Mind your body: have a ball relax, stretch, work the knots out.

WHEN FORMER Pilobolus dance captain Rebecca Anderson Darling talks on the phone, she's usually rolling her feet on small balls to work out the kinks. Often times she's also sitting on a ball, albeit much larger, so that she's forced to sit up straight. When she is not making calls, teaching Pilates, or rehearsing (she still dances with Pilobolus' duet company) she can be found lying on her back on a tennis or lacrosse ball, giving herself a delicious massage. "They're addictive," Darling said. "You can do a passive stretch while the ball supports your weight." More and more dancers are using balls of all sizes as a relaxing way to work on alignment, body awareness, stretching, and the most difficult of all--letting go.

This last lesson is especially challenging for dancers, says Elaine Petrone, founder of The Miracle Ball Method. "Dancers believe that by stretching or pushing with effort they're going to get results, and it's actually the opposite," she said in a recent phone interview. "When you stop doing, you're allowing your body to undo." Petrone works with patients who have injuries caused by accident, stress, or poor alignment. By simply breathing and relaxing on the ball, the body, she believes, can heal itself. Once you begin to exert effort, habitual patterns kick in and the body has a harder time undoing painful knots. "It's the laziest bodywork in the world," she says. In other words, the body knows what to do on its own--if it has space and time to do it.

NOT EVERYONE has this philosophy. New York yoga teacher and body rolling expert Yamuna Zake believes movement is a crucial part of working with the ball. As she explains in her book The Ultimate Body Rolling Workout, an inflatable ball is used "to stretch muscles, free restrictions in all parts of the body, increase blood flow, and promote healing." Concentration and effort are required on the part of the mover to maximize the stretch. "A dancer could roll through each hamstring muscle, abdominal muscles, or anything that is tight," said Zake. "You can do it yourself, prevent injuries, and keep a chronic pain from getting to you by rolling it out."

Zake's basic routine starts by sitting up with the right sit bone on the ball and the left knee bent. Slowly you move backward, rolling the ball underneath the right thigh and then back to sitting. Then, with both knees bent, you lean slightly forward to move the ball to the right side of the sacrum, then the lower back, upper back, and behind the neck and head. Zake also makes small balls called "Foot Savers" that are just for the feet. Darling noted that Pilobolus dancers fight over them. "They are the greatest," Darling said.

San Diego Pilates teacher Lizbeth Garcia, featured in the video On the Ball: Pilates, teaches alignment and core strengthening with the big "physioballs" (55-to 75-centimeter diameter). She said with the physioballs you learn immediately how to sit up straight because if you don't, you roll off the ball. A former modern and jazz dancer, Garcia says connecting to your core helps with lifts and turns. "It hones in on the positioning of the body so that you can feel when the top of your head is over your shoulders and your rib cage is over your pelvis. You have to hold yourself together to be on top of the ball."

That was the thinking behind the Sit-A-Round Ball Chair, which features a large inflated vinyl ball as the seat to promote "active sitting." It takes a while to build up the muscle strength so that this can be your fulltime chair, but it can immediately release spinal pressure, helping with spinal alignment, circulation, and energy.

Many of these variations on ball work can be traced to Elaine Summers, the dancer who developed the earliest form of ball work, Kinetic Awareness, in the 1960s. In a recent telephone interview, Summers said, "It's a very lovable tool. It allows your whole body to become a perpetual massage machine."

Shayna Samuels is a freelance writer living in New York.

WHERE TO FIND THEM: www.kacenter.org; www.mohiniyoga.com; www.elainepetrone.com;www.yamunabodyrolling.com; www.ballchair.com; www.naturaljourneys.com; www.relaxtheback.com; www.equipmentshop.com