190. The Gift of Injury: Lessons from Professional Dancer Hannah Teutscher

Episode 190: Interview with Hannah Teutscher

Dr. Chelsea: Would you want to know that your last time onstage was the last time? Would that knowledge bring closure, or would it be too difficult to perform if you knew it was your last time? Hi, I'm Dr. Chelsea. Welcome to Passion for Dance. My mission is to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills training, and mental skills certainly pertain to dealing with injury and the end of a professional career. My guest today was a professional dancer who battled serious injuries throughout her long career, and she's here today to share some incredible words of wisdom for dealing with injury, finding a purpose again, and how she handled it when it was suddenly her last chance to perform.

My guest today is Hannah Teutscher whose professional career brought her throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. Hannah has taught workshops and masterclasses in dance, Pilates, and yoga worldwide and currently teaches out of her studio in Nuremberg, Germany. She also runs a successful online teacher training, mentorships, and continuing education along with her wonderful podcast, The Pilates Exchange. Today, though, she's very open and vulnerable with us about her experience with injury and the journey of growth and recovery.

Before I dive into the show, I want to invite you to follow wherever you're listening. It's free and simply means that each new episode will show up on your podcast feed every Thursday. That simple follow is what allows me to keep creating these episodes for you. So please follow wherever you're listening now, and if you're not sure how, go to 

followthepodcast.com/passionfordance, and you can do it with one click from there. Thank you, as always, for your support of the show, and here's Hannah with her advice on the gift of injury!

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[Motivational Music]

Hi, I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer and mental performance coach. I know what it feels like to be a passionate dance teacher who cares about your dancers, but you want to challenge them and help them be their best, and I also recognize that some traditions and teaching practices in the dance world are harmful. So I'm on a mission to change our dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers using positive mental skills.

When you understand how to help your dancers with their confidence, how to find their own motivation, work together as a team and more, your dancers will unlock new levels of competitive success and happiness. And it's not just about them; you deserve the same. So we'll talk about how dance teachers can use positive mental skills to be more confident, resilient, and motivated as well.

Be sure to hit “subscribe” wherever you listen to podcasts. There are new episodes every Thursday, and each week you'll hear from me and my guests with advice and actionable tips for building mental toughness, covering topics about mindset, motivation, resilience, and building a community. Passion for Dance is a show designed to help dance educators like you have a positive impact on every dancer you teach.

[Motivational Music]

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Dr. Chelsea: Hi, Hannah. Thank you for being here!

Hannah T: Thank you so much for allowing me to be on your podcast. I'm really, really excited to be here with you!

Dr. Chelsea: Thank you! Will you introduce yourself? Tell us your dance background, your origin story.

Hannah’s Dance Background and Origin Story - 3:07

Hannah T: Absolutely. So I started, like many dancers, really, really young and just fell in love with dance and decided, from a young age, that's what I wanted to do. I followed that all the way up through I went to university. I have a BFA from Southern Methodist University and then went and did my graduate work at The Laban Centre in London.

After that, I started my professional career, and it got to bring me through The United States and Canada, Portugal, London, and then I ended up in Nuremberg, Germany for my last couple of years of dancing. So it was a really nice career, and I've been retired already, oh, my gosh, quite a few years, like 12 years, 15 years?

Dr. Chelsea: I love that you had to travel so much and see so many parts of the world because of dance.

Hannah T: Yeah. Yeah, it was really magical. I feel really lucky that I got to see so many things during that time.

Dr. Chelsea: Will you share a little about that transition then from professional dance to the career you have now with the coach and trainer that you are, how that transition happened for you?

Hannah T: Ooh, yeah. So I always knew that I loved teaching or that I was interested in teaching, and actually the reason why I fell in love with it was because of an injury at the very beginning of my dance career. Maybe I'll tell you a little bit about this end part, and then we could circle around to the beginning part of this whole story.

The end part is that, so I've always loved movement, loved teaching, loved the idea of helping someone move better in their bodies. And so, at the end of my career, I ended up with a pretty serious hip injury. I had been dancing professionally, I guess, about 15 years by that point. And that took me out. I had about a year of recovery time, and during that year I was getting ready to try to dance again. But during that recovery time, I learned German instead and wrote a business plan, and then I was ready and raring to go by the end of that. Because everything had changed so much for me during that year of growth and recovery, I decided that it was time, then, to make the dream of coaching people, normal people movement into a reality, and that's what I did!

