Tech question which you may have answered already: what to watch for when trying to ascertain whether a ballerina has good turnout?
Excellent question! Turnout consists of two main components, mobility (eg is a dancer flexible to get a limb into a position) and strength (is a dancer strong enough to hold and control that position) Here are some things to look for:
Turnout of the supporting leg: (eg, the leg a dancer is standing on): if the dancer does a develope, can you still see her bottom heel pushing forward?
Jump landings: Are both legs turned out in the landing plié? Are knees over toes? Poor control can lead to the landing knee falling inwards. Are the insides of the legs pushing forward at the top of the jump?
Stability of poses: sustained turnout in supported promenades and turns,the thigh shouldn't be dropping or rolling over in arabesque/attitude.
Transition steps: are heels forward and knees outward stepping in and out of 'big elements': the finishing of a turn or the descent of a releve.
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Was watching through Christina Breuer-Jorina Baars for the first time. Lots of interesting takeaways but one basic one was how reliant Breuer was on the naked kick to the lead leg through the first two rounds.
Naked leg kicks are when you throw a leg kick with 0 set up (punches, feints, movement, etc). Naked leg kicks are a uniquely bad strike to throw, especially if you’re not fast/explosive and your opponent has competent defense. They’re uniquely bad because unlike kicks to the body or head, an opponent may not actually be forced to deal with them. You don’t want to be eating head kicks and if you throw a body kick, they’re a lot harder “walk thru.” And, especially if they’re bigger, your opponent can literally just punch over the top.
Breuer is on the ropes. She throws the kick off the ropes hoping to force Baars to give her space. Baars just throws a long jab over the kick, popping Breuer’s head back.
Another instance. Now they’re in open space, in an open guard (southpaw vs orthodox) match up. Breuer throws a very ill advised leg kick to Baars lead leg. This turns Breuer’s body square and gives Baars the angle for the left hook that sends Breuer down to the mat.
Obviously leg kicks are great. They’re a fantastic tool for taking away your opponent’s power, lateral movement, and equalizing range. And there are people out there who are subtle, experienced, and/or explosive enough to throw them with minimal set up. But for most of us, you might want to put something before or after that.
Pirouettes en dedans are the bane of my existence! I mean, not that en dehors are much better but at least I get them all the way around without killing myself.
No you have any tips that worked for you? Stuff I can try at home? The internet has so much information and it's overwhelming so I trust your pro opinion.
This is my 3rd year of ballet school, starting as an adult beginner. My barre game is killer! I can see so much improvement while at it. Feet, turn out, position, even port de bras looks better. My favorite of all barre exercises are rond de jambes, any sort. My center is a mess. Funny enough I much prefer watching adagios but I do much better in allegro. Despite my weight and body characteristics, I can jump (sure enough I'm nowhere near the 180 in the air but yesterday I almost sat my right leg split in floor barre!!!!! ) and have promising technique to improve. Now balancing in adagio and doing the damn pirouettes is not my thing and I want so much to improve.
My teacher says she might add me to pointe classes in the future but not before I can master a simple pirouette. I'm ready to work hard! So, help is needed!!!
Ok! So it's time for another Technique Talk with Ale!
Let's start with some general rules for pirouettes:
Bad preparation -> Bad turn. If it magically goes well, it's luck, not skill and you can't depend on that.
Pirouettes hate change, you need to establish the pose as soon as possible and try not to adjust anything mid-turn.
If you see the floor, you're wrong. End of discussion.
Now into specifics for pirouette en dedans, from 4th position:
Preparation
Size of the position: Sit in a 4th position that's comfortable for you. It shouldn't be so large that it's difficult for you to shift your weight to the front foot, but it also shouldn't be so small that you struggle to feel where your weight is placed. Also, watch your hips closely, push the hip of your working leg down and forwards, toward your front leg.
Weight distribution: Now there are a lot of different schools of thought here, I will simply share what I find the most helpful for myself. Some people think the weight should be 50/50 but for me, I like to keep the majority of weight over my front foot around 90/10 if you're a numbers person. At the time before the preparation, I can easily lift my back foot off the floor. It's a more drastic shift than what feels normal, but pre-setting yourself this way minimizes the weight transfer to get into the pirouette. A smaller, more controlled weight transfer is more stable.
