How Hypnotherapy Helped Me Do The Splits

Nearly twenty five years ago, I was standing in a rehearsal studio with a cabaret troupe called Impact Dancers, trying not to panic.

I'd landed my first job as a professional dancer. The show was the Cancan. High kicks, big energy, and a finale that finishes with the dancers jumping into the air and landing flat in the splits.

Impact Dancers

Here's the problem: I have never been a naturally flexible dancer. Some people seem to arrive on this earth with hips that just open up like a book. Not me. Every inch of flexibility has been the result of consistent work - stretch by stretch, year by year. At that point, my splits were close, but not quite flat.

I had weeks, not months to close that gap. So alongside the actual physical stretching (because let's be clear, visualisation doesn't replace the training - more on that in a minute), I decided to try self-hypnosis.

What That Actually Looked Like

I want to demystify this a bit, because 'self-hypnosis' can sound a bit mystical or new age. There were no swinging pocket watches involved. It was quiet, focused, guided relaxation, paired with really vivid, detailed visualisation. I pictured the jump, the landing, my hips softening and opening, my body settling comfortably into the splits again and again, in as much sensory detail as I could manage.

I did this most days in the run up to the show, alongside the stretching. And something shifted. Whether it was the visualisation genuinely changing how my nervous system approached the movement, or the fact that I was stretching in a calmer, more focused and less braced way (probably a bit of both if I'm honest), the improvement was real, noticeable and fast.

Opening night came, I jumped and I landed. Flat splits, no wobble, it had worked!

Why I'm Telling You This Now

I could have filed that away as a "one time in my dancing days..." story. For years, I sort of did. But it planted a seed that's grown into a huge part of what I teach today.

That experience taught me something I now see proven, again and again, with my own students; the mind and body are never working separately. A dancer who is anxious, or bracing, or silently telling herself "I can't do this" is fighting her own body before she's even attempted the movement. And a dancer who can calmly, clearly picture herself succeeding - who has rehearsed the feeling and mechanics of the steps going well - often finds the physical side comes so much more easily.

This is the thinking behind the mind and body work I now build into my coaching. When I work with a student on their pirouettes, pointe work or penches, we're not just drilling the physical technique (though of course we absolutely do that too - no visualisation replaces proper training), We're also working with the mental side; the breath, the imagery, the language they use about their own bodies, the story they're telling themselves in the moments before they move.

I've seen it change things for students who've felt physically stuck on a movement for months. Not because their bodies were incapable but because fear, tension, or a harsh inner voice was getting in the way of their ability.

The Bit I Actually Want You To Take Away

I'm not telling you this story to convince you visualisation is magic, or that you can simply think your way into the splits without doing a single stretch (I did plenty of those, don't worry). I'm telling you because it's genuinely where this all started for me, long before I had a name for it, or a business built around it. It started with a slightly panicked twenty-something dancer, a looming opening night, and a willingness to try something a bit different.

Nearly twenty five years on, that's still exactly what I love helping my students do; combine solid, thorough technique with the kind of calm focused mindset that lets their bodies actually do what they've trained them to do, without fear getting in the way first.

And every now and then, when a student lands a movement they've chasing for months, I still think back to that Cancan finale and feel that same feeling of excitement thinking "oh - this actually works!"