Thread: Bowed legs - knee pain with shimmy

One of my students has expressed to me her frustrations and questions regarding her shimmy.
I begin by teaching the loose/american (knee shimmy) and slowly work our way toward an egyptian shimmy within the first two years of oriental dance study....explaining the variety of ways ecah shimmy aids in different qualities of movement and expression.

This student is with me several years. She has never quite been able to attain a LOOSE shimmy even when we (for fun) exaggerate the blub blub-ness of a big shimmy. But her small shimmy is even.
However, she has recently come to me telling me that shimmying HURTS her knees.

Her alignment looks ok, even though she has SLIGHTLY bowed legs. (Not very bowed...if you don't STUDY her legs you would never imagine they were bowed)

I do see though, how her knees do sit in a line slightly to the outside of her feet.

She feels pain in the areas on the SIDE of the knees when she shimmies.
She also says she feels at times a kind of GRINDING feeling in her knees which is very annoying, though not excruciating.

On my suggestion, she DID see a doctor, who told her, that generally, she must strengthen her led muscles, and that the tendons around her knees are loose.
He did not tell her that shimmys could cause any more damage to the area NOR did he say that shimmy-type movement would be beneficial in this situation.

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE with this kind of alignment/movment issue?
I'd be very interested in learning more about other ideas.

Thanks from me and my student.
athena

Sent you a PM...

I do not have experience with this exact situation, but I do have some experience with the general phenomenon of trying to teach dancers who have reached the point of being limited by their own strength and fitness level.

First of all you need to tell her not to do anything that causes pain.

Second of all, your student needs to follow the path her doctor pointed her towards, but it is up to her get on that path and stay on it. Many people will not follow the doctors orders. As a teacher, you can remind her of her doctor's recommendations, but if she's not inclined to do so, you can't keep nagging her. She needs to strengthen her legs like her doctor told her, and until she does, there will not be much she can do to build her shimmy.

You might suggest she try exploring making small adjustments to the angle or position of her feet, just to see if she can find positions that are not painful to her.

You might also inquire whether her doctor recommended physical therapy. If not, you might suggest she talk to the doctor about prescribing physical therapy, so that she can learn exactly how she needs to strengthen her legs. If she is doing physical therapy, you can lend your support by asking her how it is going and reiterating that the strength building will improve her dancing in many ways.

As a person with slightly bowed legs too, I can tell you, the shape of her legs are not necessarily a problem. I'm a shameless shimmy queen and I don't experience any pain even when shimmying for long periods and I've seen many others with not so straight legs and others with straight with varying degrees of knee pain. Knee pain is common among many body types.

Like ssipes said... It would be best for her to get a physical therapist, sports medicine specialist, and doctor-guided personal trainer with dancer experience to help her strengthen and/or stretch the needed muscles. She may also have issues elsewhere in the musculoskeletal system and her knee pain may be resulting from that.

Just be there for her, encourage her to pursue therapy/training to pinpoint and solve the problem, so she can gain improvement with her shimmy. Chances are she's having other knee pain in other physical activities, and would benefit in many areas not just belly dance.

Make sure once pain onsets that she stops shimmying and have her back off on the force of her shimmy until she can shimmy without pain.

all the previous suggestions are very logical. Also wanted to suggest Hadia's way of properly aligning the body, since i learned years ago when I used to go to Calgary to train with her, i have been very succesful in any physical activity i engage in, so i teach it to my students.
The concept of pointing the tail bone up towards the ceiling brings the belly in, shoulder blades down, long torso, and then you have easier control of your body.
With Madame Raquia Hassan i learned to use the muscles of the inner thigh and back of thigh for Egyptian shimmies, and combining both teachers' techniques I teach ladies to relax their knees and not focus on them.
I am very careful with my knees since i was thrown by car while riding my bicycle last year, landed right on my knees, it was painful.

After years of training I've come to the conclusion that my right leg is longer than the left one- which is quite possible, bodies are asymmetrical. It is very hard for me to get both legs equally working when shimmying and if I insist when training, I can hurt myself... it's good to change positions while doing shimmy training so your body can find various ways of training the legs and hips and will be more comfortable in some than in others.