Ballet Tips for Students

Achieving perfect turnout is a huge concern of many dancers. The key with turnout is that it should come naturally over time and should never be forced. Forcing turnout can result in injury... or several of them!

To imrpove your turnout you should be constantly thinking about turning out your feet and bending your knees over your toes. The best place to start is with tendu. When doing a tendu devant or eface (front) you should think about pushing your heal forward. As the leg rises off the ground for movements like degage and develope you should keep your leg in this same position. Same is true of movements to the side. The heel should always be pushing forward. In tendu retire or derriere you should think of pressing the heel down. Once the leg is raised in arabesque this will result in a flared toe. That is to say that the toe will be higher than the heel. This frame of mind should start at the barre and continue all the way through reverance.

Turnout comes from three places: hips, knees, and ankles/feet. Oftentimes, a dancer will struggle with their turnout in their hips and knees. To avoid injury you should never turnout your feet further then your hips or knees can handle. To check this, ensure that the knees are always centered over the toes in plie.

While many young dancers would like better flexibility, the reality is, it is not often all that important. That being said, a certain amount of flexibility is expected of a serious ballet dancer:

1. 90 degree or higher arabesque
2. 90 degree or higher attitude devant
3. 100 degree or higher develope ecarte
4. Do the splits
5. 180 degree leaps

If you can do these five things (and have generally sound technique) then you will be seen as an asset to any professional company. If you cannot do these things, it is time to work on that flexibility.

Typically once you can do the splits you can accomplish the other tasks on the above list. For this reason you should work towards the splits daily. Push yourself a little but do not push so hard that you injure yourself. The flexibility will come, do not force it.

If you can do the splits but still struggle with extensions it is time to improve your developes. Remember, with developes you should start with a high posse. From this posse you cannot let the knee drop, simply extend the leg from this posse. Develope ecarte is the easiest to explain:

- Begin the develope from fifth position and rising to a posse.
- Now, bring the knee as high to the side as you can.
- From here simply extend the end of your leg keeping your hips square.

While, in front and rear developes you cannot lift your knee as high it is still the same concept. If you keep this in mind, the idea that only the knee needs to rise and not the entire leg, then you should find developes easier in time.