Upper Body: Whenever I go to prep for a turn, I bring some attention to my abdominals. I mean your abs should always be working, but it's especially necessary when you go for a turn. Feel the connection between your backbone and your spine. There also needs to be energy exerted through your arms from your shoulder blades. They're your stabilizers for the turn, they can't dangle like uncooked pasta.
Initiating the turn:
'Spiraling' with the arms: You don't need to do that wacky crazy wind-up, it generates way more force than you'll know what to do with. However, there's a small, internal twist, more for your spine than your arms. You should feel the counter-rotation as you slightly twist away from the direction that you want to turn, creating space for yourself to start the turn.
Supporting leg, power from your heel: The supporting front heel is what's gonna get you around. Instantly try to push your heel forward on releve and focus on getting that little 'spring' moment to initiate the turn. This is the first thing that moves in your lower body and this is how you keep your supporting leg turned out. If you can't feel the rotation from the heel, try doing just a tour lent (promenade) instead of a pirouette. Feel the inside of your leg pushing around as you move your heel. Try one and eventually two rotations like this WITHOUT changing your back or your passe. It should take you at least 10 seconds to do this, it's a great exercise for checking and improving your balance and strength. Also, you'll really feel your supporting leg work and can get the sensation of what 'on your leg' feels like.
Working leg: There are two options, bringing the leg in through a la second with an enveloppé or just directly bringing the leg into the turning position. I find the latter easier to start with because it doesn't involve another pose, and coming in from second involves a ton of force that's harder to control. Also, it's less likely to throw your hips out of wack.
General coordination: The older I get, the more I realize that the preparation for turns doesn't have to be super duper fast. One of the ballet masters in the company specializes in fixing our turns. He's always telling us that you shouldn't rush to start the rotations and the prep can feel slower, even at a fast tempo. Fix the position first, feel yourself transfer your weight and arrive arrive in passé almost 'before' you start turning. Don't rush to get to the pirouette.
Rotation + Finish
The verticality of the spine: Keep your posture and a tall straight spine with your abs pressed in tight!! If you start to look down or up, you're doomed, not even God can save you.
Try not to hop: In my opinion, it doesn't do you any favors and only encourages bad habits once you get on pointe. Start with one clean turn and try to end up on releve on a super-engaged leg, drilling your toes into the floor. If you can't finish a single turn like that, you're not ready for doubles.
Spot: The same ballet master is always saying "chin to left shoulder" (for pirouettes on the right leg) and this specific direction is beneficial for me because it reminds me that spotting is an action, it takes effort and energy. Keep a loose neck, like a metronome, just 'tick, tick' for a double turn. He also stresses 'active' eyes and says that knowing what/where you're spotting is key. I personally am not always consciously looking at something, I rely more on the rhythm of my head moving. But I also have a really sucky spot so.... (this ballet master also says that my turns could be so good but I insist on spotting like a sleeping bear)
Arms: If you're turning with your arms above your head, I strongly recommend taking your arms from preparation, through second to fifth but through the diagonal towards the direction you're turning. I think taking your arms up through the center is really difficult as it generates a lot more force and it can throw you backward. I know we all think we have our arms in front of our bodies, but sometimes that's not the case. Especially when turning, keep your arms more forward than you think, having them behind you is most likely going to force your ribs to open, and then your posture is all out of wack. Something that helped me a ton: practicing moving your arms back and forth quickly from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 5th, WITHOUT changing anything in your back. This is an exercise in isolation, just like jazz/hip hop dancers do. You should be able to hold your ribs closed and move your forearms freely.
Maintaining turnout + passe position: One of the most common mistakes is the passé turnout deteriorating. Try to keep your glutes, hip flexors, and hamstrings consistently engaged. That's what's going to hold your passe, the muscles under your thigh. Try to keep your thigh perfectly parallel to the ground, this is the most aesthetically pleasing line. Don't relax too soon!! You're not 'done' until you're back in the plie/5th position.