Dr. Chelsea: Oh, wow. Okay, I love that you set up this conversation about injury. I want to definitely dive in because I think what you've probably learned through that has to have shaped how you help others now. And unfortunately, so many dancers are injured. Sometimes it's career ending. Sometimes it's not. And a lot of the story of your injury can be influenced by your mindset and how you approach it and how you handle it. And so, are you willing to share a little about the injury itself and that story, however much or little you want, and then we can dive into what you've learned from it?

Hannah’s Injury Story - 6:18

Hannah T: Absolutely. So I was really, really lucky in the beginning part of my dance experience. Up until I think it was about 19, I was relatively injury free, a very robust dancer, very physical. I don't even think that I had shin splints once. I was just really, really lucky.

When I started dancing at university the course load just sort of increased. My eating habits decreased. It was a very mentally taxing time. And during that time, I unfortunately ended up with bilateral stress fractures in my shins. I thought it was the end of the world. It was a very, very hard time period because not only was I not able to dance, but all of my scholarships were riding on the ability for me to dance, right? So I had this serious, like, “What am I going to do?”

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah! Oh yeah, that changes -- it's not just dance at that point. It's your academic path when they're tied together, yeah.

Hannah T: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, One teacher made all of the difference, and I think this is actually why I wanted to talk to you about this specific time period, because it influenced the course of my life.

I had one teacher that I just remember bawling my eyes out once I got this diagnosis. It was about 16 weeks that I was going to be off, no movement. Looking back, that's a very short period of time.

Dr. Chelsea: Sure. Not when you're 19, though.

Hannah T: Not when you're 19. Not when that's pretty much an entire semester of time, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Right.

Hannah T: So what he did for me, he said, “This is actually the biggest gift that you could have ever had,” right? “I’m gonna teach you how to use this gift.” And I was like, “Okay, I think you're crazy, but I will do anything you say.”

Dr. Chelsea: [Laughs] Good little student.

Hannah T: Yeah, yeah, no, because I was like, “What do I -- just give me some guidance,” you know?

First of all, I needed to be in all of those classes that were there. There was no way that I could stay home and just do anything else. I must be present in every dance class that was required as part of my course load, which was, you know, an extreme amount of movement during the day. And Nathan Montoya was his name, what Nathan did was he made me an assistant to the rehearsal director for one of the pieces. And we started right there of him teaching me how to look at dance from different eyes.

And so, I sat next to him through every rehearsal in the piece that I should have been dancing as a soloist, and I wrote down everything that he said, every little thing about -- so I was just, you know, I don't know his notetaker, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: And so, that's where it started. And then it grew from there because then I was able to -- I wasn't allowed to give corrections because it wasn't about that at all, but it was about seeing dance in a different way and feeling useful in a different way.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. I love this idea of just being able to, one, reframe it as a gift because we certainly don't tend to see those kinds of situations that way. Again, whether we’re young or old but when it's your whole identity, it's your whole life at that time as a student. So being able to see it as a gift, that's a wonderful reframe for him to have started for you to see it differently, yeah.

So you reframe. You now have to watch so much. You said you have to watch the one you're supposed to be in a solo in. I assume there were some challenging emotions happening.

Hannah T: Oh, oh, the challenge. Absolutely! So from assisting to the rehearsal director, I was able to actually work through those emotions and really that's just one thing. Like, when you have a task to do, that helps you also manage those things. It's not just jealousy, but it's really, then, you're looking for something useful to do with your eyes and your talent in that time.

And at the very beginning, of course, it was just notetaking. And then he let me -- once the piece was a little bit more, say, finessed, he said, “Okay, now let's let your eyes take in the choreography. So don't look at the dancers. Don't look for the details. Don't look for the things that are going wrong, but what does it look like to see this piece?” It was a Paul Taylor piece. I think it was called “AIRS.” And watching the shapes and how was it choreographed? How was it put together? How's the musicality? And that changed because then I had a choreography class as well. So I had to look at composition, and that was a different mindset being in the front.

But it went further than that. That's one way to do it, but it got deeper and deeper for me because the more that I saw that you can change the perspective of how you were viewing the dance, the deeper the self-reflection became.

So then I started watching when I was allowed to sit at the front of the room and to watch what the teachers are queuing and the corrections that they're giving and seeing, “Would I say the same thing? Am I seeing the same thing?” And watching how the dancer was deciding to take the correction on or not, and when it wasn't happening, why wasn't it happening? And just being a fly on the wall and getting to observe that really magical dialogue that's happening was fascinating. It was eye opening.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, that's amazing. Would you see, I would imagine, a lot of different communication happening, a lot of different relationships watching dancers, some taking the corrections and applying them better than others or with different emotional reactions like that, even just the lesson and how differently you can receive that.

