Turnout is an extremely important element of many dance techniques. Dance teachers around the world are faced with the same issues of how to help their students’ turnout in a safe and effective way. Serious ballet schools very often will not accept students until they are around the age of ten because of the way the body is developing up to that age. They also will not generally accept students of fifteen and above for the same reason. In younger children it can be dangerous to over-turnout because it can cause overstretching of important muscles and ligaments of the hip and knee, something that can cause injury as they get older and in older teens the bones are already hardening. Most really young dancers are unable to hold their turnout because of a lack of strength in their muscles and, if you have tried to teach ballet to older teens with zero dance experience, you will generally find that they have great difficulty in using correct turnout.

In the rather competitive world that we live, I have often seen very young dancers attempting to work from a 5th position and struggling to maintain it, sometimes even overcrossing the feet and showing some extremely distorted lines. Working from a 3rd position is much safer for these young children and also enables them to gradually strengthen their use of turnout as they get older.

Turnout Techniques

To turnout you have to use external rotation of the femur while keeping the hips stable. There are two ways to turnout, one is weight bearing and the other is with movement of the leg. In weight bearing movements, turnout helps to stabilize the hips by linking the muscles of the thighs and hips. Using a turned out leg increases the range of movement to the side. It is really important to make students understand how to turn out using the correct position and muscles. It is also important for them to be aware that it is not a competition between students as each body is different and may require more or less time to achieve a good level of turnout. Understanding the body and how it works is vital for students in order to continue to strengthen and prevent injuries.

Isolating The Movement

I often find that dancers just don’t believe that the legs can move independently without moving the hips. I have two ways to show them how they can keep their hips still and yet move the legs. One is to sit on the floor with the legs straight ahead with the feet parallel and flexed and have the student rotate the legs in and out. By sitting on the floor they have to keep the hips still and it also gives you a good indication of where their natural turnout is. It is a simple exercise, but they are often amazed when they realize that they can actually move their legs around below the hips.

Another exercise to demonstrate this with slightly more advanced students is to face the barre, holding it with both hands, standing in classical 1^st position. Take one leg to the back with a tendu and then, without moving the hips, rotate the leg inwards and outwards. This exercise also helps them feel the muscles that they need to use to keep the hips in place. So often dancers just have trouble understanding what muscles they need to activate in order to get the desired effect.

The Dangers Of Forced Turnout

Forced turnout can cause a multitude of injuries. Trying to hold a perfect 5^th position before the dancer has adequate strength to do so can cause a rolling inward on the foot, which can result in problems with the arches, ankles and knees and promote tendonitis of the hip area. Working on strengthening exercises is really the only way to make sure that your dancers are able to hold their turnout correctly. Some dancers will have great flexibility in the hips and if strengthened correctly will be able to reach their goals of having excellent turnout. A vast majority of dancers will struggle to reach perfection and most will never reach it. However, that does not mean that they cannot be excellent dancers. What it does mean is that perhaps they are not suited to a career in a ballet company, but realistically how many of our students are going to go down that road anyway?

Many young dancers do not understand where their second position is when standing on one leg. In trying to attain a really good turned out position they mistakenly try to take the leg too far backwards, which results in a turned in position. Help them understand that wherever their 1^st position is, is where they must take their 2^nd position. In other words, if they tendu in 2^nd position, the line of the leg and foot should be exactly the same as the line of the leg and foot when they are standing in 1^st position. If they can get it right on the floor, when they list the leg en l’air they will have a strong, solid 2^nd position without rotating inward.

Next month I will be giving a series of helpful exercises to work at strengthening your dancers’ use of turnout.