Episode 4: Convergence - A Crucial Visual Skill for Dance and Gymnastics

In this episode, we explore how visual skills, particularly convergence, impact movement,  performance, and injury prevention in dance and athletics. You’ll find practical insights into  diagnosing convergence issues and techniques to improve visual capacity for better performance. 

Main Topics:

• The role of convergence in movement and performance 
• How to self-assess convergence skills 
• Insight into optimizing visual input for better balance, movement, and injury prevention
• The impact of visual system efficiency on sports like gymnastics and dance
• Practical exercises to enhance convergence and visual awareness 

In this episode: 

• How convergence influences depth judgment, balance, and coordination
• Common signs of convergence issues 
• Case examples of athletes with convergence deficiencies and their effects on performance
• The relationship between eye health, tension, and movement safety 

Timestamps: 

00:00 - The influence of eye convergence on movement 

02:30 - Prevalence of convergence insufficiency among children and adults 

04:10 - Case study: Traumatic brain injury and convergence challenges 

06:47 - How convergence impacts depth perception and spatial awareness 

09:00 - Examples from gymnastics and sports illustrating visual system importance 

12:14 - Personal experiences with eye dominance and depth perception issues 

15:07 - How visual input drives movement safety and efficiency in dance and sports 

17:38 - The importance of convergence training in improving athletic performance

22:22 - Signs of visual fatigue linked to injury risk and mental blocks 

25:07 - Why train your visual system for optimal movement and safety 

26:50 - Quick self-assessment for convergence capabilities 

28:31 - Practical exercises to improve convergence and visual coordination 

30:18 - Final thoughts: vision as a critical, trainable component of performance 

Resources & Links: 

• A Basic Convergence Exercise: Pencil Push Ups 

Connect with Yuka & Nikki: 

• IG: @bybee_nikki 
• IG: @levelupneuro 

Join our newsletters: 

• LevelUp Newsletter 
• Elevated Performance Newsletter

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do it again.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

One more time, do it again.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to Performance Rewired, a podcast for movement experts seeking to unlock the secrets behind optimal performance using a brain-based lens. I'm Nikki Biby.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

And I'm Yuka Segira. We're master neurotrainers and performance coaches for elite and professional athletes and dancers. And we'll be sharing insights, tools, and a little behind the scenes of what we do. And if you want alternatives to more and more reps, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Welcome! Let's start by asking what if it's not your technique but your eyes that are holding you back from what you want in your movement? When we discuss the eyes, it's important to remember that the eyes have skills beyond just seeing our everyday life. When we're in movement, those the how we see and what we see and how that well they work together really impicts the outcome of what we're doing. So sometimes it's not your strength, it's not going to necessarily be a coordination problem. It could be something with your eyes converging together. We're talking about something most dancers don't even know exists.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Right. Or most athletes, most people, athletes in life don't know exists, but this is something, it's a visual competency. It's something that we should do naturally. Um, it affects depth judgment, your balance, turns, coordination, um, ease of movement, and it's called convergence. And when it's not working well, it's called convergence insufficiency, right? So your eyes are not converging. We'll talk about in a second what exactly that is. But if you feel consistent inconsistent in movement, if you feel like your body is holding a lot of tension a lot of the time, this might be the problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, if you like she said, if you feel inconsistent, I used to joke with my friends that I was consistently inconsistent. And what I meant by that is sometimes I would go into the studio and I would be so on my leg that someone couldn't push me off my leg. And other times I would go in and I couldn't figure out where my legs were. And I have a pretty significant insufficiency in my convergence. Um, even this morning, I woke up and I before I hit the gym, I used what's called a Brock string. And with that, there's a couple beads on that string. And when you're looking at the beads, it will help you know how well you're converging. And when I turn my shoulders one direction, I can converge pretty well. But when I converge turning my shoulders the other direction, I can't converge at all. So what that might mean in the studio for me is maybe I can do pique turns on the right because when my shoulders are twisted to the right, I can converge, but I can't do pique turns to the left because when I turn my shoulders to the left, I can't converge at all.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, that's that's not good. That's significant, that's a great discovery. Um, yeah, and so in convergence insufficiency is the the research says that it's in school age children between 3 and 13 percent, which is like a w that's a wide, whatever you want to call it, range. Um a neuro optometrist I know says that he thinks it's somewhere between 10 and 20 based on what he sees, and also I think it's underdiagnosed because I agree. Just in my experience, even people that have gone to an optometrist and gotten exercises from them, I'm like, yeah, they're not they're not that precise. Yes. Um, not to knock that at all, but like this is why the work that we do is what we do. But so you may see, and then in adults 19 and up, um, it's more like 15%, which again maybe it's even higher than that. And this is just based on research. Um, so you may be seeing 2020, you may be able to see clearly and function well, but there might be things in your visual system, again, visual capacity that's impacting your movement. Um, and so Nick, you can talk a little bit about that with dance. Well, you just gave a great example, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Well, and even this week, I had someone who had um suffered a couple traumatic brain injuries, and she's working on her convergence with a brock string, which is normal protocol, and she's been working on it for I think over a year, and she came into me with her brock string, and she can't turn still, and she's completely incapacitated when she turns. And so I went through Brockstring positions with her, just changing her body position to something that she's gonna have to do, or more like what she would do in class, meaning tandem stance, which is a position where it looks like you're standing on a tightrope. Um, and as soon as we got her into these different body positions, she couldn't converge at all. And I asked, okay, so have you been doing these different body positions in, you know, with whoever you're working with? And she said, Oh no, this is all new to me. She hadn't rotated her shoulders or rotated her head to see if she can converge at different angles. And I don't, I'm not throwing any shade on the expert that's working with her. I think that it's just different when you're coming from someone who's uh prepping you to move better versus someone who is there to make you more functional for day-to-day living. It's a different thing when you're working with a gymnast or an athlete or a dancer because we want them performing at their very highest. And in order to do that, you have to have really great convergence. So the default fixes you might be hearing in class uh relax your neck, just breathe. Those are things I commonly heard. Uh, you hold a lot of neck tension when you have something going on with your eyes. That's a natural um response is for the body to create tension, and often you'll see that tension at the neck because the brain is getting input that it can't rely on. And so, as a bracing mechanism, the brain sends out a signal to uh brace the body for safety.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yep. Yeah, so yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

