Tips for better turn out (in ballet)???

Question

My turn out is not 180 degrees (in terms of angles), more like maybe like 140-150 or so. I try very hard to get my turn out to come from my hips! Do you have any tips or stretches that can improve my turnout (without having it come from my feet/ not hips)? Thank you!

Answer 1

Turn out isn't something you can force. It comes naturally. Some girls have a 180 turn out, and others (including myself) don't. It just depends on how flexible you are in your hips, I think.

Answer 2

Hi,

Sorry, turnout is not something you can really improve past about 7 or 8 years old.  Your bones have stopped considerably shifting since then, and your turnout cannot be really improved noticeably.

However, my experience is that all dancers do not display their true turnout because they just turnout from the hips.  Don't get me wrong; that's more than 3/4 where your turnout comes from.  However, that last bit of turnout comes from the very bottom of your po-po (butt, bottom, derriere, whatever you want to call it, we call it po-po where I am).  Don't clench or tense your large po-po muscles; that's how you become overbuilt.  What you want to do is find the very, very bottom po-po muscles and tense those.  As you know, the muscles in your legs are built like a barber shop pole -- they wrap around and around, thus connected like a spiral.  By tensing these inner, unused, bottom muscles in your po-po, your legs will turn out naturally.  Trust me, it works.

Hopefully this satisfactorily answered you question.  Feel free to contact me with further questions.♥