Strength, Injury, and Misread Research: Siobhan Camille on Exercise Science for Dancers

Written By Randi Fentress

Dr. Rosy Boa interviews exercise scientist and belly dance (Raqs Sharqi) teacher Siobhan Camille (MSc in Rehabilitation Science) about applying exercise science to dance and pole. Siobhan shares her path from New Zealand athlete to researcher and strength and conditioning coach, including belly dance injury research, hospital-based rehab work, and her current role with Dutch elite and Olympic sport. They discuss how early research in “fringe” activities often focuses on injury rates before performance optimization, and emphasize that rehab and return-to-sport/pole rely on principles tailored to the individual and their demands. Siobhan critiques common “prehab” trends that underload the body, argues that appropriate joint stress builds resilience, and highlights injury’s multifactorial nature. They also cover consistency over optimization, motor learning cues, accessibility in classes, and misconceptions about “perfect posture” and pelvic tilt.

Links & citations: 

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:00 Siobhan’s Dance and Sport Origins

03:07 Research Path and Elite S&C Career

05:13 From Injury Studies to Performance

07:17 Rehab Principles and Return to Sport

10:11 Prehab Means Getting Strong

14:39 Load Management and Injury Complexity

18:17 Aging, Consistency, and Staying Active

22:11 Accessible Strength Training for Dancers

26:54 Motor Learning and Better Cueing

34:14 Posture Myths in Dance

36:16 Where to Find Siobhan and Wrap Up

Transcript: 

Rosy: Hello. Welcome to Science of Slink, the evidence-based pole podcast with me, your host, Dr. Rosy Boa Uh, and today I'm very excited to be joined by Siobhan Camille, who, not a pole dancer but exercise scientist, a researcher in exercise science and a Raqs Sharqi, AKA belly dance teacher practitioner.

And I think I first came across you on on Instagram 'cause you'd made a post about sometimes people read studies and really take things out of context and talk about them in a way that does not really reflect the content of the study itself. And I was like, "Ah, this also is a thing that I have been frustrated by in the past as well."

So thank you so much for coming on. I know I've introduced you a little bit, but I would love for you to start off by just telling us a little bit about yourself, what you do, and your perspective specifically on exercise science and dance, and then the union of the two.

Siobhan: Thank you so much for having [00:01:00] me. Yeah so my name's Siobhan. I'm originally from New Zealand, so that's why I have the funky accent, which has persisted even after 10 years outside of New Zealand. Yeah, my, my background I started dancing Raaksashee when I was 17, which was about the same time that I got really interested in sport and exercise science because I was a high school athlete in a crazy sport called adventure racing.

It's, I think, more common in places like New Zealand than it is in some places overseas. I currently live in the Netherlands, which is very flat, so a lot of people have not heard of adventure racing. But I often describe it, it's a little bit like triathlon, but it's off-road in the mountains and you navigate yourself.

So it's like mountain running, kayaking, mountain biking. And I found Raaksashee or belly dance by accident 'cause I had an injury and was told I could only do low impact exercise for a while, and the next day I saw an ad for belly dance and I was like, "I'm in." And just having the athlete mindset just really went all in right away, and I [00:02:00] love music.

I always have. Love movement, so just got really into it. But it was around about that time as well I was at times I guess under-stimulated by high school and, I really, I actually considered dropping out. But I happened to see a night course at a polytechnic in New Zealand, which is, I think some places call them trade schools.

And it was a certificate in improving sports performance. And as a student athlete myself, I was interested. So I started doing these night courses, and they just happened to have this instructor who had come over from the English Premier League, like football, soccer, as a sports scientist.

He'd been there, and he'd gone to New Zealand to retire, and then this polytech realized he was there and was like, "No come teach for us." And that opened my eyes to the possibilities working in sport and exercise science. I thought, "This is really cool." I went off to University of Otago, and I did my my bachelor's in sport and exercise science, majoring in [00:03:00] exercise prescription.

But during that time, this was also my first kind of four or five years of dancing really. And yeah, for my thesis for my first kind of research year, I decided I wanted to look at something in belly dance. So I was really lucky that Dr. Melanie Bussey, who I still have quite a lot of contact with was keen to do something in belly dance.

