Improve Ballet Turnout And The Frog Position

I have written about this before and I'm glad to see that Deborah Vogel author of  Tune Up Your Turnout has written about it extensively! Specifically:

 

 "This week's question is from a student curious about why she can do a good butterfly and frog position and yet can only stand in a first position of around 90 degrees.  It's not an uncommon pattern and a good one for our students to understand. "

I hope you read this! 

If you are trying to improve your ballet turnout you need this information!

source.

Here is a video with Lisa Howell, showing an exercise to increase your ballet turnout.

Improve Ballet Turnout For Ballet Foot Positions

Many students wonder just how perfect their ballet foot positions should be in earlier training. As the years progress, you expect to improve ballet turnout. You do whatever you consider to be the best stretching exercise for dance turnout.

Please note that very few dancers have 180 degree turnout from their hip joints, resulting in no strain no pain 180 degree turnout in their ballet foot positions.

Yet, there comes a time in your ballet training years where you must stand in a toe-to-heel fifth position. Exactly when that year is, is up to your ballet teacher.

This is the best book for understanding turnout:

 

You've done years of leg and hip flexibility exercises to improve your turnout. If you're "born to dance", your hip joints, where the top of your thigh fits in, and is attached, slant sideways, as opposed to slanting a little forwards, blocking your movement towards the 180 degree angle, and giving you the ideal ballet foot positions.

Even with those sideways hip joints, you maybe had to do a lot of leg flexibility exercises, to really take advantage of what you were given.

But what if your hip joints aren't quite so sideways pointing, and you feel a pull when you do hip flexibility exercises?

If you're studying Vaganova technique, you probably have been putting your ballet foot positions into the toe-to-heel fifth position since day one.

If not, you may have a ballet teacher who starts with third position, training your leg and hip exercises to improve turnout gradually. Then, crossing over toward fifth position a little at a time.

Decisions need to be made during your training, as to how you will go after your ballet foot positions - or dance turnout in general - and how you fulfill the ideal of "square hips square body".
Every ballet teacher must evaluate every individual ballet student and determine how and when she/he will demand those anatomically incorrect ballet foot positions.

Especially for adults ballet classes, this topic should be addressed.

Get your copy of "Tune Up Your Turnout" and you'll have good ballet foot positions.

Dance Classes For Cancer Recovery

Moving For Life is a program designed by Martha Eddy, Ed. E., and is dance exercise for cancer recovery.

There are other programs as well. I read about it today in a post by Ronald Levine, D.C.

Movement For Life offers free dance classes for people recovering from cancer. How wonderful is that.

Sometimes disease alienates us from our bodies. Or a section of our body. Cancer induces such fear, and I believe if we withdraw our energy or attention from a body part, we deny it the energy that is going to make it heal.

I can't think of anything better than dance to connect and communicate creative energy and spiritual energy to our physical form.

Thanks to Dr. Lavine for writing about this!

Class locations are NYC boroughs, Long Island, New Jersey and California in the LA area. Moving For Life .

(I first found Dr. Ronald Lavine at The Body Series, Deborah Vogel's site).

Dear Readers - Apologies To My Commenters!

I have just had the occasion - if not torture - ha ha, of having to revisit my 271 posts on this blog to update many links.

What stood out to me hugely was - I am really bad at getting back to commenters! I'm just horrible. I'm so grateful to see a steadily increasing readership, and to see that readers still leave comments.

I promise to reform!

The world of dance and ballet continues to grow and change. Reality television covers professional dance in "Breaking Pointe" and YA television presents "Bunheads". Although that is more about a dancer's relationship with her mother-in-law of a dead husband, than it is about the ballet studio she inherits...well, we'll see where that goes.

Live ballet is still my favorite theater. And blogging about ballet, and encouraging dance students in any way I can.

So "dear readers", please keep up the comments and I'll reply!!

I have been busy lately getting some small works published and writing a novel with Vone Deporter (with a ballet dancer heroine). Vone painted the beautiful ballerina oil painting at this dance blog.

Rudi Van Dantzig

Linda Maybarduk Alguire has posted..."For those of you who have not heard yet, the ballet world has lost Rudi van Dantzig. Quite simply, I loved and admired him so much that my husband and I asked him to be the godfather for our boys, Michael and Cameron..."

Such a big loss to the world of dance. Lives on in spirit with us...