No, I was gonna say you could go ahead and tell me if you want to add to that.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, no, so when we the conventional biomechanical or purely biomechanical model, it'll be like fix your body, fix your body, relax your neck, shoulders down, whatever, but it's actually coming from this major source of input, which is your eyes. Um and so we'll talk about what actually is convergence. Uh Nikki, if you want to get into that to start.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah. So convergence is the eyes coordinating together to properly identify space. So an example straight ahead of you, if you believe you know where your nose, the center of your nose is, and then you maybe place your finger on it, um, that might be, that might be, well, that's actually a cerebellum drill, but they are related. So if I'm looking at, say, my thumbnail coming in towards my nose and it starts to get blurry, or I see double at any moment, which can happen, then I may have a convergence insufficiency. And the thumb is actually for me, the thumb is a pretty big target. That's pretty easy. But if I look at something more specific, say like a little dimple on my finger, which I do have one, when I'm bringing that in, that's when it's like, oh, is that one dimple or two? And that's giving me like more, you know, information about how well I see.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Okay, so yeah, so if you're if you have a cons convergence insufficiency, um yes, you can get through life, yes, you can be a higher performer, but um it may be working against you in terms of consistency, um, your depth judgment is going to be affected. Um and particularly for gymnastics, this is a big, big deal because pretty much everything we do in gymnastics, we have to know exactly how far away or how close uh the equipment is from us. Um and typically if you're having like if let's say there's a gymnast who has a little bit of a problem with depth judge depth judgment, uh you could get over it by doing reps and reps and reps and reps to like get the body to figure out right proprioceptively where it is, but you're going to shortcut that process or fix, maybe reduce the number of reps to get consistent by making sure you can actually accurately judge how far away something is. And so just one example that I use really quick. Um we're getting it's getting a little dated because it's been a while since he's played, but um Shaquille O'Neal. All right, so if you can picture, I don't know people who know he is, but he had a lazy eye, quote unquote lazy eye, that would as the g as the game went on and he got more and more tired, his eye would be into the middle, so the opposite of what Nikki has, right? So he has a convergence over the opposite of insufficiency, like excess of convergence. And one of the problems he had was shooting free throws. And so it is possible, like nobody knows, nobody asked him as far as I know, that his problem can be inconsistent, he had terrible technique besides that, but his eyes again are lying to his brain, and then his brain is lying to his body about where the basket is. Yeah. Um, yeah, and so particularly as you're tired, particularly when it's a high stress, um, if your eyes are not working properly, your movement is gonna be is gonna degrade.