Hannah T: Yep. Yes, absolutely. So, watching how it was received, watching the emotion from both how it was given from the teacher but how it was also received, because it's a two-way street there, which then really opened my eyes to the idea of teaching. That comes a little bit later. But watching the dancer try things on or not believing the correction was actually for them.

Dr. Chelsea: Mm, yep.

Hannah T: Right? Because I have to say that I was very, very guilty -- before this experience in my body, I was very guilty of thinking that I was pretty much right all the time. [Laughs]

Dr. Chelsea: Yes. Well, and so many, I think, teachers listening will get that too. When you're like, you give a correction to the whole group and then the one who should be taking it as the one who's like, “That’s not about me.” So yeah, guilty. [Laughs] So guilty.

Hannah T: Yep. So watching that was really, really interesting. Well, you know, everything from watching facial expressions, how people are standing in the back of the room, what they're doing, how are they participating, it was really eye opening because I wasn't aware of how my own behavior, as the dancer, was actually influencing how the teacher was communicating with me. So that was also a skillset that I got to improve on just being by in the front, so that when I was ready to come back, I was a different person. I think I was always willing to be taught, but I was engaging in an entirely different way. And that was really, really, really special.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, that awareness of understanding, I don't know, it's like how you not only receive things, but like you said, what you're doing when you're just standing in the back, how you prepare for things, how you approach warm up, your body language, noticing that that impacts the teacher, that's amazing, yeah. Because we feel it as a teacher for sure.

Hannah T: Right?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: We really, really feel it, and later on that helped me to realize as a teacher many, many years later that I can't take some of these things personal that are happening in front of me. Like, most of the time it's not about us because, as a dancer, I never meant to be defiant or hurt someone. I was just frustrated with myself, but I didn't realize how that is actually influencing how I was being taught, you know,? So that, you know, it is that two-way street.

Dr. Chelsea: Absolutely. Well, and I'm a very self-conscious person in a lot of ways. I’m getting better with age. But especially in my dance years, in early teaching years, I guess more so, I would assume all side conversations were negative about me or all frustration was my fault because I couldn't help them get what they needed to be able to do, right? So yeah, I totally feel that. I took it all personally for a long time before trying to separate that, yeah.

Perfect Practice - 15:26

Hannah T: Definitely, definitely. Another thing that came out of it when -- because I wasn't allowed to move. I wanted to perfect practice, was the term that I used. I would imagine myself doing the choreography or doing the combination or whatever it was, doing the technique in the class. And what I had realized during that beginning time period is that I couldn't perfect practice.

So what I mean, when I was going through it, I was always making mistakes in my head. I wasn't able to, at the very beginning, imagine myself doing a nice pirouette and finishing it. I wasn't able to jump higher and stuff because there was a self-limiting belief that was about the way that I was able to move. And I wasn't even aware about it until I took my physicality out of it.

Dr. Chelsea: Wow. Could you image before the injury? Like, could you usually image, or you hadn't really tried before?

Hannah T: I had never really tried it.

Dr. Chelsea: Okay, yeah, imagery is so wonderful because, I mean, it can be very powerful, but it can be dangerous because you can image yourself dancing poorly, and then it's a cycle of like, “Nope, see, I can't do it. Nope, this is terrible. I'll never be able to.” But you have to be able to control it, which is a skill, like you said, to be able to learn to see yourself doing it well, yeah.

Hannah T: Yeah, it was really interesting. It was very frustrating on all different levels, you know? This time period was probably, you know, in the beginning part of my, let's say, dance career starting from university, was the most frustrating and the most eye-opening experience in my career, exactly for those reasons that, you know, noticing, “Okay, I have a tendency to make things bigger.”

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: A lot of dancers are like, “I've been doing everything wrong my whole life!”

Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yeah. I want to dive into the self-reflection that you're saying you're able to gain some of that skill because the ability to have a genuine reflection, and especially a reflection without judgment where you can just learn and understand, is a skill, and it's hard. So will you share a little -- like, do you think you were self-aware and good at that before the injury, or truly it was a lesson that came out of that forced time where you can't move, you have to pause?

Self-Reflection - 17:57

Hannah T: You know, I can't say with a hundred percent certainty. I think I was maybe a little bit self-reflective before, but that really catapulted me into a different way of viewing myself and what my capacities are as a dancer, how I'm able to produce movement, technique, what it means to be an artist. All that stuff, I think, was -- the seed of it came through that injury time period, yeah.