So we looked at yeah, injury incidence rates and potential risk factors for injury in belly dancers. And it's so interesting because since I started that study, like I think, s- sometimes people still ask for copies of that paper, of course, and I send it out to them. But especially when it's someone I know, I have a lot of caveats now for like how I interpreted or wrote the discussion, and I just think having grown as a practitioner over the years my view on that has changed a bit too.

Because at the time, I was really a researcher. I'd worked as a personal trainer, done a little bit of strength and conditioning stuff. But now the last five years I've actually primarily worked [00:04:00] in elite sport as a strength and conditioning coach. So after the, after that research, went off and did my master's in rehabilitation science, worked primarily in hospitals and inpatient clinics actually doing exercise rehab, and then realized, no, I wanna go back into sport.

So about- No, actually seven years ago now, I pivoted back to strength and conditioning, which we're-- it's often called a physical performance lead as well. And we work with athletes pretty much making sure that we are getting the most out of athletes physically so that they perform well, but we're also a key part of the, quote-unquote, "injury prevention," and management and rehab.

So yeah, seven years ago, I started working with a Premier League hockey team in the Netherlands, and then after a couple years, I shifted to working with the Dutch Olympic team, so that's where I've been for the last five years. Still dancing, still doing things for dancers, but it used to be 70% of my work was dance and 30% was high-performance sport, and that's swung the other way.

And I've always [00:05:00] wanted to keep the two because I love both. But yeah, now it's a lot more on that high-performance sports side. I've had quite an eclectic path but I hope that kind of explains what I do and who I am.

Rosy: Yeah, no, I think it does really well. And I think something that you've mentioned in your sort of trajectory and your research is very similar. I don't know how familiar you are with the pole dance research. I'm gonna assume not very. But very similarly, most of the work that's been to date d- been done to date is really on injury rates, how often is it happening, what's getting injured.

And the answer is a lot, and usually shoulders, at least for us. And there's been some stuff done on mental health. There's been some stuff done in sociology. But if you look at the literature for something like thinking about shoulders, something like baseball, right? A lot of it is on injury, but a lot of it is also on, okay, how do we really optimize performance for this, particular athletic endeavor?

Whereas if we look at the pole dance literature, we're just, not really there yet, right? There's this sort of [00:06:00] gap. And I think there is more in the dance literature that is focused a little bit more on performance. But my sort of observation, and I'd be really interested to hear if this is also what you've seen and also recommendations for people, working in the space and also students, is that when there's more a fringe physical activity usually the first studies we get are like, "Okay, here's how people get hurt," really for clinical practitioners to, to know about. And then maybe eventually, "Okay, now here's how to do it better," and, specific demands of the particular activity.

Siobhan: Yeah I think-- Oh, I think there's a few things there. So yeah, this is the similar thing with belly dance. So when I first wrote that paper that was still, I think apart from one paper in It was somewhere like Denmark. It was the first, I think it was the first English-speaking or English written paper anyway, that looked at anything that was I guess related to the kind of [00:07:00] biomechanical aspect of belly dance, but especially there was nothing prior to it on injury incidents or risk factors.

But I think the other thing I would say though is yes, there's, a lot of research looking at quote-unquote optimization or anything in other sports. But what I would say is when it comes to actual rehab, because l- like I have experience working in the rehab space as well, it's principles that apply anyway.

It's not specifi- not specifics. So it's not oh, the way I rehab a shoulder in baseball is the wa- is different to the way I rehab a shoulder in pole. But of course, we're looking at early stage rehab versus what we call return to play rehab, and sometimes even practitioners don't agree or don't understand the demands of what, like what we call return to play in sport is, and for you it's like return to pole, and especially like when we're talking about return to play, we're [00:08:00] talking about returning to like competitive demands. So this is gonna depend on like the type of pole athlete you have in front of you. So is it someone who is really it's their job, and they work in a club, and they need to be able to work every night for hours?

Or is it someone who is a competitive pole athlete that maybe only competes in competition once a month, but it's really short and it maybe has higher demands 'cause they're trying to meet X criteria in a judging criteria? You know what I mean? Yeah, like I would say in general though, we can still look to the other literature to guide us.

And it just depends what we're talking about. Are we talking about like the prevention or are we talking about management? Are we talking about return to competition? And yeah, this is, it's, it- it's principles that guide us rather than this is the one specific way.