unknown 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah. So if you're not converging well, you're basically not sure where you are in space. And some other things that I know from being someone who has a convergence insufficiency is that I would have trouble spotting. My teachers would often say, use your eyes. Or it wasn't that my head wasn't whipping, it was, it was that my eyes were not focusing and they weren't focusing because even if I had been standing there, that spot in front of me, if I closed one eye versus the other, the spot would be in a different place. So when I'm coming around, I don't know exactly where my spot is, precisely where my spot is. Generally, I know where it is, but I don't precisely know where that spot is because my eyes are not converging consistently. Um, the other thing is I would sometimes be told to stand behind the neck in front of me in core work. And I was like, I am behind the neck in front of me. Like we would line our neck up with the girl in front of us. So to get the core to stand really closely matched with our bodies to stack them down a column. Oh, right. My neck was supposed to be in line with the neck of the lady in front of me. Got it. And when I would do that, I was in my mind, I was behind her neck, but I kept being told I needed to move over, and I could not understand how they thought I was out of line because to me I was very much in line, but it's because one of my eyes actually turns off sometimes. So my left eye sometimes just turns off when it gets tired. And so I'm relying on my right eye, and so my right eye is, you know, just telling me where I am center over to my right. So um I also trip on sidewalks quite frequently, and that's the depth perception element that Yuka mentioned. So I just thought, oh, it's because I always work on a flat floor, and then I have to go outside, and there's little spots on the sidewalk. So I would excuse myself like it was because I was used to being on a studio floor, but that's not it. It was my depth perception being off. And I actually didn't pass. Oh, don't tell anyone this. But I did not pass my driver's license test for depth perception. And I actually was trying to close one eye and then the other during the test. The very first time I took it, I kept switching. Like, okay, let me see, let me see. And I I did not pass that part of my test, but they gave me a driver's license anyway, so I don't know, go figure. So watch out. Watch out.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

That's so interesting. What's so okay? So my brain is blanking. So there's a word for when your brain just shuts off information from one eye. Forget, I can't even like I don't know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

I can't remember what it is either. Right?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

