After Gray Maynard's exclusive revelations of his ballet past, how cage warriors are now using pirouettes for punch power and adding some grace to their game.
Ballet might not be something you’ve ever bothered to look at for more than five minutes, although the prospect of Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis’ bedroom grappling did make Black Swan very appealing...
But if it’s possible to shift your attention away from the image of Miss Portman’s derriere in tights – I’ll give you a minute – take a closer look at the guys charged with giving her cheeks their airtime.
They’re muscled like gymnasts, and any athlete with the cojones to don kit so tight it becomes religion-revealing, who can chuck a 143lb person in the air, is worth stealing a few training secrets from.
Some impressive all-round athletes have already used it to improve their sports performance. The most notable is the legendary Herschel Walker, the former NFL running back and fifth-degree taekwondo black belt.
In 2010 he made his debut in Strikeforce’s heavyweight division, winning both his bouts via TKO, all at the tender age of 48.
Yet it’s a little known fact that Walker trained in ballet and even performed with the world-renowned Fort Worth Ballet Company.
"I studied ballet for 10 years. I originally got in ballet for my martial arts to develop my flexibility. After doing it for a couple of months I realized it was more about my flexibility. Ballet is the same as martial arts, it's an art,” reveals Walker. “People who do ballet are very strong and poised and that's why it was brilliant to me. It really helped me out a great deal. Just like sports, you have to have a high concentration level in ballet.
In football, you read your teammates. In ballet it's reading your partner.
"My flexibility increased and so did my leg strength because of the way you walk in ballet. You stretch your groin in ballet in ways that you don't do in martial arts. Also, my core strength increased a great deal because of the way you have to stand: you're upright, your back is straight and you have to have good posture which improves the core.”
Blending flexibility, power and speed with technique is a sure-fire way to win any athletic smack-down. For Walker, ballet was no exception and he's received standing ovations at the end of his performances both on the ballet stage and in the cage. Even Walker's teammates showed respect for his dedication at trying to improve as an athlete.
“I thought I'd get more heat from my teammates about doing it but they knew I studied it when I was in college, everyone knew I was a little bit different,” says Walker.
“They knew I'd take on lots of different challenges and was never embarrassed about what I did because it was making me a better person and a better athlete. I try to tell people it's okay to be different.”
That’s the kind of respect you can expect after your next fight if you improve those aspects of your game. And ballet is a very cultured way of doing it.
The demands and risks
What makes an athlete hardcore? It’s safe to say that a large part of it involves overcoming dangers and opponents to conquer physical challenges and excel. But do ballet dancers meet these requirements? Well, even though ballet dancers – the guys are called ballerinos – look happy on stage, their overall fitness and physical workload is actually far greater than that of respected athletes like Olympic swimmers, found a study at the University of Hertfordshire, England.
The study looked at a range of ‘fitness’ testing including strength, endurance, balance, flexibility and psychological state amongst others, so that an individual ‘fitness profile’ could be created.
The biggest difference? Ballet dancers had a grip strength that was 25% stronger than swimmers. So using ballet to cross train means you’re opponent won’t be able to wriggle out of your mitts so easily.
And a big part of the ballerino's job is to put on a happy face while doing their sport – somebody should’ve suggested that to Jon Fitch during his GSP fight.
And if you still think it’s a sport for sissies then you may want to reconsider. Swan Lake might not sound like a tough opponent but it’s pretty devastating to the body. Professional ballet dancers get hurt just as often and suffer just as serious injuries as athletes in full contact sports, found research at the University of Washington.
The injury rate for ballet dancers over an eight-month period was 61%. This is comparable to rates found in other studies for athletes in collision sports such as rugby, MMA and wrestling.
“We think ballet dancers are as vulnerable as contact athletes because ballet is a very pressure-packed activity with a tremendous amount of competition,” says Ronald Smith, the study researcher.
“We found that it is a combination of three factors – loss or lack of focus, worrying and physical anxiety – that puts dancers at risk for getting hurt.” That means that not only are ballet dancers fitter than Olympians but they’re under extreme mental pressure and risk of getting injured as much as any Octagon regular.
And another study in the journal Research in Sports Medicine found that the intensity of MMA is only fractionally higher than ballet because MMA works more of your smaller supporting muscles.
The researchers suggest that MMA is in fact the ideal cross training tool for ballet dancers to strengthen these supporting muscles and reduce their injury rate.
So, coming back to whether or not ballet is hardcore, you need to ask if it’s competitive? Yes. Physically demanding? Yes.
Carry a high risk of injury? Yes. Hardcore? A big 'yes’.
That means you might not actually be as tough as you think if you’re not doing it.