Because even if you're looking at, say I often think of the lower limb stuff because like I, I'm a runner, and I work in a lot of sports where we're on the ground a lot or contacting with the ground. If you think of something like an [00:09:00] ACL injury your anterior cruciate ligament in your knee there'll be like 10, 12 different validated protocols for rehab.

But you don't, i- if you're an actual rehab practitioner, it's not like you have to follow that protocol to the T. You still have to work with the person in front of you, and this is the thing. Sorry, I think I've gone on a tangent now on the rehab side, but you can draw whatever questions you want out of me after this.

But yeah, I think this is always the thing. It's treat the, it's treat the symptoms in the athlete, it's not treat the injury.

Rosy: Yeah, no, I think that's all very relevant. The sort of the distinction between, getting back to whatever our normative demands are for the general population as opposed to what are the demands for, a specific activity that this particular person is going to be wanting to do.

Yeah, I think that's very relevant. And I have noticed that you whenever, for folks who are listening, whenever Siobhan says injury prevention is in little quote marks or inverted commas, whatever you would call it. [00:10:00] Yeah. And I know there's I don't know how much this is a regional thing, but I've certainly heard preventative conditioning exercise here in the United States called prehab instead of rehab.

And I would love to hear more about your sort of I don't know, what you wish that movers knew about preparing the body for an activity as opposed to repairing the body to return to an activity, let's say.

Siobhan: That question got me really excited, actually. Because I think, honestly I don't know how it is in the pole space. Maybe it's better in the pole space because I think people look at pole and know you need to be strong and meet some sort of physical demand. But I actually-- I was just watching a football game last week, like a soccer game.

I'm currently on a bit of a sabbatical year, and so I'm in Australia, and I was watching a recreational soccer game in Adelaide, and I was just looking, and I was thinking like, 'cause there's a real gap between what quality high-performance sport gets in terms of their strength and [00:11:00] conditioning versus amateur.

And even each level down, there's quite a big gap. But I was looking at them, and I was thinking, "Okay, if I came into this club, and I had to give-- I only had an hour to give them a presentation what would I tell them was the most important thing to prevent injury?" And then I got on this tangent thinking about, how would that apply to belly dancers, and how would I convince them?

Because I think a footballer, it's much easier to convince them, you need to be strong, you need to be fit, you need to be prepared. So I just wonder if pole is like that too, 'cause I think you look at pole, and you go, "Okay, you need to be strong and fit." But sometimes I find, especially in the belly dance sphere, because it's often advertised as this low impact, healing, safe, it sometimes gets drawn into all of this kind of- like woo-woo kind of stuff as well.

I think people don't recognize that being well physically prepared is still going to help you. But this is the big thing I would say when it comes to prehab in general is what I often see or what you often see on Instagram when it comes to prehab, it's [00:12:00] all of these low load m- motor pattern exercises where it's someone standing on one leg or on an upside down BOSU ball or moving a small band.

And the thing is, if you really wanna be prepared and able to handle load and force, you need to be strong. So this is the thing true prehab is going to be challenging. And not challenging in the sense of I have to touch my nose while I move my arm and I do this with my leg. It's gonna be challenging in terms of effort.

So that is the thing. And I think the other thing is there's two things that I've written about and posted about for belly dancers before, and one of them is stress or force through the joints is not the problem. It's actually the thing that's gonna help you. It's just getting the dosage right.

So there's that. It's you actually want a certain amount of stress to adapt. Yeah, so there's that. And then I think the other thing is the thing that made you injured is probably the thing you need to add [00:13:00] into your rehab program or your prehab program. I think a really, again, a really kind of common example or something we might have seen on Instagram is someone hurts their back deadlifting or something.

And it's probably not the deadlifts that were the problem. It's probably just all overall stresses in your cup have spilled over. And I say all because it's not just the loading, it's not just the weight that's on the bar. It's also have you slept enough? Have you-- Did you just snap?

Rosy: I did, yeah. 

Siobhan: I love that. Yes. It's also have you slept enough? Have you been eating enough? What's your life stress? All of those sorts of things. And then the other kind of tangent I go on with that is there's no one exercise that you have to do in a rehab process or have as part of your training process

But, if something hurt you and it's something you want to be able to do, it is gonna be part of the plan to get back as well.