Dr. Chelsea: Do you still engage in a lot of self-reflection now that you're healed and can move again, or is it still something that you enjoy doing or find value in?

Hannah T: I find value in self-reflection. I think it’s a skill that I always have to try to keep honing, and I think there are so many different levels and layers to that. So it's something that I continuously do, yeah.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, do you have a ritual, like a formal time period or journal that you use? Or is it just when you feel the need for it that you need to pause?

Hannah T: I try to set time once a week when I'm out going for a walk. That's where I'm usually spending time going over the things that have happened in that week. So I go through teaching-wise -- you know at this point it's mostly about teaching, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm.

Hannah T: You know, “Where could I have done better? How could I have taught differently?” If a situation was challenging, “What would have made that situation less challenging?” And if there was nothing to do, “What can I learn about my own responses in that?” So I do set time. I don't journal anymore. I did a lot of journaling, though, during my dance career, and that was really super helpful to look back later and say, “Oh yeah, look at how far we've come.”

Dr. Chelsea: Oh, yeah. I mean, I've gone in and out of journaling too. As much as I talk about it and I love it and see the value of it, it doesn't always fit your phase and what you're doing. But yeah, being able to look back at it is fun.

So, okay, I  want to hear this transition to teaching and how the injury lessons have shaped the teaching career that you've created and how you teach now.

How Injury Has Shaped Hannah’s Thoughts Around Injury - 20:14

Hannah T: Absolutely. So, there are a few different aspects that I've learned since that point. So maybe we'll skip to 15 years later and I’m -- [Laughs]

Dr. Chelsea: Don't skip it if there's some special interest in there.

Hannah T: No, I guess I think we'll just dive into this thing because the skillset of being self-reflective during an injury period is something that I took through the entire career. It helped me dance better. After that injury period of that very beginning one, I came back stronger than I had ever been. I came back with better port de bras. My pirouettes were better. My jumps were higher. Although, I hadn't danced. I really was very, very clear with, “I'm not going to move. That's what the doctor says.”

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: And then jumping back into it and realizing, okay, I have power to create the reality that is my dance career from my thoughts, from how I'm fueling my body, how I'm thinking about myself and how I'm interacting in the environment that I'm there. So I think it's constantly learning and evolving as you, you know, layer on those different aspects of your career, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Absolutely. Well, and okay, I said jump ahead of teaching, and I take it back, because I want to talk about that career phase, because that's a long career for a dancer. So were you injured again or at any point that you had to kind of sit back again or it was -- like you said, if you train differently and maybe more mindful, more aware, do you think that helped prevent it?

Hannah T: Great question. I had a lot of injuries.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, I would expect. I mean, you can't dance that much without something happening.

Hannah T: Oh yeah, no, I had a ton of different injuries. I've had my nose broken. I've had concussions. I dislocated a shoulder, broke some ribs, you know, all the things.

Dr. Chelsea: Oh gosh, yeah.

Hannah T: But I think the big difference was, at that point, I wasn't scared of it anymore, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: There's, like, a crisis that happens with the, “I'm never going to dance again.” We build a story around injury, which actually makes the pain sort of elevate, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: So the story part I was able to sort of talk down. The story always happens, right? “Ah, I'm going to never be able to dance again,” or “I'm going to lose my spot.” And sometimes that is true, but most of the time, the story that we build up is nowhere near what's actually going to be reality.

So I've had many different injuries. I was able to be more gentle to myself during that time period. I was able to learn and contribute in different ways also during that career path, and I think that served me well during those years. I think that's probably what contributed, also, to the longevity of my career.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense, that if the frame around the injury is, again, the catastrophizing that, “This is terrible, I'll never be the same dancer,” and you stay in that kind of darker mindset, it's hard to come out of it in a place where you were training better again, where you are able to go, you know, full effort and full energy.

So I can absolutely see how that reframe of saying, you know, “This isn't over. I know how to handle this,” can help with the longevity, to be able to have that long of a career where things are going to happen. So being able to frame it as, “I know how to handle this,” would allow you to keep going much longer. Yeah.

Hannah T: Yeah. Also I think it helps the recovery process, you know?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: Every injury has its own process and bodies heal differently, but the story that we put around our pain or our injury doesn't -- if it becomes too big, it doesn't help us explore the movement that we're going to need during the healing process. Do you know what I mean?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely.