Here are some of the things ballet can do for your physique and how you can use them to your own advantage when your gloves come on.
Strength
The kind of strength that MMA demands is not the same as the muscle heads in iron pumping train for. “You don’t want to do anything slowly, we need to teach our muscles to move quickly and accurately,” says UFC hall of famer Randy Couture.
Even research in The Journal of Sports Medicine ranked ballet as the most physically and mentally challenging of 61 examined activities, beating bullfighting and even football for the top spot.
So it’s probably the toughest sport that’s not actually a sport.
And it’s one that needs muscles to move explosively by jumping into the air or throwing a partner towards the rafters.
In MMA those jumps are usually coupled with a kick and those throws are followed by takedowns. So using it in cross-training to get yourself or another person airborne is going to have a positive effect upon each discipline. “I started ballet in my early 20s,” says Walker.
“It is probably the one of the hardest things I've done, almost like MMA. People don't give it a lot of credit and think it's easy but it's very difficult. For an athlete, you use muscles you really don't use and ballet is something I really respect."
You can use the explosive strength aspect of ballet to boost the power of your entire body.
Sarah Kaufman, Strikeforce’s former welterweight champion and number-two ranked female fighter according to the unified women's MMA rankings, turned her back on a possible dancing career to become a full-time fighter but still uses ballet to assist with her overall conditioning. Here are some of her favorite ballet strength moves for MMA:
1: Plié to improve general explosiveness
Why? “This is a ballet fundamental that teaches you how to properly use your feet and legs which will increase the speed and height you can jump,” says Kaufman.
Stand with your feet turned out in opposite directions.
While holding onto a bar or chair for support, take a deep breath, then drop down as low as you can, pushing your knees out and over your pointed-out toes. Take three seconds to dip down and three seconds to come back to the start. Do three sets of 15 reps.
2: Sauté jump to improve takedowns
Why? “This move has you lengthening everything, starting at the top of your body down to your toes,” says Kaufman.
“It involves very fast intricate movements by switching body position rapidly which is good for lower-body explosiveness.”
Stand in the same position that you did during the plié. Bend your knees and explode upward while keeping your arms out to your sides.
Point your toes towards the ground and straighten your legs in the air before you land. Do three sets of 10 reps.
2: Scissors to improve pain endurance
Why? “This strengthens your abs and legs so you can absorb punches and kicks from the ground,” says Kaufman.
Lie on your back, on an exercise mat, and put your legs straight up.
Turn your feet so that the soles face upward to the ceiling. Put your legs into a 'V' shape and tense your abs. Cross your right leg in front of your left leg in a smooth motion. Do the same with the left leg. Do three sets of 10 reps.
Balance and core strength
You might not want to ever see yourself banging out pirouettes but the secret behind them is a mix of strength and balance.
In MMA, balance is very much at the root of getting your arm lifted at the end of a fight, especially when you consider that he who is left standing is very often the winner. Kicks, punches and defense all demand you to be strong on your feet and that comes from solid core strength.
Both sports rely heavily on knowing at all times where your body is in space (proprioception) and then reacting quickly to get it in the right space. In ballet that’s done in the name of art but in MMA that’s done in the name of pain – avoiding it or causing it.
“Balance is a huge part of ballet and MMA,” says Kaufman. “Both involve being on one foot while the other foot is on the ground or in the air. You have to be able to isolate each leg and be solid on the supporting leg while the other is moving.
This means it’s important to know where your joints are in space because ballet and MMA can be disorienting.”
Core strength and balance is what adds grace and fluidity to both sports and you can cross train with either to improve.
Even Arnold Schwarzenegger can be seen doing it at the start of his infamous bodybuilding movie Pumping Iron to practice creating a smooth transition between his stage poses. And practising that kind of poised movement is what can improve your stability in the Octagon.
A study in the Journal of Athletic Research got ballet dancers to do the moves below and found that it not only reduced their incidence of injury but also improved their overall balance. Add them to your usual core training and balance routine to move like a ballerino and give injuries a kick in the face.
Ankle Strengthening
Lie face-up on the ground with your legs stretched out in front of you and get your training partner to hold onto your foot – to be courteous you may want to wash them first.
There are four sections to this sets so follow these steps.
Step 1: Keep your leg raised off the ground and point your toes to the ground with your partner resisting this movement for three seconds.
Step 2: Point your toes towards your shins with your partner resisting. Do this for three seconds.
Step 3: Move your foot to the left with your partner resisting for three seconds.
Step 4: Move your foot to the right with your partner resisting for three seconds.
That’s one set, do 10 sets all at once or one at a time. Do both drills three times a week.
