Warming Up

With all other sports, dance requires the dancer to do a thorough warm up before beginning routines or class. Warm up usually starts with stretching. You have to do a series of stretches in order to get your muscles able to move with your body as you dance. If you do not stretch you  have the potential to tear a muscle by stretching it too fast without the proper warm up. Every muscle in the body is used during dance so the average class has almost an hour set aside to stretch and warm up. The warm up may include crunches or sit ups because the core of the body is worked extremely hard during dance. It may also include in place pirouettes and leaps across the floor. Basically, the class consists of the small parts of dance that come together to form the whole dance.