"Turn Out and Point Your Feet"
📣 "Turn out"
📣 "Point your feet"
These aren't technical areas on the score sheet but these are corrections that dancers get regularly and for a judge they can be very distracting.
Besides ruining lines, when the style calls for it and we lose our turn out, a few things can happen:
❌ Turned in prep for turns --> timing of your rotation is off
❌Turned in working leg in open turns --> leg drops and swings
❌Turned in legs on extensions --> hips lift and range of motion is limited
❌ Turned in legs on jumps and leaps --> low legs and bent knees.
There are a few major muscles called the deep 6 and these are the rotator muscles. We can train these using resistance so that you can feel the muscles needed for turn out and engage them to KEEP the turn out when your legs leave the ground.
💡 Training Tip: These are also great muscles to strengthen when you're trying to get your splits.
Hips that don't have strength to rotate get "stuck" and getting into our splits is much harder.
When it comes to pointing your feet, just like all strength training, bringing awareness to the leg muscles, feet and ankles will help keep the extension through the foot active.
Find some of my favorite exercises below to improve turn out and the length and lines of your feet.