Flamenco Dance Posture

How you hold and use your body in flamenco is very important.

Even if you dance in the raw, earthy gitana (gypsy) style (which means you're more likely to be bending forward and swaying your hips), you need good underlying posture to avoid looking sloppy. Lack of good posture means lack of power!

The following exercises will help you get the feel of what good posture is.

Stand up, ready to dance. Is your butt sticking out?

Pull in your tummy muscles and bring it into line. If you’re not sure where your butt should be, try standing up against a wall. If you’re sticking your bottom out, it will hit the wall before the rest of you! Dancing in this position can cause lower back pain, as well as more serious problems. So it pays to work on training your pelvis to stay in the right place.

Some teachers tell you to “tuck your pelvis under”, but if that means clenching your buttocks, it will inhibit your leg action and make it hard to get your upper body in the right place. Your pelvis should be neither sticking out nor tucked under.

If you’re having trouble working out where that is, lie down on your back and rock your pelvis between the two extremes until you can work out where the halfway point is. That’s called “neutral pelvis” and that’s where you want to hold it.

To get your upper body right, you really need a mirror. Stand sideways to the mirror with your feet hip distance apart and your weight evenly balanced, knees straight but slightly soft (not locked), back straight, pelvis held correctly (see exercise above), your neck long and your shoulders relaxed.

Note, I don’t say “shoulders back” at this point. Forcing your shoulders back can cause injury as well as resulting in an unnatural carriage of the head.

Now, holding tight with your stomach muscles so your pelvis doesn’t sneak out of line, lift your breastbone to the ceiling. If you’re a woman, it can help to get the idea if you take hold of the middle of your bra and pull forward and up.

You’re now in perfect flamenco dance posture!

Just a reminder - please don’t be tempted to exaggerate the back bend. It’s true that you’ll see many professionals doing it, but (a) they started very, very young and (b) they’ll probably have a bad back by the time they retire, if they don’t have back pain already.

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If you like this article, read more at my flamenco website, Dress for Flamenco.

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All text copyright Marisa Wright. Bourbon cafe photo by Icyfrance. Head and shoulders photos by Andrea Balducci. Belen Maya photo by Giles Larrain on Wikimedia Commons.