Although full of excitement and fun, racing is also mentally and physically demanding. It’s easy to find yourself exhausted after months of rehearsing and performing for hours every week. How can teachers and dancers keep normal fatigue from turning into burnout? By recognizing the telltale signs and making small but meaningful changes.
Symptoms of burnout:
According to Marissa Graham, a former professional dancer who is now a fitness and health coach focusing on burnout, dancers are especially susceptible to burnout thanks to several complicating factors. Many of them have a perfectionist type A personality, often deal with rejection and are under physical stress.
The signs of burnout can be both physical and emotional. “If you’re constantly getting sick or injured, or telling yourself you’re tired all the time, you’re probably burned out,” she explains. “But less-discussed signs of burnout also include a lack of empathy for the things and people you normally care about, and a lack of self-efficacy — the feeling that your accomplishments no longer matter.”
Cycle delay:
It’s easier to prevent burnout than to recover from it. Blake Piatczyc, owner of BPM Dance Complex in Lee’s Summit, Mo., and national director of the In10sity Dance Competition, says team bonding activities and prioritizing personal mentoring can help ease the mental strain on competitive students. “We’re also very careful to schedule only the rehearsals and technique lessons that our dancers actually need, so they get that conditioning and build endurance for competition, but also have time to just be kids,” he says.
Similarly, Jenna Eberhardt, competition director of Dance Cavise Studios in Mamaroneck, N.Y., and a Journey Dance Competition judge, prioritizes her own rest during built-in vacation breaks from dance and encourages students to do the same. “As dancers we feel like we have to keep doing more and more, but I’ve actually found that after a while off, everyone comes back refreshed and the routines seem cleaner,” she explains.
Finding ways to keep competitive performances from feeling repetitive can also help students and teachers avoid burnout. Piatczyc strives for variety in the roughly 200 dances that BPM includes in each competition, “so that dancers don’t feel locked into any one style.” Eberhardt is open to making small choreographic changes, such as turning pairs into threes or excluding an acro trick, as the season progresses to keep things fresh for the dancers.
Be your own advocate
As Graham often tells clients, “Burnout isn’t your fault, but it’s your responsibility to recognize when it’s happening.” She encourages dancers to talk about themselves and teachers to give them space to do so. “If you’re feeling signs of burnout, start with a quick body scan and notice what’s actually going on in your body and what emotions are coming up,” she explains. “Use this information to explain to your teachers that even if you are not physically hurt or ill, you may need to take it easy.”
Another way to deal with the symptoms of burnout is to use what Graham calls BAMs, or “bare minimums”—small actions you can take to manage the stress cycle until you can rest completely. This could mean making sure you eat three meals a day or taking five minutes before bed to do some deep breathing exercises.
Remember why:
One of the keys to preventing and stopping burnout is to remember why you started dancing in the first place. “Recovering from burnout is about finding the joy of movement again, which can be a difficult thing if you’ve only been focused on training for the next race,” says Graham. But remember that dance is something you love – and that you want it to be a positive, sustainable part of your life.