figure  out how to manage their bodies?  

00:23:24 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I know that, there are certain techniques and certain schools that say cross-training is not allowed. I believe in it  because I practiced it and it became something that helped me tremendously and I've seen it in other people. Yes, my program has conditioning for men and conditioning for girls. Once a week, we brought progressive  ballet technique. We have Pilates. We brought gyrotonics also. And, even though we don't have a gym in our  facility, I tell, the guys on the girls that it's important for them to get the cardio, we had a trainer that came and  they had, he had them running around the facility, which is really, it's really big. And the weather was nice still.  You know, the cardio is very important. Ballet still, I approach my approach is that I don't stop between sides. I  mean, you hear my corrections as you go.  

00:24:36 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I have two groups in center and he stayed track stage left, and everybody's going to laugh that is listening to this  because they've known this for 20 years. If I change groups and I changed lines, but if they tried, it's going stage  left is in a position they're not stretching or anything like that. You're always because it's important to even if  you're going to be in the core ballet for 30 minutes and changing you have to have the endurance to do that. I  think the only thing with ballet is that you break out of it very quickly and then you're required to do a part or  something that it's 15 minutes long. It's true. Have to kind of integrate the classmate, make the class, so that you  continue that aerobic work and include cross training. I know running it's sometimes for dancers, on their joints  is hard on their joints, but there's biking, there's stationary bike and there is elliptical and things that you can do  even with your own weight that you can do to keep your stamina.  

00:25:43 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I just, I don't think it's going to come out of nowhere that you can just do a 15 minute ballet. If you don't cross  train, I just, it's just not going to come just from one ballet class a day. It's just not going to right.  

00:25:56 

Jennifer Milner 

Right. Well and I always tell my dancers, listen, that, one minute and 27 seconds petite Allegro combination is  not going to get you ready for snow. Snow's 11 minutes long. I have to do something else. You've been teaching  for about, 10 years now. Part-time and full-time have you seen, common problems and weaknesses with  hypermobile dancers in general, other than that, they're slower starter and they have to get control of their  strength sooner. What have you observed with them?  

00:26:28 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Well, it's like, my eye goes immediately to like that one, the hyper mobile, I can, it's like my nose goes, the  reality is that, with hypermobile dancers, if you catch the things with our schools now, that, especially in  America or that you don't, you get a dancer either that came from another school or that came through a  recreational level, and then they didn't know that they were going to be, it was going to become something that,  the boss went like in Cuba and picked the one with the perfect years, the perfect, this, the perfect femur, the  perfect, and then, they have the perfect physicality. Even if they're hyper mobile, they work with them since  they're the younger and stuff like that. I, you know, we are lucky. I mean, like with big can H she came through  the school and then, weren't lucky to train her.  

00:27:31 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I've had other, hypermobile dancers and we have some now in our program too, they're coming up and I called  them the noodle number two, because I haven't, well, number one, I, I think we've all gotten in our team and my  teachers, our teachers here too. We've gotten aware of, they're very good about, realizing that we have a  hypermobile dancer and how we're going to approach it. I think we have the same thoughts on the same  mentality and talk to each other as a team, how we're going to approach this dancer. We're all on the same page  about slowing it down and bringing them forward slower. We talked to the dancer, we talked to the parents  because they feel frustrated. They're like we have this beautiful body and now with Instagram on everything, of  course they hit amazing positions. I mean, you look at those feet on those legs on those lines, but it's like, how  do you get from A to B how did you get up there? it's like the beautiful picture.  

00:28:43 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah, we are, very aware of them very early on as early as we can be. Some of them that haven't come through  the school, we get from somewhere else and sometimes come with really bad habits. That's, I don't know, you  guys will agree with me. I don't know. What's worse. I think it's better to bring out dancer up, then get, when you get it already with the bad habits, creating a blank, a wide canvas. Again they get very frustrated, especially  if it's an age that, they want to get the wow effect. They want to get the, and they feel that's what they, the good  app. You're taking away something that I'm actually good. Yeah, we would just approach them and be like,  listen, we got to fix this because also you've got to walk when you're 50. Well, thank you for that delay and  gymnastics and all of that.  

00:29:50 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Remember that they don't gymnastics, if I'm correct that they don't get past 21 or 22, it's a much shorter career.  Ballet is an art form that it's longer that you have to have longevity and it's important that you stay healthy and  that you stay, able to have a normal life. 

