Ron Mulesa, RMT at the National Ballet of Canada
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Ron Mulesa is the Company Massage Therapist with the National Ballet of Canada. Although he does not have a background in ballet himself, after 21 years with the National Ballet he has developed a greater understanding of the benefits of massage therapy for this type of athlete.
“If you can prevent repetitive injury from occurring by activating, or affecting tissues and joints, then their training and performance will be enhanced,” Ron said.
His background as an Athletic Therapist and trainer in the 80s and 90s was his first experience working with sports teams. He worked in the Canadian Soccer League with the Edmonton Brickmen and Hamilton Steelers, as well as in the Canadian Football League for the Calgary Stampeders, the Tennis Canada Fed Cup team and Ontario gymnastics. This extensive experience has helped inform his view of the benefits of massage therapy for athletes.
“Massage therapy is very beneficial to dancers as they have to repetitively make their bodies do what is not normal for a human body,” he said.
One of the things that has kept Ron with the National Ballet for over two decades has been the constant state of change. He is always working with different dancers, each dancer or choreographer will present with different issues or injuries, and the dancers themselves have different workloads every day.
Since Ron has been with the National Ballet for so long, he has begun to develop an understanding of how ballet dancers will speak about their injuries. He has developed enough of a relationship with them to understand what sort of treatment they want, and what would be most effective for them.
“When I first started at the ballet, I developed close working relationships with a few of the young, top dancers who were also very dramatic with phrases like ‘my ankles feel like glass’ but still wanted deep tissue work on them,” Ron said. “These dancers are now almost all retired so it’s sort of sad but also exciting developing new relationships with all the new dancers.”
When people find out that Ron works with the National Ballet, often their first question will be about his schedule. They want to know whether he gets dancers ready for the show, and whether he has to stay for all the shows. As with most schedule questions related to the National Ballet, the answer would be that it depends on the dancer, and on the day.
“Some dancers like deep release to get better ankle range of motion, some want no massage even the day before a show, and treatment also depends on what and how severe an injury is,” Ron said.
Ron does often have to stay during or after shows, but that’s not always the case. When the company travels, there is even more responsibility as it’s just Ron, the head athletic therapist and the dancers, and they may be performing more than they are used to.
Although working with professional dancers is a fairly unique environment, Ron wanted to emphasize that working with the dancers is just as rewarding as working with any other patient, and it’s all about the relationships with people and the gratitude they have for you.
Learn more about The National Ballet of Canada.