Disordered Eating, Hypoglycemia, And Self Esteem Problems

While discussing the issues in ballet training with students, my ear is perked up all the time, when I hear comments, phrases, and brush-offs, concerning eating, body image, and obvious self esteem problems.

Certainly I am not going to address this with someone unless they ask for that. Recently, my radar on this subject really started to beep, due a conversation I had with a non-dancer, but aspiring performer, in another field. This person is talented, pushed forward by all her teachers, and yet cannot accept the “well done's” from teachers or peers, because – she just can't.

The lack of self-esteem in this person stupefies me. A person who won the number one state award for a Shakespeare scene? Give me a break! That's like winning the ballet competition for Blue Bird or Swan Lake pas de deux.

Disorder eating can be most broadly defined as, the behavior that achieves emotional reward by controlling what you eat. This does not necessarily mean anorexia or bulimia, but may refer to a habit of self criticism or self approval in regards to what type of food you eat, how many calories you eat, and this does not only apply to dancers.

It may involve an extreme situation like a teenager who insists on being a vegan, in which I have personally witnessed the result causing stress fractures in this dancer who still thought that she was going to be able to get stronger on pointe and have a professional career in ballet, while she looked at her x-rays.

Recently I took a look at hypoglycemia and its symptoms. Now this is tricky. Symptoms are almost unique to the individual. But the dominating symptoms, according to what I have read, are:

***sadness
***self criticism
***hopelessness
***feelings of absolutely NO SELF-WORTH
***periodic complete failure of energy, dizziness, mental confusion
***thoughts of suicide, though not enough energy to think further than that

Hypoglycemia is...drum roll...too low blood sugar!

It is caused by a nutritional deficiency of protein, or just lack of food.

Hypoglycemia does not mean you are diabetic, or almost diabetic. More concisely called Reactive Hypoglycemia, this is a condition that results from a poor diet, or not eating often enough for whatever reason. Or eating too many carbohydrates with not enough protein.

The most common recommendation for hypoglycemics, is to eat some protein every two hours.

Also, I would like to mention the rule of nutritionists, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why? Proteins set your brain chemicals for the day. Skip those, and your brain chemicals will not be properly functioning until the next day IF you happen to eat protein for breakfast.

Dance parents reading this – how many times in a week does your dancing daughter or dancing son run out of the house without breakfast because they slept late?

And what are they going to eat when they get to the food dispensers at their public school? Or hang in until they get to the school cafeteria for lunch? This is a miserable situation for a non-athlete student, not to mention a ballet dancer or any other athlete.

And later when they run off to their ballet academy? Are you one of those ballet parents who have to suffer hearing “I'm not that good”...”I'm not good enough”... and worse? While the ballet teacher is telling you your child should be aiming higher – auditioning for professional summer intensives?

Confused yet? Let me give you a break. Read this thread!

Personally, I believe that hypoglycemia is a result of:

***nutritional ignorance
***modern fast-food, frozen food products
***lack of time to prepare fresh food showing your kids what REAL FOOD IS
***sugar addiction (nutritional ignorance)
***ignorance about the lack of need for grains, and the quality of most (GMO) grains

And, sadly much more I cannot cover here. BUT please, if your dancing child or anyone in your family has any energy or depression issues – but not severe enough to consult your physician (who probably will not have any nutritional education) or therapist, please investigate hypoglycemia. It is an insidious condition - but can be reversed with a good diet!

It is not that difficult. I would love to never hear from again, a ballet dancer, or any other kind of performing artist, who feels morose, depressed, sad, or hopeless about their talent or potential, when they have no idea where all this negativity comes from. And they skip meals, eat nutrition-free snacks, and have low blood sugar...

I would love to never hear from again, a sad, depressed ballet parent, whose amazing talented child is failing, sinking, not even treading water, suffering from body image problems, or self esteem problems, and contemplating quitting ballet, or even suicide.

I've seen it. Fellow students and teachers who attempted and achieved suicide. Or were off-loaded from the school because they were a liability. Yet, some recovered and achieved greatness.

I do not believe that nutrition is superior to the human spirit. But I do believe that the aspirations of the human spirit are so much more easily achieved if we know about and support our bodies' needs, every day. This may take a little extra study.

This may take a lot of extra food preparation for ballet parents! If you're still reading this post, I bet you're O.K. with that.

I Love Ballet Because...

Read this article about 2 ballet boys in Nutcracker.

Nothing for me to add!