00:30:19 

Linda Bluestein 

Definitely, we all want to move as long as possible, as well as possible, but I think we don't always think of  those things when we're younger. I'm really glad that you stress that with your students. That's really fantastic.  What trends have you observed over the years in terms of hypermobility injuries and career longevity? you've  obviously been dancing for a long time and teaching for a long time. Have you observed any particular changes  over that period of time?  

00:30:47 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah, I think it's been like maybe that I'm aware of maybe five, eight years ago. You know, it become, it's  become there. There's two sides, dance has become much more popular on TV with all these shows like that,  which is amazing that it's in everybody's living room or computer, or that we have access to that. People think I  want to do that, but the thing is I want to do that comes with a whole amount of training and a whole amount of  hours on mall I'm out of years. So, but there are a lot of people that have become interested in dance. Sometimes  they become interested because of the overextension and the wow effect and all of that. There's been something  positive about that, but I think it can be deceiving in a way. I just hope that, and from what I've seen, and then in  the last years, it's, it should be just part of the movement.  

00:31:58 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

It should not be about that. About how long you're going to hold your leg and how long you're going to stretch.  And, it's tough because it becomes very circus-like and, I would love it to stay as part of the art form. Like it's an  artistic movement, not about that. And that's what I've seen. It's become a little bit about that. The kids think  that's the, that's what they see and the Instagram and all of that. And they want to be that. I think our job is to  guide them, that's fine. It has a place, but if this is the art form that you choose, then there's other ways.  

00:32:48 

Linda Bluestein 

Definitely. Have you seen that impact injuries amongst your dancers?  

00:32:53 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah. I mean, you see, I mean, you see, but can, she's been very lucky because she built strength since she was  very young. We had her very young and she kept all those things as she moved in her career. Yeah, I've seen hip  injuries. I've seen back injuries, in our program, we've been very lucky. They have overuse injuries, that,  because sometimes you come from a program that you did three times a week, and then you come into eight  hours or six hours a day, we try to build them up, but still it needs to, it needs some adapting. I will say I've seen  people that have been trained with overstretching and have come to us after, yeah. They're they have some  difficulties and some injuries.  

00:33:44 

Linda Bluestein 

Sure. Speaking of overstretching and other kids that are coming to you from other programs, what advice do you  give to other teachers who are working with hypermobile dancers? 

00:33:57 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Focus on strengths, focus on strengths, focus on technique, focus on quality, not quantity focused on building  their base strong so that then they can have something to go from to build a beautiful, I say a white canvas so  that you can have a Picasso, you can start a Picasso from already a painted Picasso. You have to have a white  canvas. You've got to give them that, and be okay to slow things down. I think it's just not popular. It just, you  

become as a teacher pressured, and you have this well, but I have this flexibility and this teacher, this other,  teacher's going to use it because this solo they're going to do for me, it's going to showcase that. So I'm going to  go there. That's the issue, you lose, sometimes you're afraid of people are afraid of losing students and they give  in. Then, I think follow up, follow your instinct and follow your guidelines of what, works and educate yourself  and talk to people like you talk to other teachers and dancers, that have had those issues and go from there.  

00:35:12 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

And don't give into the pressure. Yeah. I think that's important. Yes.  

00:35:19 

Linda Bluestein 

Definitely. What about, healthcare professionals like myself who, and like, Jennifer who worked with dancers,  what can we do? How can we work best with dance teachers to help the dancer optimize their career longevity?  What can we do?  

00:35:35 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I think, I think it's very, I mean, like what you're doing right now, I think, webinars and classes and  communication with teachers, I think it's important. Sometimes there's been a couple of trends, right? Because,  with physical therapy and with doctors and stuff like that, and we're all the teachers, I mean, myself, we're all  about slowing things down. I have found, this is my experience that dancers sometimes become very, we have to  know, we have to teach the dancers and the parents, the difference between an injury and soreness sometimes.  This is, I don't want to be like, I'm old fashioned. You have to hang on to pain and stuff like that. Of course pain  is telling you something. Of course, if you went for, I use the run analogy. Cause I, you know, I run. If you went  for a long run and it's your first long run after all of your training, you're going to be sore.  