So, anyway, so this is another, so when, particularly when you have a super dominant eye. So, like I have a super dominant eye, which is my left eye, because I have uh macular degeneration in the right eye, and so things are like a little weird and fuzzy and crooked. Um it's possible that in a situation where and the brain, again, in its like infinite processing ability, understands that Nikki's left eye is like not super reliable. And so even though her eyes are open, even though she's like doesn't notice, like if you were to c if she were to cover her left eye, she's gonna it's gonna be really obvious that she's not getting all the information, but that the brain is basically like, I'm gonna take the data that's coming in from this eye and basically chuck it. Yeah. Like I'm just not gonna pay attention to this information because I know that it's fault, like the input is faulty, right? And I don't want to be processing faulty information, but what happens is now she's her brain is like, I only have part of the picture, and we're gonna move my body with only part of the picture, and then she ends up out of line and gets notes later, right? So yeah, um, yeah, hopefully that makes sense as to like why it's important to even assess this. And it's like something that seems so esoteric. You're like, oh, why would I, you know, do all this with but but this is why, right? And inconsistency, not knowing where you are in space, and then as Nikki mentioned earlier, like if you if your brain can't easily and efficiently and accurately assess where you are in space, it's gonna put up a protective response, which is very likely excessive tension, right? Or guessing inconsistency, things like that. So um, yeah, I we talked about eyes last last episode, but it's it's a really big deal, and particularly again for gymnastics, where I so yeah, I've actually um worked with just and I was just testing, right? I'm like, so with so on bars in particular and beam, right? There's so much convergence required, and like gymnastics is like convergence, convergence, convergence, converge. You think of the beam, so eyes come so when you're looking at something that's specific and close or coming towards you, your eyes are going to converge, right? So just think of gymnastics like that is always everything, everything is always coming towards your face. And so if there's uh an insufficiency, if one eye is moving not as much as the other, if they're not working as a coordinated and synchronized team, um that can be incredibly stressful and exhausting for the brain. It could lead to dizziness, it could lead to back pain, it could lead to mental block, it could lead to inconsistency. Um, and so yeah, so I was working with a gymnast and she was doing um it's called a pack. You basically, no, it's not she's not doing a pack, she's doing a chapash, which is basically your basically like doing half of a flip in between the bars, you have to catch the high bar. And I was like, and she was making them okay, but I'm like, let's do some pencil push-ups, which is bringing your thumbnail again, like focusing on the dimple or the white part of your thumbnail, bringing it in towards your eyes and pushing it back out. She did it again, and next the next skill, next turn, and she's like, Oh, I can see the bar much better. And I was like, Isn't that nice? Right? And in it because it's training you to watch something closely as it's coming towards you. Um, and just and she didn't necessarily have a problem with convergence, but by turning on that function and training it, she was able to see the bar better. So now her brain's like, oh, I see things better. Maybe that leads to less tension and like more consistency.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, it's yeah, optimization. Yes, it's not that there's like anything necessarily functionally, you know, deficient sometimes. It's just how can we optimize your system? And when we optimize your convergence, you will see better movement almost consistently. Um, you know, uh, so I wanted to go into if you're ready, Luyuka, to talk about why this matters in dance and gymnastics. And when we're in dance, specifically something like ballet, um, you naturally have some eye training with your April mom. And it's like, look this way, look that way. But you do see dancers who kind of glaze over, or sometimes they'll just check out with our eyes during class. And I didn't know this until recently, but that checkout is um, I can't remember what it's called, but it is um a rest because you have been working on convergence. So sometimes your eyes will just automatically turn off and rest because the convergence demand has been really, you know, taxing for a time. Um, I used to get really, really bad headaches as a child. I always was asking my parents for headache medication. And it's partially because I had uh convergence insufficiency. And and usually when I had those headaches hitting, that was in a time that my parents recognized that it was time to take me back to the eye doctor to see if there was something that needed to switch my with my prescription. And oftentimes that's exactly what needed to happen is that I had some change in my eyes and I needed a different prescription to keep me from getting those headaches. Um, but I still have times where my eyes kind of take this break, and I'm aware of it. In fact, I have this hilarious video of my nephew who took my phone from me. He was like four or five years old. He took my phone from me and recorded this whole segment imitating me zoning out.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Wait, because you did it that often?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yes, and he has my video. And I was like, when I saw it at first, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing and hilarious because he's like, let me be Aunt Nikki, and then his eyes just glaze out and he's just staring off into space, and he's too little to really be a bully, but it was hilarious because I'm like, I do do that, and he is right. So um, yeah, I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, oh my yeah, nothing like a four-year-old to like give you the lowdown of what's actually happening. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

I didn't even find it till like a week after I left him, and then I was like, what is this video?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

That's so you know what's so interesting? Like, I never so that part of it, right? And so in a class, that could be you could be like, Why are you paying attention? You're zoning out.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Right? And you're like, actually, I am paying attention, it's just my eyes that are having to take a break here.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Um, and when I think about that for gymnastics, I'm like, you do not get to take a break with your eyes because you are gonna hit your face on something, or somewhat worse. Well, I mean, I guess I don't know, there's a lot worse than like hitting your face on something, but like there is no break. No, because if your eyes check out, you're gonna get hurt, right? Or and possibly very badly. Um, especially in your sport, right, yeah. And so yeah, so someone, and I'm just thinking of like what are so we kind of talk, I talked a little bit about, yeah, because gymnastics is so much convergence and fast, right? You have to quickly similar to spotting, you have to quickly turn and then spot and focus and etc. Um, and yeah, some of the consequences we can talk a little bit about what the signs are, right? Maybe if of of for you, right? So in a dance class, if someone is moving but their eyes just look checked out in gymnastics because that's really not an option, or maybe that can happen, and maybe that's when something like a fluke injury, you know, quote unquote fluke injury happens because they're so tired that their eyes are not doing not doing this thing that is critical. Um headaches, dizziness, a mental block, like back pain, anything again that is a protective response that the brain is saying, Hey, I'm exhausted and we're having trouble with this thing, and yet we keep doing it over and over and over. I need to give you a signal to stop. Yeah, right. Sit down, close your eyes, whatever it might be. Um And so those could be clues. Someone who just seems excessively tired more than their classmates or their teammates, that could be another thing. Um, yeah, because as we talked about, I think it was in the last episode, the amount of energy that our eyes require from our brain.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, one of the things that I really love about convergence exercises when I have someone who needs or could optimize their convergence is that I see them um recalibrate in real time. It's a really fun thing when I'm giving someone a pencil push-up, which is just bringing something towards your nose and following it back out. Um, but I I had someone the other day, but this happens consistently, and I'm sure you've seen it too. I had them in tandem stance, which is, like I said, standing on a tightrope position. And uh at first she was really off balance when we checked those positions, and then we gave her something a little more comfortable, started her convergence exercises, and I could see her pelvis shift from right to center. And it just happens with a couple reps where she might be standing in ballet and her instructor might come by and say, Oh, you're leaning to the right, and try to push her body over to the left. She's standing on the right because her brain is telling her that's where she's safest. So just by pushing her over, she's going to maybe be able to hold that for a second, but she's gonna she's gonna veer back over to the right because that's where her brain is telling her she's safe. But when we were just running that quick pencil push-up, I saw her settle onto her left leg and then her balance check immediately after that, and that's what she was coming to me for. Her balance check was 10 times better. And it was simply because her convergence needs to be optimized. And once we started optimizing her convergence, she was able to balance in a much more uh neutral position rather than forcing things.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Yep, yeah, so yeah, so vision just kind of wrap or like kind of reframing or wrapping up like what we're talking about here, is that your your vision, which is our most important sense when it comes to movement, um, it's the sense that is taking in the most data from our environment, that is going to drive our perception, which is going to drive movement. Yes. Right. And so, as Nikki was saying, yeah, the safety, the brain is always going to seek what it is more comfortable, what is safer, what is less energy. And so when you adjust that thing, the input that is driving perception that is driving movement, the brain is going to feel safer. I mean, I say feel, so it doesn't really feel, but the brain is going to interpret your situation as safer, and then that will lead to better, more consistent and more efficient movement.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, so inconsistent input equals inconsistent output, consistent input, consistent output. So to find out if you have a sufficient or insufficient. Why don't why don't you take it, Yuca?