Rosy: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a really great point. Those of y'all who have worked with me will know that, ... So I, I teach pole online, so I'm [00:14:00] obviously limited in what I can do to physically support people in movements and provide literal support in that way. And the thing that I'm always harping on, especially when we're doing conditioning, is the thing that we're working on in pole should be within our envelope of overall physical capacity.

You should be more than strong enough to do the thing before you start figuring out how to do it. And, you're able to pull in all the sort of weird motor learning stuff as you do a thing you've never asked your body to do before. 'Cause if you're right at or hopefully not a little bit past where your strength and flexibility is, that's going to be where you're gonna run into trouble that I can't help you with through the computer. 

Siobhan: I think that's a that's an interesting one too because-- So yeah I'm really into ultra-running I do quite a lot of like long distance running. So about four weeks ago I did five marathons in a row. And yes it's my type of fun. And I think it's also just remembering just because we go over our load [00:15:00] once, because when you do something like ultra-running, of course you're as prepared as possible and when I did this on my third day, I was still within my if you look at like acute chronic workload ratio, which is one of the ways we measure is what we are doing more than like our average capacity or our average work done in the last four weeks, is one of the ways we often look at it.

So three days in, what did I run? 48 plus 40 88 plus another 45 or something. Yeah, I don't know. I think I'd run 130 kilometers or something in three days. And on that third day, like I was still within, I guess what you'd call this envelope if we're like using acute chronic workload ratio is the way to look at it.

But of course it's not like I was running marathons every single day in my training either 'cause if you do that, you also don't, you don't survive your training. And it's also not necessarily like the way to get better at that sort of thing either. But I think it's also the thing of knowing that like- Going over your body's current capacity doesn't guarantee injury [00:16:00] either.

I think that's a thing I'm also pretty careful to talk about with athletes because that there are gonna be times that we push a little too far, and it doesn't always result in injury. There's a graphic I think I shared maybe on that post that you saw recently on one of the slides, and it's a proposal of injury mechanisms.

It's looking at internal factors, external factors, inciting events. It's quite an old one now, actually. I don't think it's the best one, but it's just a model looking at how injury occurs. And that- that's also the thing. Even if we do everything wrong, sometimes we don't get injured, and then sometimes we feel like we do everything right, and we still get injured and again, it's like, it's not just the strength or the have I practiced for that move? It's so many other things, and that's the hard thing is even in elite sport where we're trying to optimize, we cannot quantify everything because humans are so complex.

We're complex systems. We're interacting with our environment. We have the social element. We have the psychological element, And so I think that's just also the thing is making sure that if an [00:17:00] injury happens, it's not "Oh you weren't prepared enough." It's acknowledging that it's always gonna happen because I saw there's someone I just started following on Instagram.

I think he's called Meathead Rehab, which I thought was really funny, but he posts some really good takes. I think it was him, and he posted something about how, the only way to avoid injury is to do nothing, and I had to reply 'cause I was like, "But that's not true either," 'cause if you don't train at all, you decondition, and then you have no capacity.

And then you hurt yourself stepping off the curb or changing your bed sheets, so yeah, I just think again, injury is super complex and we can never say, "Oh, it came because I wasn't... it came from this one thing." Yeah. Yeah.

Rosy: I think that's a great point. I I don't know if you've seen this, but there'll be like challenges where people will ask like their dad to skip and they won't realize that at some point in, the last five, 10 years not having used the ability to skip at all, getting really deconditioned, losing that coordination, they can't do it anymore.

And they didn't realize that they [00:18:00] lost that ability 'cause they were never trying to do it.

Siobhan: I've seen a few recently of people trying to jump, and it's like that's also I think it's scary for people when it happens, but it's super inspiring seeing them actually learn how to jump again as well. I'm actually, I'm j- I'm enjoying this. I feel like this is becoming more of a trend now on social media, like people showing their progress at age 70, 80, things like that.

And actually, I just had a conversation with two friends about this on the weekend because one of my friends is 33, and the other one's 25, and they were saying, even the 25-year-old, which I found funny. They were saying they feel like, "Oh, yeah, but now that I'm older I can slip into this this thought pattern of, oh, but it's just harder 'cause I'm older."