00:36:40 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

So you make sure that all those muscles are strong enough, but it's things that you haven't done before. I think  it's important for physical therapists and doctors and that be on the same page with the dancer. Okay. What have  you done? What is different? ? because it, sometimes it's confusing to teachers as well. Like okay, I can't train  you if you can't stand, but the other thing that's happening, it's like, if you can't stand, if you can't do a ton, do  I'm okay to do petite Allegro? Oh, it's not possible right now. Absolutely not. Not that moms a bar, because it's  the last thing you could do. You're done. You're not doing variations. You're not doing point because I'm not  building you up to do that. That is very, I think it educate teachers and educate dancers of the evolution that  needs to happen.  

00:37:42 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Like you can't dance if you didn't warm up properly. Like I am not, I do not allow like choreographers or myself  to come into the studio and choreograph things on the dancers without having a proper class or a proper  warmup. I know people walk in the studio sometimes and they just start, if there's an emergency, of course  things happen and you're trained for it. Your body's going to, but as a trend, as something that we allow, no,  that's just not, I think training it's the most important part. It's what's going to keep you going. It's where you're  building your foundation. That foundation is what you're going to show up choreographer or director or  anything like that is what's going to bring you to the next level. I think it's important of communicating with  teachers and dancers, how to build from the bottom up, that you can't just go up here and do crazy stuff without  building all the other stuff, any injuries.  

00:38:44 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I mean, like, what's an injury, of course, if you twisted your ankle and you broke your foot, but a lot of confusion with stress fractures, a lot of that's the new, that's a new thing. It hasn't been new. It's like eight, 10  years that, I didn't grow, I didn't know anything about stress fractures when I was training. I probably had them  and, but, there's a lot of, there has to be communication between the physical therapist, the doctor and the dancer  and the parent. We all have to be on the same page, which is making the dancer better, but it gets like if we slow  down and then this doctor slows down and the physical therapist, everybody just gets so when are we going to  start moving what's going on, what's going to happen. Then, they need to be healthy. They need to be mentally  and physically also, that's very important to us.  

00:39:44 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I think that would be a good conversation between doctors, physical therapists and teachers and dancers.  

00:39:51 

Linda Bluestein 

I agree. I love that you brought up stress fractures in particular, because I think so many people think of in fact,  a lot of, even my colleagues for sure, physicians think of bones as being more static, but we're constantly  building more bone and losing bone. If that balance is off, then that's how something like a stress fracture can  develop. I'm really glad that you brought that up specifically. You've had a lot of experience in the ballet  competition world and you successfully competed yourself. You've been a judge and a guest teacher for many of  the major competitions. As well as you've successfully coached several young dancers on multiple wins, you've  also been named the Y AGP finals, outstanding teacher, just this past year. In the competition world, extreme  ranges of motion are often celebrated and encouraged for the wow factor. As you had mentioned earlier, how do  you help your students work to their full potential while making sure that they have the strength to do so safely.  

00:40:50 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Focus on strengths. And I, I must say that there are certain competitions that do not, I see it in the judges scores  and the judges writings. I would say that 95% of the time, they say focus on your technique, focus on, X too  extreme or something like that. I feel that, there are people out there that are interested in seeing more of your  technique and your artistry and, all of that. You, I like were saying, if you go with the trend, it also depends who  your teacher is, what school you're going and what they are about. I feel like there are certain competitions, like  I said, that are not into that. That are looking at your longevity are looking at your career. If you're going to get  into a ballet company, that's going to be used 1%, 2%. If you're going to be passing through an extension to go  to the next thing and all of that, it's just, it's not going to be about that.  

00:42:09 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I hope that it continues to increase, the interest in that, and that, as professionals and educators and judges and  responsible competition. We can, guide the dancers and the teachers in the correct way.  

00:42:34 

Linda Bluestein 

Excellent. What words of advice do you, would you give to the frustrated younger hypermobile dancers who  feel like they just cannot quite get it together?  

00:42:44 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah. I hear you. I hear you. I think if you can hang in there, I think if you can focus on your strengths, I think if  you can focus on your technique, your conditioning, finding those muscles, that work for you are not going to  be, your body does not work the same way as somebody else. Somebody else's that you see as a different muscle  form and, and less flexibility. I think it will be worth it. It will be worth the time. It will be worth once you get  that strength and you get control of your body, it's just going to be so beautiful that, you're going to actually pass  those people that are ahead of you right now, because their bodies are, easier to deal with in the beginning. Once  you get that strength, once you get that control over your body and where you are, I think it's worth it.  