unknown 25:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

So one way to, and it just it does take practice, but you're not gonna see right away, but on yourself to see if you have a convergence insufficiency or it just in balance, um, you can record yourself like with the phone, like the camera to you, and you're gonna just you I would use like a pencil or a pen or your thumbnail, um, just so that it's not covering your eyes as they're coming in. And then you're just gonna watch the pen or the you know, tip of the pen or your thumbnail as it's coming in towards your eyes, hold it for one second when it gets all the way in, and then push it back out. You can watch are your eyes actually moving in sync as a team? That's one clue if they're not. Um, and then the other one is it did something go double? That's a good clue. Like blurry is okay, um, especially as we're a little older, things like a closer of face, a little blurrier. Um, but if it went double, that's another clue. So just a quick thing to assess for yourself to see or to just determine, right? If you if you have one.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yep. And your eyes, when I'm watching people perform this, one eye might take a turn and then the other. So you might see one eye following, then the other following, then one eye following, then the other following. Or I myself, when I first started doing this training, I had my left eye totally go off to the left. So I was bringing the pencil into my nose and my eye, my left eye decided to just ditch out on the whole thing and it went left. And I see that, I see that often, to be honest. I don't know if you see that often, but I see that often with my dancers where one eye just goes the other way.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Nope, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, it does not want to, it does not want to go into um conversion. So um, so what do we want to do? We want to improve our visual skills, our visual capacity. We want better um convergence, better eye input, and that is going to create a safer environment for us to move through. And safer means uh optimized performance, and you can improve what you think is a technical skill. I mean, it is a technical skill, but it's not just technique, it's about how the brain is responding to your environment, and you can make big gains in a short amount of time if you work on simple things like convergence. Do you want to add to that, Yuca?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

No, I think just just to re-low it's perfect. Yeah, that that that a movement quirk or problem or thing that just does not seem to go away and you seem to be correcting it or you're getting corrected over and over and over, and you're like, I can't I feel like I'm doing this correctly, right? That could be something that's coming from your eyes. And that that so it's not that you have to live with convergence insufficiency, it can be trained. That's what we're here for. Um yeah, and that you can find in these examples that we gave that movement can change as a result of just doing a few drills.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah. And when you train the system, everything improves.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yep. All right. All right. So that is convergence and more a little more on vision. Um, and we hope we hope this one it's it's a super important skill and capacity. So we hope you've punned. I this just came to my head, it's totally punny, but I'm like, hope it opens your eyes to like what's what's possible and what's going on. This sounds so dorky. Um, anyway, so that is it from us on Performance Rewired, and we will catch you next time.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Do it again.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

One more time, do it again. One more time, do it again. One more time, one more time, one more time, one more time, one more time.