Proprioception Training
For this drill you’ll need a wobble board and a chair. Sit on the chair with the wobble board under your feet so your knees are bent to 90 degrees. Keeping your feet in constant contact with the wobble board, rotate it as far clockwise then as far anti-clockwise as you can for three sets of one minute. The researchers found that this improves the range of motion in your ankles, limits injury and improves overall balance.
Fitness and endurance
Both disciplines require to you to go flat out for a brief periods of times. But the ability to do this only comes with hours of training.
Ballet dancers are on average 25–30% fitter in a cardiovascular sense than the average Joe, found research in Physical Therapy Review.
It’s not just their muscles that are in good nick, their lungs also have to be able to keep up. Further research in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that the average ballet dancer’s V02max – a marker for cardiovascular fitness and lung health – was comparable to endurance athletes like cyclists.
So if you put all the throwing and jumping around aside, then a ballet class will serve you as well as a sparring session and will be much more MMA specific than slugging it out on the treadmill.
Equally, MMA training would boost a ballet dancer's fitness thanks to the high-octane interval training most coaches adopt to improve endurance and fitness.
Flexibility and injury
In both games you’ll get nowhere if you can’t drop down and do the splits. In MMA, inflexibility will tame your chances of wiggling out of locks and likely to make you tap out earlier. On the ballet stage it’s essential to pleasing the crowd by jumping up from the splits.
Research in The American Journal of Sports Medicine found that ballet dancers do in fact have far bigger ranges of motion than anyone else and are indeed very flexible, particularly in their hips and ankles. Fortunately, this extra flexibility didn’t contribute to the likelihood of getting injured found the study. So if your ankles and hips are areas that you have trouble stretching or strengthening, then try a ballet class each week to shore them against injury.
This crossover works both ways with Gennadi Saveliev, a soloist with the American Ballet Theater and founder of Youth America Grand Prix ballet competition, using MMA to improve his overall conditioning. “Martial arts is something I’ve always been attracted to so I signed up to MMA school,” says Gennadi. “It’s very physical but it’s different from ballet with new physicality and new muscles.
The balance, co-ordination and flexibility can help me escape my lack of MMA technique.”
So if you’re a ballet dancer or MMA fighter in need of suppleness then switch between the two to become more flexi than a Slinky.
And if you’re looking to protect your lower half against injury then it could do just as much good as your physio. “Ballet is ideal for strengthening the feet, ankles, knees and hips,” says Kaufman.
“When I was doing a lot of ballet I never had a single injury. I could roll my ankles and the tendons and ligaments were so strong they wouldn't even get stretched out. Equally, my knees were also extremely strong at unusual angles.” Imagine the grappling confidence you’ll have going into the ring with joints that are tap-out proof.
The verdict
Ballet can be intimidating but it’s something you can learn with some expert tuition, which is available in just about every neighbourhood.
The best part? You don’t need many skills or equipment to get involved. Simply turn up in a pair of long legged 'skins' and a pair of shorts, which is pretty much your usual training gear and get started.
The big difference is that ballet is you against yourself while MMA is you against your opponent. The most difficult choice is deciding which one is tougher.
> MMA fights that should have been a ballet
Anderson Silva vs Demian Maia (UFC 112)
This was more like a high-school dance recital than a fight anyone would willingly part with their cash to see. There was so much unnecessary bobbing and weaving from Silva that the ref gave them both a chastising and Dana White even issued an apology to the fans.
Silva has still continued his 13-fight winning streak so maybe this was one he didn’t want to ruffle his tutu for.
Mirko 'Cro Cop' vs Frank Mir (UFC 119)
Perhaps one of them had a case of halitosis but these two – normally explosive – fighters pranced around like a pair of fairies.
It was hailed as one of the worst fights in history and White didn’t even award the 'Knockout of the Night' bonus, even though Cro Cop was leveled with a solid nut-cracking knee.
Ken Shamrock vs Royce Gracie (UFC 5)
Fortunately this bout is dusted deep in the archives of MMA history because watching grass grow would more exciting.
They held each other in a loving embrace for the full 30-minute time limit so it’s not the kind of thing you’d want anyone to walk in on you watching. The Nutcracker Suite would have been far more brutal.
> Back from the dead
Got persistent backache? Ballet could be your new chiropractor. Research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that 12 weeks of dance training improved skiers’ joint mobility, range of hip motion and spinal flexibility. The subjects also experienced 67% less back pain after the training. According to the study, any type of dance that forces you to balance can help. The skiers in the study performed modern or jazz dance or ballet. For your next date night, convince your missus you want to take up one of these as a class with her, she’ll never suspect you’re actually cross training for your next fight.
It beats the hell out of yawning through another rom-com.
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