00:43:58 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

It's worth the wait. 

00:44:00 

Linda Bluestein 

Sure. Beckanne really went into, a fair bit of detail about working with you and how you really helped her to  understand how to work with her hypermobility and not to just rely on it as and just use it and lean into it. That  you really worked with her on learning how to reign that in and control it. So.  

00:44:25 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah. Bring your legs down, control everything in your core. Yeah. Repetition, repetition, go through your feet  in the middle of your foot slowly down, it might be boring, but it's going to pay off. It's going to play off. There  are also different types of hyperextension. Of course you have big can. And I had the same thing. It's a lot easier  when you're hyperextended and you have hypermobile foot as well. Right. It's helpful because you can't think of  

the back of your knee. You have to think of where your hip aligns with your toe, right. Your, how you connect  your inner thighs to all of that. You can think from the back of the knee ever. It is very helpful when you have a  foot that will allow you to be on top of that. We have hyperextended dancers that are back and don't have that  range of motion in the ankle, it's harder because they sit back in the knee a lot easier instead of going on top or  work inner thigh work, bring your legs down, bring down from your core and your inner thighs.  

00:45:41 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah. I think, I think we need a shirt for you that says I don't care, but then bring your legs down slowly. It was  fun. It is fun. I mean, when, once you see them get it, like when they first realize, or they do that one thing and  it's just above everybody else and tights light up and you're like, okay, so we'll see, that's what we've been  working on for a whole year. Right. You know, so totally worth it. Yeah.  

00:46:18 

Linda Bluestein 

Cause that floppy noodle isn't like you said, you could strike poses for Instagram photos, but you're not going to  be able to move your body in the way that you really need to and be able to protect your joints and keep them  healthy. And that kind of thing. I'm recalling as we're talking a dancer who I was went to college with and to  class with every single day and she was so floppy and were most of us jealous of her incredible hypermobility.  Of course at that time I had no idea. I didn't know what hypermobility was, but I look back now and I realized  that, she probably didn't ever have someone like you to really work with her on that kind of thing.  

00:46:58 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah. I think it's important to find the right teacher. Absolutely. And educate yourself too. I mean, I think if you  talk to, I mean, when I was growing up, it was so big, and then of course it wasn't YouTube or anything like  that. Any VHS tape that I would get, you could see, where her body is. Of course there was hyper everything  and craziness and all of that, but she had to have so much control in order to keep your, her balance on top of  her foot so that she wouldn't be, away way. That, I think that was the first extreme dancer. She was there was a  lot of strength. She had to have a lot of strength to control her hypermobility.  

00:47:46 

Linda Bluestein 

Yep. Yeah definitely. If you could go back in time, what, if anything, would you do differently?  

00:47:53 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I would have started with conditioning and alignment work earlier, because I became strong from repetition and  from, very firm strong technique, but it wasn't until I found cross-training and glottis and alignment later in my  career that I realized you can work smarter. You don't have to, you don't have to do so much. You can do  enough correctly and it will work. I'm working on my stamina earlier also. Because I was long on hyper mobile.  I my stamina was not where it needed to be early on. I, I was kind of jealous of other dancers that were shorter  and more muscular and more compact because they could do it right away and they could run through  something like that. I needed to like really do. There are usually three times at the time, the way you worked on  your stamina was doing your variation three times.  

00:49:00

Mariaelena Ruiz 

There's so many other ways that you can actually save your body, from doing that. I mean, it's great to run your  creation three times and sometimes that's what you need to do. I would have had a mix if I had a mixed growing  up earlier on, I would've liked that.  

00:49:20 

Speaker 3 

Sure. And you've hit so many fantastic, points. I feel like I need to go back. Well when we go back through, I'm  definitely going to extract some great quotes from this conversation. Was there anything that we didn't touch on  that you wanted to mention.  

00:49:39 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

You guys were right on? I think, what we started to talk about how to really that there are different parts that  there's different types of hyperextension, hypermobility. I think hyper extension, were talking mostly about  hyperextension in your legs and the sitting back on your, on your legs and on your hyperextension. I have  something that I do that I, they stretch their knees and their heels are apart. I have them bring their heels  together. Actually you play it. From there, push the floor and stretch their knees as much as they can making  room in the hip and the inner thigh to stretch their knees. I find that they sit back, of course, they're always  going to, they're going to go on point and they're going to have that line and whatever, right. You're not  strengthening the right muscles for your leg to be as straight as it can be without sitting back.  