And then they said, "I've realized it's not. It's 'cause I stopped doing things." And I said to both of them, I was like, "Yeah, I think, I obviously know all the research, but I also have the benefit of the experiential practice of having worked with [00:19:00] people in their 80s and seeing them..."

I worked in a breast cancer clinic for about 18 months after my undergrad, and I, I had an 80-year-old woman who doubled her bench press, and I now do this thing called Dance Strong for dancers, and I had a, think it was a 72-year-old woman recently who went from zero pushups to 10.

So I, not only do I know the research, but I've seen it happen, and I think that is also a benefit when you see it. It also inspires you and keeps you going, 

Rosy: It's easy to forget how plastic humans are, especially 'cause I know that a lot of the sort of learning research is done on school-aged people and, college students 'cause they're around where researchers are. Yeah, and it's easy to forget that, a lot of changes between 20 and 40 are, like, your lifestyle probably changed pretty dramatically.

I should know this off the top of my head. I think you start to see more noticeable changes to sarcopenia in the around 70. It's older than people think. You probably actually know the 

Siobhan: don't, I don't [00:20:00] remember the exact... Yeah, I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head. But it's also interesting now looking at the research from the last few years 'cause they talk about the rate of strength and muscle loss after age 30. That's where the big drop-off starts to happen.

But they, there's a lot of research now looking that if you keep training, that can get delayed till age 50. 'Cause that's the thing. The drop-off is still gonna happen, but you can really delay it, and you can still also build strength and muscle again, because they're not exactly tied either, although for the general population they mostly are.

But you can still build it at any age as well, and I think that's the big thing- And it's, I think, yeah, it's just a big thing of what I do is trying really hard to not let people get caught up on, "Oh, but I should've started earlier," or, "Oh, but I need to do more." And it's like just start and just start with what you can.

Because again, I think the thing that's difficult with social media and also the podcasting sphere, and it's interesting 'cause I have a podcast too and then sometimes I [00:21:00] listen to these other podcasts, I'm like, "Oh, man," like it's just so easy for anyone to jump on a mic now, and like the stuff that people say and it g- and it gets so And again, maybe I see more of this because I'm in the sports, like I'm really in that sports side, but you see a lot of these podcast bros who are like talking about their 5:00 AM morning routine with the 27 steps and the blah, blah, blah, and it's just so big on like optimization.

And I'm like, like I literally work with Olympians, and like even at the elite level, like of course we're trying to optimize, but the biggest thing is just being consistent. It's just showing up. So that is the thing I try to push forward to the dancers I work with as well. It's like just find what you can keep doing, and if all that is like five minutes a day or like you put on a song at the beginning of your dance practice and you do some like squats and calf raises, that is going to be better than nothing.

Yeah, sorry Rosy, I'm getting real passionate about this subject.

Rosy: nothing to apologize for. Yeah, and I think that's such a wonderful [00:22:00] takeaway for folks, right? Anything is gonna be better than nothing, and just do what you can keep up. I would rather have you come to class and give me 10% once a week than 100% once every two months.

Siobhan: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's an interesting one too, just thinking from like a class participation perspective. I'm also very happy for people to come to my class and sit down when they need to or watch if things are too much. And I know some people don't feel that way but yeah, just thinking about making our classes accessible for people, that's also something I'm keen on.

Rosy: Yes. Yes, and that is, Yes. Definitely something that I know can be challenging. There is quite a bit of more now than there used to be there's overlap between US studio, ballet, tap, jazz, dance culture, moving into pole spaces a little bit. And particularly ballet tends to be very regimented very authoritative, very, a focus on conformity and, doing exactly this.

And I work with sorry to my students, y'all know it's [00:23:00] true, adult weirdos, right? If we, I shouldn't speak for everybody, but if I could get my exercise needs met through normie means and I'd actually stick with it I'd... that would be easier

Than than putting up a pole in my house.

But it is what it is. 

Siobhan: Yeah, and that's a, that's also a ... Maybe this is something where the pole athletes are similar to the Rakshaki dancers because I have a lot of people come to me who are like, "I don't like strength training, but I know I have to do it." And I think that is also a thing. It's yeah, if I w- if I were to be extremely honest with everyone, you need to be doing some form of resistance training to support your pole.

But it's again working out how you do it. I- I think it's also okay to recognize I need to go to a group fitness class because I need to do something social, or I need to do this only in five minutes at home on my living room floor. Or, I actually wanna go and lift the heavy weights, so I'm gonna go and work with someone.