Hannah T: So, you know, you're getting back and then, you know, you're moving a little bit, and it's always going to be a little bit painful, right? When you're even at the tail end of that recovery process, and it requires a sort of a curiosity mindset to go in and say, “Okay, let me just feel how this is. What if I just move this a little bit over here?” And if we go in with like, “Oh, it's still there. I'm still injured --.”

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, that curiosity frame, yeah.

Hannah T: Yeah, so I think that's what also helped me through the years.

Dr. Chelsea: Absolutely. So if I'm going to sum up what I'm hearing about injury is that you see it more as a place of growth now, like a place where you grew personally but then now approach an injury as an opportunity for growth. Does that sound right?

Hannah T: Absolutely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, and that's -- I think, most dancers probably don't see it that way, right? The common response is to have the more catastrophic response, which is normal and human, but to be able to view it as a place for growth, it changes how you go about the healing. Like you were saying, being willing to push your body in a way that's safe as you gradually get better. You know, not hold back too much so that you’re never able to get back, not push too far. It's that Goldilocks, how do I stay right in the right amount of healing and challenge. Yeah.

Hannah T: Yeah. That sort of willingness to go deep in the learning process. At the tail end of my career, what had happened was a sort of a very dramatic end to it, a very dramatic end to my career. I ended up with a hip injury, and basically from one day to the next day I stopped dancing, and my career ended.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, oh, I'm so sorry. When it's out of your control and that fast, that's so hard.

Hannah T: Yeah, it was very hard. And I'll fast forward through this story just so we have some context for it.

Dr. Chelsea: Okay. Yeah.

Hannah’s Career-Ending Injury Story - 26:38

Hannah T: I was in my last station, which was in the state theatre of Nuremberg, so Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballet, and it was supposed to be my premiere of the second cast of this piece that I had always like -- Crystal Pite and Mauro Bigonzetti, so two people that I really love their pieces. And I had been waiting for a doctor's appointment to take a look at my hip because I was just experiencing awful pain in the hip. The doctor's appointment was on the day of the premiere in the morning. Long story short, he took x-rays and said, “That's the end of your career. You're not leaving my doctor's office without crutches.”

Dr. Chelsea: Wow.

Hannah T: I was like, “What?”

Dr. Chelsea: And you had every intention of dancing that night?

Hannah T: I did, and I did. So here's the thing. There's no good or bad decisions in this.

Dr. Chelsea: Sure, you did what you wanted, what you felt was right at the moment, yeah.

Hannah T: I did what I -- I did everything with the best intention of what I had in that I knew that I had, you know, a company of 30 dancers that were expecting me to be onstage, and if I had said no, during that moment of, “I can't be onstage,” then it would put everything in a tailspin because everyone would need to be called into the theater and get me out of that show. So I didn't want to do that.

My now husband (but then boyfriend) was also a soloist in this piece, and I didn't want to put any extra mental stress on him as well. So I walked home with the crutches, and I hid them from everyone, and I had told the doctor, “I'll stop dancing tomorrow.” I'll go into a period of rest until we find out what we're going to do. I ended up doing the performance with pain medication. Again, maybe not the best decision, but it was my decision. And I didn't tell anyone until after the show. And I have to say it was not a perfect show, but it was the most beautiful show that I've ever done because it was something that was like the rawest, the most bittersweet.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, it was the emotion --

Hannah T: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Chelsea: -- of knowing that he said your career is over and you said, “I need one more time onstage.”

Hannah T: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Chelsea: Like, that's amazing, honestly. And like you said, maybe not physically the healthiest choice, but I could see the emotional need to have one more time onstage.

Hannah T: Yeah, it was a decision that I needed. I needed to make it.

Then I went into -- again, skipping a couple points -- but I spent about a year, I had a surgery involved, and was aiming to get back onto stage again. But during that time, you're not allowed to be in the theater at all when you're injured, you know? That's part of the work, part of your contract, right? Which also makes sense. So how am I going to make this a good experience, right? Using all those skills from the past, what am I going to do now that I have to take the time?

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: So I learned German because I live here in Germany, and I didn't know German at that point. I said, “Okay, well, what if I started thinking about writing a business plan?” Because, you know, I was in my mid-thirties anyways and thinking about that's something that I might want to do. And by the time that year was done, I could speak German. I had a business plan. I was ready. Also, I was rehabbing, like I said, to go back into the theater. And I took my first class back into the theater and realized that I had grown so much as a person that I actually couldn't go back and dance.