00:50:41 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

I think teachers need to be aware once you see a kid like that, just educate yourself and see other dancers that  have gone through it. See other teachers that have done it, and listened to people like you and podcasts like this  and see how other people are doing it. I think it's important, and lower your leg, strength, lower your leg. If  anybody gets anything out of our conversation today, build the strength, lower your leg,  

00:51:23 

Linda Bluestein 

Build your strength, lower your leg and bring your heels together. And first.  

00:51:26 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Thank you from the inside of you all the way to your core, not from the back. I think it makes them feel, there  are teachers that have asked me, this is Merlin or their knees are bent. I said their knees, because you feel like  you're halfway, you shouldn't be halfway. You should be straight. You just have to roam in the hip and in the  

rotation for that need to stretch, of course your name fit position. Sometimes it's going to bend when you close  it, but you have to actually work towards not doing that. Right. It all comes from the hips and your core too, on  how you pull out by pressing down. I absolutely agree. I tell my dancers all the time, there is a difference  between what your standing leg will look like and what your gesture leg will look like. Your gesture leg can be  as walked out and hyperextended and beautiful as you want it to be.  

00:52:24 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Your standing leg, you can't just lock back into it and just hang there and think you're going to be fine. There's  such a difference between a standing leg and a gesture leg. Thank you for that.  

00:52:34 

Linda Bluestein 

And, and for those pearls here that we're adding at the end that rolling through the foot, on the Tanu or  whatever, that's something that I feel like I'll watch things sometimes. I think, Oh my gosh, what, is there  something wrong with their metatarsal so that they never go through the Demi point?  

00:52:53 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Yeah. It's like, what's happening here. I think that's the part that I learned later in life. They at one, once I talked,  we talked about alignment and cross-training, and doing all those things, because I became very strong, but it, I  didn't have all of that in the beginning. It was such a difference once I started, once I came to SAP and I started working through my feet more and doing Pilates and gyro tonics, and seeing all their dancers that contact with  the floor, that strength you create being into the floor, it's absolutely makes an absolute difference. Absolutely.  

00:53:37 

Linda Bluestein 

Definitely. Where can people best find you and learn more about the fantastic work that you're doing?  

00:53:43 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Well, my Instagram it's, MariaelenaRuizOfficial, I have a website, mariaeleneruiz.com and then our school, Kari  ballet, it's the Instagram and then Carrie ballet.com. It's our website. And you can find me there.  

00:54:03 

Linda Bluestein 

We'll have links to our, on the show notes also to all those places. So fabulous. Well it has been such a pleasure  talking with you today. I learned so much, this has been so fantastic and everyone, and you've been listening to  bendy bodies with the hypermobility MD today. Our guest has been Mariaelena Ruiz, award-winning ballet  master teacher, and director of the professional training program at Kerry conservatory and Mariaelena. I thank  you so very much for taking the time to come on the bendy bodies podcast with us today.  

00:54:35 

Mariaelena Ruiz 

Thank you. It was my pleasure. I learned so much and I'm grateful to, have talked to you guys. Thank you.  

00:54:44 

Linda Bluestein 

Thank you for joining us for this episode of bendy bodies with hypermobility MD, where we explore the  intersection of health and hypermobility for dancers and other artistic athletes. Please leave us a review on your  favorite podcast player remembers to subscribe so you won't miss future episodes. Be sure to subscribe to the  bendy bodies, YouTube channel as well. Thank you for helping us spread the word about hypermobility and  associated conditions. Visit our website, www.bendybodies.org. For more information, for a limited time, you  could 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 sharing what you love  about the bendy bodies podcast on Instagram, tag us at bendy underscore bodies and on Facebook at bendy  bodies podcast. The thoughts and opinions expressed on this podcast are solely of the co-hosts and their guests.  

00:55:46 

Linda Bluestein 

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. This podcast is intended for  general education only and does not constitute medical advice. Your own individual situation may vary, do not  make any changes without first seeking your own individual care from your physician. We'll catch you next  time on the bendy bodies podcast.