It's again, don't get caught up on what's the best way. Work out the way that's actually gonna work for you so that you get it done.[00:24:00] 

Rosy: absolutely. And, feel free to quilt it together, right? What are the things that are gonna work best for you? Again, I know for me I don't have a ton of weights at home. I got some but I'm getting, more calisthenics-based resistance training, which I will say, less efficient.

Takes more time to get the same amount of strength building, but I'm also working on building my proprioception. I'm working on building range of motion. A lot of it translates pretty directly to pole. So for me, that makes a lot of sense even though, again, it's, if I were going to a gym and lifting weights, I would get stronger faster.

I know this. I just don't do it. It's not for

Siobhan: Yeah, and I th- yeah, again, I think it's better to just get it done. And I think the other thing that some of us sometimes talk about is everything we're doing is totally made up. Like we created the squat and the bench press and the deadlift. It's not God came down one day and was like, "Here are the Holy Trinity of exercises."

That, that is also what I mean when I say it, there's no one required exercise. But I think yeah you [00:25:00] often get to a point where it's okay I need to keep pushing more, so how do I add it? But even with calisthenics it's going, okay, maybe I'm gonna hold something for a longer amount of time, or maybe I'm gonna elevate something or invert something.

It's just... or maybe I'm gonna get a TRX to rig up somewhere in my house. It's just, making sure that you can challenge yourself as you go. But a- again, even if you did something like calisthenics and you got to a level that you're just maintaining rather than progressing, you're still gonna be better off than someone who's not doing any strength training at all, 

Rosy: yeah. Yeah, and it's we all know it's good for us. We all know we should do it. So then the question really becomes: how do we actually do it? Especially... Okay.

Siobhan: Sorry, I'm just getting

Rosy: No, go ahead.

Siobhan: That's you saying the, about the we should do it, because I also think, And again, I don't, I just wonder if this resonates with the pole community more than it does with rakshee, 'cause I think rakshee can still be quite feminine and dainty and delicate.

And I'm not [00:26:00] saying that pole isn't, but I think pole maybe values strength more and feats of athleticism. And this is the thing I think strength training is so empowering. I feel like such a badass when I'm in the gym lifting more than the men around me, and that's not why I go to the gym, but it's hilarious to go into, especially if I'm, if I'm lifting in a, an Olympic gym, I'm actually one of the smallest, weakest ones there.

But if I go into if I go into a commercial gym and I start lifting, you just see sometimes these heads turn "What is she doing?" And it's quite a, I don't know. I think as a woman, like for myself it's really empowering to feel strong. And I think maybe that's the hard thing as well, when you start strength training, you feel really weak for the first few weeks.

But it's like anything, if you stick at it yeah. I just think it feels powerful, and I love that.

Rosy: No I agree. Noticing yourself getting stronger is such a wonderful feeling. Yeah, and it's the feeling weak. And I think there's also, I don't know, sometimes I think about it as being, like, body stupid, right? You're [00:27:00] still ch- you're doing the motor learning, right? You're figuring out, what is this supposed to feel like?

Even those of y'all who do my conditioning classes know that I will often give you a lot of bunch of different exercises that we rotate through. And when we come back to it, sometimes it'll feel so much easier the second time, and you can f- pick a harder variation 'cause you're doing that organization.

But that's also... It's okay to feel body stupid. It's okay to do things that are hard for your body and hard for your brain, and isn't mastery part of the fun?

Siobhan: I've never heard the term body stupid, and I really like it because I just did my first Olympic weightlifting competition on the weekend, and I did it as a bit of a side quest after my big run a month ago. And I've done little bits of Olympic weightlifting, so this is clean and jerk and snatch, where you have to throw the barbell overhead.

I've done little bits, but yeah, I think body stupid is the best way to describe how I was feeling the last few weeks. And also, what it makes me think of is it's so interesting always how... I think [00:28:00] even with a lot of things I'm quite big on letting people just explore movement and play to learn because what I often see is people over-cuing.

And of course we have I think in pole you have so many technical things, and it's the same thing with, say, Olympic weightlifting, which I actually teach I've just never really done myself. Olympic weightlifting is very technical. There's very technical models. But I cannot, go to someone and be like, "Okay, now turn your feet out, and now do this, and engage your traps, and do this, and pull this, and this, and now go."

