Breathing & Ballet
working with a stiff diaphragm (and a stiff life?)
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“Suck in your ribs!”
If you were told the following, what would you instinctively do? As a seven-year-old in ballet class, we were told this repeatedly. How did it look in my body? I sucked in my belly and learned how to breathe with the constriction.
Unlike gymnasts who purposefully flare their ribs (think about how a gymnast looks when they land), dancers are supposed pull their ribs in. It’s something I know how to do now (thanks Pilates!), but as a child it’s confusing.
My ballet teacher had a Russian accent, even though she was born and raised in Wisconsin. The Russian accent came out when she was upset. One time she kicked a bar over, which led to an enormous bang. All eighteen of us in our sheer pale blue leotards and pale pink tights dropped the bar we were returning the wall to turn around and face her. She said, “See? This is what happens if you don’t pay attention!”
I actually didn’t mind her—I even kind of liked her. She confused me, though. She was the first person to say “suck in your ribs.” She said it to all of us as well as individually. It was a command and we all tried to follow it.
Once I hit puberty, I was already an expert at holding in my belly, even if I didn’t have much of one to hold in. I was wearing an invisible corset. It’s not that I thought I was fat—it was just what I was taught to do—by society, by ballet teachers, by peers. Allowing a girl to breathe fully? No way, babe.
I recently started acupuncture again and she told me my diaphragm was stiff. What the fuck? She had me breathe through my belly and I realized how difficult it was—how almost painful with discomfort it felt.
I don’t know how to breathe correctly. Shit.
I don’t know how to be in my body. Fuck.
I don’t know what I’m feeling, most of the time, just that I’m feeling something and I don’t like it. Shit. Fuck. Shit. (cap moon)
In ballet, breath cues happen, but they’re often mentioned metaphorically. When a teacher wants you to extend a movement—a leg in an arabesque, for example—you are told to exhale through the extension. Inhale on the prep (the plie), exhale on the extension. When you’re seven, you don’t fully understand what this means. When you’re thirteen, you’re too used to just sucking in and taking tiny breaths to change anything. Finally, when you’re eighteen and you quit ballet because you’re going to college, you don’t remember how to breathe fully through your diaphragm.
Now, at nearly 40, my poor diaphragm is stiff and pleading with me to expand.
Long-term sucking in has a name: Stomach Gripping, or Hourglass Syndrome. Dr. Browning writes: “The muscles of the upper abdomen become hypertonic, or tight, and the muscles of the lower abdomen become weak and underused.” When stomach gripping, your body is using the following muscles: upper rectus abdominis, internal obliques, transversus abdominis, and the diaphragm. Dr. Browning also writes: “In each case, the muscles you contract increase intraabdominal pressure and push your lungs and stomach contents higher into your rib cage.” This can contribute to back/neck pain, pelvic floor issues, and breathing problems.
Essentially, I’ve been training my stomach muscles into dysfunction.
It’s a lesson in letting go—letting my stomach out, letting it do its thing, letting it be.
When you’re not used to diaphragmatic breathing, it can feel really uncomfortable. I’ve been working on this for weeks now and it still feels strange to me. I question, “Am I doing this right?” My lack of trust in my body stems decades and contains multitudes. I am used to relying on authoritative figures to tell me if my body is doing something “correctly.” Rarely have I thought, “Ah yes, body, my body, you know what you are doing, thank you.” I’m trying to get there, though.
I’d like to actually breathe. I’d like to feel that expanse and release. Rigidity is more familiar to me—more comfortable. Before I move into my 40th year in December, I hope to have a fuller breath, a fuller life.
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This song:
I took ballet as an adult, and I never understood that cue. It made me stiffer and more tense than I already was.
I never took dance as a kid, but I was still always told to “suck it in,” despite the fact that I was a skinny kid until well into adulthood. Now as an adult with a lot more weight and much worse asthma, breathing is so difficult for me. I hope it becomes easier for both of us with practice 🖤