Dr. Chelsea: Wow. Yeah.

Hannah T: And so, I quit two days later. I went to my director, and I said, “Look, I really --,” one, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that it wouldn't happen again with my specific injury. And I said, “I don't want to be a burden on my colleagues, but I also feel like I'm in a different place and I'm not able to give you, as the director and the choreographer, all of me anymore.” So we made the decision for me to stop.

Dr. Chelsea: Wow. It's an identity shift in a really powerful way. Like, usually identity shifts are a little slower and a little kind of behind the scenes and you wake up one day and you're just like, “Something's a little different, and I don't know.” But I guess maybe the forcing you to stop moving and then choosing a path forward created a shift. I mean, a year is still fast, but that's that sense of like, “Nope, that's not who I am anymore.”

Hannah T: I think it was the -- because it was the whole year, so it felt dramatic in that moment, right?

Dr. Chelsea: Sure.

Hannah T: But It's more like a ritual end to it, you know? Like, if there's a marriage, it's not just suddenly you fall in love and that's it. It's the period of falling in love, and the marriage, just for example, that's just the --

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, that’s the capstone, uh-huh.

Hannah T: That's the capstone. And I think that was just what I had needed to say. “Okay, I'm ready. There's the bookend of that, and let’s go into something else.”

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. So now you get to take all this experience and teach.

Hannah T: Yeah.

Dr. Chelsea: And you teach other teachers, right, and helping them. So will you share some about how these lessons now translate to how you teach teachers?

How Hannah Teaches Teachers - 32:10

Hannah T: Yeah, so I teach with my husband now. He's also a retired dancer now. So part of our business is teaching normal people how to move better through Pilates and fitness and all those types of things. And then our passion is to teach other movement teachers how to teach better, and a lot of it is finding your own authentic voice in teaching. How do you want to show up in the studio space? How do we create atmosphere and safe places, in our case, it's for our athletes to move that are both experiential, so they get to experience in their bodies, safe enough where they can make mistakes and feel good about that, and it's one of curiosity.

Dr. Chelsea: Oh, I love that. I also would assume that you have a different frame around how teachers should handle injuries because you had such a wonderful experience with Nathan at 19 and how he taught you that. So what do you want teachers to understand about injury and when they have an injured dancer?

Hannah T: I understand that each situation is very, very unique as far as the studio space and company space and all of that. But if there's any way to give your injured dancer a place for them to learn a new skill during this, we don't know how they're going to use that skill in the future but having a feeling of being useful, having a feeling of contribution to their team or to their company or whatever it may be is healing in its own way.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.

Hannah T: And they might be discovering something that they love to do. You know, not everyone's going to end up being a professional dancer, but we can help our dancers grow as people. And I think that these are oftentimes, these injured times are where I said it's just a period of self-growth. So if we can find anything for them to do in that supportive way, I think that would be the biggest gift that you could give them.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, that's such good advice. And like you said, supporting them as a whole person. And I think what tends to happen, too, when you have an injured dancer and you're genuinely concerned about them, so you're checking in about their injury, but it becomes every single conversation is about your injury. “How are you feeling? How's rehab?” You know, but you're more than your injury. So if you're able to check in about other things but, also to your point, find a purpose, find something that you can do to contribute and be helpful and learn, that is a wonderful gift to be able to give an injured dancer. Yeah.

This was all such great advice, Hannah. Thank you for sharing your injury story. I got teary when you were talking about taking one more time on stage. That's a special moment. Thank you for sharing and especially that advice of how we can support our injured dancers in the future. I hope more teachers are able to help their dancers find that sense of purpose. Will you make sure and let us know how we can learn more about you and the work you do to help teachers and your podcast?

Connect with Hannah - 35:27

Hannah T: Absolutely! Thank you. First of all, thank you so much for letting me share my story. It really means a lot to me to be able to connect with you and your listeners.

My podcast is called Pilates Exchange, which explores not only Pilates but teaching methods in general and what's the intersection between other movement methods and the Pilates method. And then we have a program called Train the Trainers, which is an online program that helps other movement teachers find and explore different skill sets within pedagogy.

Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Well, thank you. I'll make sure the link to the show is in the show notes wherever you're listening. So thank you so much, Hannah, for being here!

Hannah T: Thank you, Chelsea!

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 Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance! You can find all episode resources at www.chelseapierotti.com/podcast, and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high-performance tips at @dr.chelsea.pierotti. This podcast is for passionate dance teachers and coaches who are ready to change the dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers. I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.

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