stretching

"Will it be easy? Nope. Worth it? Absolutely." -anonymous
         Many people don't realize the importance of stretching. Even more people don't realize the importance of stretching correctly; or even realize how incorrectly they are stretching. Not stretching at all can lead to pulling a muscle or injuring yourself but so can stretching incorrectly.
         While stretching, it is extremely important to make sure your knees track directly over your toes and also make sure they stay in line with your toes or behind them. This may seem unnecessary but it is an injury waiting to happen. Having your knees invert or not align with your toes causes pain in some people, but even if you don't feel any pain it is hurting you and will cause issues in the future. It stretches the ligaments and tendons in your knee's ways they shouldn't be stretched causing them to loosen. This causes the chances for you to tear your ACL or shatter your meniscus sky rocket, and those could potentially not just be a temporary injury but it can often be career ending.
           Another thing people don't pay much attention to is the proper way to do your splits. However, practicing your splits wrong will cause you to leap and do some other things wrong while you are dancing as well. While doing your splits you must make sure your hips are aligned and NOT opened. opening your hips can cause hip flexor pain and issues in the future. Also dancers are not supposed to use their hip flexors as much as most probably do, so by making sure your hips are correctly aligned will decrease activation in the hip flexors for the time being.
               The worst is when a dancer is "naturally flexible." If a dancer believes they are naturally flexible or the are just lazy their is a big chance that they either wont stretch, or they wont stretch well. By not stretching they will not be able to reach their full potential and their body wont be as warm; they will be more susceptible to injuring themselves in pulling a muscle. Sometimes not stretching can be so severe that a muscle tears. So stretching and stretching effectively are more important than just to make you "more flexible."
                  Make sure you stretch every part of your body as well because, you might not realize your arms, legs, neck, back, and core all need to be stretched along with your legs and hips.