You can usually spot it before the turn even starts.
The dancer steps into preparation, looks ready, arms set… and then the rise happens. The relevé goes up, but so does everything else. Shoulders inch upward. Ribs drift forward. The neck shortens. And by the time the rotation begins, the turn is already working against itself.
What’s frustrating is that the dancer often feels like they’re doing everything right.
They feel like they’re trying harder than ever.
That’s usually the clue.
“Hiking” the relevé doesn’t come from laziness or lack of effort. It comes from too much effort in the wrong direction. Dancers think “higher” means “better,” so they chase height through the upper body instead of building it from underneath.
And once that pattern sets in, turns start to feel heavier than they should.
It starts before the turn even happens
One of the easiest ways to interrupt the habit is to slow down the moment right before the turn.
Have them step into prep, rise to relevé, and just… pause.
Not for performance. For honesty.
In that stillness, you can usually see it:
Did the ribs shift forward?
Did the shoulders creep up?
Did the alignment change the second they rose?
If anything moved, that’s the real issue—not the rotation.
A clean turn is built on a clean rise.
Stop fixing the turn. Fix the relevé.
There’s a moment in class where dancers want to keep “trying the turn again.” But if the relevé is unstable, repeating the turn just rehearses the problem.
Take the turn away.
Just relevé. Hold. Lower. Repeat.
It sounds simple, almost too simple, but it exposes everything:
whether the ankles are actually supporting weight
whether the ribs are stacking over the hips
whether the upper body is helping too much
A lot of dancers are surprised by how hard “just standing there” can feel when they’re not allowed to compensate.
The body doesn’t need help going up—it needs organization
A helpful shift is reminding dancers that the goal isn’t to pull themselves higher, it’s to stack what’s already there.
Small cues tend to land better than big corrections:
“Ribs stay over hips.”
“Don’t chase height—find placement.”
“Press the floor away, don’t lift yourself up.”
Sometimes even a light touch on the sternum helps reset the feeling. Not to push it back, just to remind it where it belongs.
When in doubt, slow it down
Speed is where this habit hides.
Break the turn down so there’s nowhere for compensation to sneak in:
Prep.
Rise.
Hold.
Quarter turn.
Stop.
If the alignment breaks before the full turn even happens, it’s not a turning problem. It’s a standing problem.
The ankles are doing more than they get credit for
A lot of dancers “help” their relevé with the upper body because the lower body isn’t doing enough of the quiet work.
So it helps to go back to basics:
slow relevés (up and down with control)
balances in parallel and turnout
holding relevé without travel or wobble
feeling even pressure through the foot
When the base is solid, the upper body stops trying to rescue it.
A simple image that tends to stick
Sometimes corrections don’t land until dancers can picture it differently.
One that works often is:
You’re inside a narrow elevator shaft. You can go up and down—but you cannot widen, tip, or shift to get there.
Or for younger dancers:
You’re being lifted straight up by a string from the top of your head—but your ribs don’t get to follow it forward.
It’s not about adding tension. It’s about removing options that don’t belong in the movement.
The shift
The funny thing is, once dancers stop hiking the relevé, they usually don’t feel like they’re doing less.
They feel like things suddenly got clearer.
Turns stop feeling like a fight upward and start feeling like a stack that simply rotates.
And that’s usually the moment they realize the issue was never about going higher.
It was about learning how to stay together while they do.
Good luck!
See you in the dance studio,
Jess
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