This is why you “lose” your turnout when those pointe shoes come on!

Have you experienced this? 🪞 You look at yourself in the mirror in flats and you try your best to turn your legs out but then when you put pointe shoes on, they just keep turning in.

This can mean two things.

1️⃣ You’re “faking” your turn out -using your ankles rather than your hips.
2️⃣ You’re using your hips like you should but not enough.

Let me explain this last one: turning out refers to the whole leg, which means it should start from the hips -so you need to use those gluteal muscles. Turnout means the range your hip socket has, which of course varies from dancer to dancer.

➡️But did you know that most ballet students hardly use their full range? ⬅️ That’s because the natural state of human legs 🦵🏽🦵🏿🦵🏼is parallel. This means that in order to rotate, you need to contract those muscles and keep them contracted. Yes, they need to be working constantly!

Most people rotate at first and then forget about it. The friction of the floor though is there which helps your legs to stay turned out. Once you put on pointe shoes, 🩰 which are naturally more slippery that friction lessens.

On top of that, when you go from flat to demi-pointe, the surface that’s in contact with the floor becomes smaller which means that the friction lessens even more. And when you go on full pointe, even more.

This means that all the help you had from the floor goes away and your rotator muscles are left alone to do all the work. (which they should be doing anyway ! )

🩰 So, your best bet is to strengthen them up and develop the habit to use them *at all times* (or, at least, ballet times!)

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