'Cause you cannot... even there's heaps of studies looking at even advanced learners, that they can't hold onto more than two cues at once when they're learning a skill. And I think there's so much to just letting people watch something and play with it until it starts to click a bit and then giving them a bit more feedback.

And I don't know where the current literature is on something belly dancers used to say a lot was like, "Oh, if you learn this skill wrong, it's gonna be almost impossible to [00:29:00] relearn and unlearn it." And I just don't believe that's true, having worked with so many movers over the years who we've had points where we've gone, "Okay, we're gonna totally change the way you serve" or, "We're gonna change the way you do this now."

I think the danger of learning it wrong and having to relearn is not as high as people think it is when we just let people play and try and self-organize. So yeah, like, when I was preparing for this competition, in the week lead up I did it in Adelaide. I met with a friend who's a weightlifting coach, and he's a great coach.

He started giving me a whole lot of cues and I said I really cannot take any of this in, and I need you to tell me one thing and let me go." And so we just decided we're not... 'Cause of course he also works with a different technical model to one of my... What my friend in the Netherlands is the Dutch national weightlifting coach.

So different technical models. And yeah, he just said, "Okay, we're, all we're gonna, all we're gonna focus on is, like- Lock out and [00:30:00] we're gonna focus on this one other thing, and yeah, I was really glad 'cause he understands eye coach movement too. He respected that I was like, "I cannot take all of these cues."

But yeah, it worked better when I wasn't thinking as well. So just letting that process happen sometimes is interesting.

Rosy: Yeah, that is really interesting. And also definitely something that I I work on as a teacher. And especially for pole, the first thing I'm looking for is, are your legs and arms in roughly the right places? If you're spinning, are you spinning the right direction, right? If you're trying to go into the pole are you getting stuck?

And then fine-tuning from there. But there's also definitely a difference between the cues I'm giving you are things I'm reminding you of that you already know to do. For handstands, I know to put my ribs in, right? I just might need you to tell me that I'm not doing it right now.

Whereas if I'm doing something entirely new micro-adjust something is not gonna be helpful if my elbow's on the wrong side of the pole, right? That's the thing to fix first. Get that sort of big template down and [00:31:00] then narrow. Yeah. I think that's a really really important to keep in mind when learning new skills.

And it's hard for a mixed-level class as well. Sometimes I'll be like, "Hey, I'm going to say something right now that's not gonna be relevant to everybody. If it's not for you, ignore it." Don't think about it. Throw it out. Maybe come back to it later. Yeah. Yeah.

Siobhan: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's also super interesting as a teacher we have to work out the different ways to coach for different minds, so there'll be some things like again, this will sound silly in my accent when I say left versus so I'm saying left as in the opposite of right.

Some people need to hear oh, it's left left and other people need to hear one, two, and up. And other people need me to be like, "I'm shifting my weight here and I'm doing this," or, "I feel this." Or just me singing something with the music. I think that's always a good thing for us to think about as teachers as well is okay, if the way I explained it didn't work for that brain, like, how else can I explain this?

Yeah.

Rosy: And I think that's a great point about, you mentioned earlier accessibility and making things [00:32:00] more, more approachable for more people as well, right? I ... This is something I've noticed particularly with teachers who are, like, fabulous movers and have, absolutely wonderful, beautiful movers, and they remember the cue that worked for them.

And they were coming into the movement already with such a strong vocabulary, with so much strength, with so much understanding of their body that sometimes it can be hard for them to be like, "No, sometimes people forget they have feet. We gotta take it down many notches.
Siobhan: that's so funny. Yeah. I think especially with the really technical things, like this I was just thinking when I was warming up for this competition on Saturday my friend Tyler, who was handling me like I, I did a clean and jerk o- out the back on the warmup platform, and he was like he was like, "Yeah, you just need to catch it lower."

I was like yep. I'll catch the jerk lower." And I did it, finished it. I was like, didn't catch it lower. And it's just you like y- you just forget about, you're thinking about one thing and then everything else goes, and yeah, with [00:33:00] layering and belly dancing, so layering is, again, I don't know if you use similar terms or not, but like layering is say, we're shimmying in the hips and we're moving with the feet and we're maybe doing something with the arms.

Often with beginners or intermediates when you start to add a layer, one of the other layers fall off. And like another thing I notice is when people are moving arms and one starts to drop, it's like this one just vanishes. Like it's yeah it's super interesting in the new learners when you see a body part just disappear from their brain.

Rosy: Yeah, it's just like it was the least important process, and the computer's

Siobhan: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Rosy: that." Yeah. Yeah, as long as it's the, not the one that's holding you on the pole 

Siobhan: yeah. Exactly. You've got a different challenge there compared to

Rosy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right I know you got a thing right after this, so I wanna make sure I'm being mindful of your time.

I got one more question. I know you talked about the misconception that like it's an issue to lo- load the joint with forces. That's, you do wanna be doing that to, to progress and become [00:34:00] stronger.

But other than that, what do you think the most common misconception in dancers about training, prehab, rehab, bodies, exercise science? What do you come across a lot that you would love to clear the air on?

Siobhan: Yeah. Oh fascinating So I think I'm still thinking primarily from the Raaksashee and kind of fusion belly dance side. But I think the most common thing I probably still see is related to posture. So this belief that there's one perfect posture and especially that pelvic tilt is an issue that needs to be fixed.

And it's really hard because even for myself, like, when I first started out, and like I say, I wasn't as experienced of a practitioner that was something that I talked about, too, because also aesthetically in, in Raaksashee we are trying not to have a massive anterior pelvic tilt because it also makes it harder to do things like our stomach rolls or harder to layer certain [00:35:00] things.

So you are often actively trying to tilt the pelvis a certain way. But I think the big thing is what happens in the Raaksashee and fusion belly dance community is they conflate aesthetic goals with injury prevention or management, and it's like some of those things we're doing, we're just doing them really because it makes it technically easier for us to execute a move, or it makes something look better.

And then people sell it as, "Oh, and it's gonna protect your back," or something like that, and that's really not the case from the research. There is no one perfect posture. Something like 80 to 90%, I can't remember the exact number now, of people have anterior pelvic tilt and have what would be referred to as a sway back.

None of these things are things that are wrong or need to be corrected. So I think, yeah, I think the biggest one is probably posture and believing that posture contributes more to injury risk than it actually does. Oh,[00:36:00] 

Rosy: Yeah, definitely something that you'll, you run across in the pole and other other sort of dance spheres as well. I know Falcon, if you're listening, we were talking about posture relatively recently in one of my classes. Doesn't only come up in, in belly dance and the fusion community.

Siobhan: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's pervasive for sure.

Rosy: And before we wrap up, if folks wanted to follow you, learn more about you, listen to your podcast,

Siobhan: Yeah.

Rosy: I know you, you mentioned your Stronger for Belly Dance six-week program, any of that stuff, where should they look?

Siobhan: Yeah. Yeah, sure. If people are interested in my dance-related stuff, it's I'm Greenstone Dance Arts. That's the name of the company that I run. So I'm www.greenstone.dance. If people are more interested in my strength and conditioning work on the athletic performance side, I'm this is a little trickier with my name, but I'm www.siobhan-

I think you call it an M dash, milner.com. So S for Sierra, [00:37:00] I-O-B-H-A-N, dash M for mother, I-L-N for, I don't know, Nina, E-R dot com. We'll have it somewhere in the notes, I'm sure. But yeah, I run the Dance Strong six-week online challenge for dancers. I also offer rolling general physical preparation programs in the gym for dancers, so that's www.greenstone.dance/gym to check those out.

But yeah. And you can find me on Instagram at Greenstone Dance Arts or at Siobhan.Milner.

Rosy: Uh, All of those links will be down there in the show notes. And I'll also... i'll link your paper, although as you mentioned some caveats there that if you were writing it today, perhaps you might have a different discussion, 

Siobhan: yeah, and I'm super happy to answer questions and talk to people about it as well.

Rosy: Yeah. Fantastic. All right. Thanks so much for joining me today, Siobhan. Thank you so much to all of you for listening. I hope you've taken some nuggets of wisdom to take with you on your way. And I will talk to you in the next episode. Goodbye.

Siobhan: Thanks for having [00:38:00] me.

Randi Fentress
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Exercise Science 101: Build Strength for Pole Dance Without Weights