So there's A LOT here and I appreciate you all for reading. I can't promise this is magically going to fix your turns, but I hope some of my tips will help or at least give you some things to think about! It's super technical but the most important thing is to get into the studio and practice! Don't try to change everything at once, just work gradually and safely but try to be consistent. As always, feel free to ask more questions about anything here that doesn't make sense or that you want more details on!
Elya Sevenard fouettés: what could be the reason girl falls from them? I don’t get it, she is technically gifted, stable and has quite muscular legs compared to a lot of her colleagues, I just can’t understand why she can’t complete them
Her fouette technique is solid and she's honestly one of the best turners to come out of VBA. However, my teacher would call her a 'greedy' turner. She's ambitious and always wants to do more and more and more and sometimes it doesn't turn out.
In some ways, it's cool because it leads to new and exciting combinations, especially when she makes intelligent execution decisions. For example, at the end of Bolshoi's Coppelia, the ballerina does a series of fouette moving along the diagonal. Intentionally traveling and trying to cover the massive BT stage is challenging. Most just do singles, Sevenard upped the ante by doing 1+1+1+2, and smartly chose to stay in place for the double fouette and then travel on the singles. She's a very snappy turner, and she fits the turns in the music beautifully here.
However, she often has trouble because she goes for too much, ends up off the music and loses her rhythm and timing which causes her to lose her balance. Each fouette is supposed to correspond to one count of music. A standard coda in ballet is 32 counts, hence 32 fouettes: dancers rely on that rhythm to keep the turns going. When you start to add doubles or other variations, it's harder to keep the rhythm and stay on time. A double pirouette obviously takes more time to complete than a single one. That being said, 1+1+2 (4 turns total) is MUCH easier than 1+1+1+2 (5 turns total) because you're ideally supposed to time each count to each fouette (not each pirouette). With 1+1+1+2, you have to squeeze in the double pirouette in a single count in order to stay on the music. 1+2+1+2 is even more challenging because you're supposed to do 6 turns in 4 counts.
Fitting in extra turns means you have to turn faster, you need to take more energy, which also requires more control. Sometimes, that extra force can throw a dancer off. That's also why the 1+1+2 is easier, you have more time to complete the double pirouette and you can kinda relax and float it around. Marianela Nunez does a great job of showing that suspended quality for the sustained double (or in her case triple)
Dancers get tired and the supporting leg gets worn out from all those single leg releve. The more tired you are, the harder it is to keep exerting force to do the extra turns. When Sevenard is tired, she sometimes takes TOO much force because she's just trying to gut it out. In these moments, you rely on the music to keep your tempo, and your balance but if your combination is so difficult to keep in time with the music...you're in a bit of trouble. Some teachers will encourage dancers (especially those who struggle with the step) to just do fouettes 'through' the music, focusing on their body's internal rhythm and natural speed without heeding the music. It works. It's not nearly as captivating.
Now Sevenard also succumbs to insanity and has tried to do 32 counts of straight double fouette, incredibly difficult. I think this is the cleanest I've seen her do it, other times it becomes a hot mess. To her credit, she does 16 fouettes, each double taking two counts, this is still pretty musical. But she's still got me holding on to the edge of my chair, it makes me nervous. Now, I would bet that she could probably do straight doubles right after a good warm-up class. But I'm much less confident in her completing the set cleanly at the end of Don Quixote when her legs are shot because she's been dancing for over 2 hours.
Honestly, I find dancers like Maria Alexandrova who often just do 32 perfectly in music singles to be very impressive. It's an approach I'd love to see Sevanrd try sometime.
(Not me writing a ton again....does this count as a technique talk lol)
do you use paint thinner when working with acrylics? I have such a hard time with acrylics because It's either too thick or thin, how do you get such a smooth consistency with yours?? love your work!!
If you’re using water-soluble acrylics (which a lot of mine happen to be, since I’m using Tamiya acrylics) water is actually a decent paint thinner. Tamiya’s also got its own in-house thinner, and I’ve heard good things about Liquitex’s flow aid as well, even though it’s technically an airbrush medium.
I can’t really describe how to get smooth consistency, honestly. A lot of it’s habit for me - like knowing what proportions to mix just by visually analyzing and knowing how much to load on the brush. You can always test out strokes on a blank (sealed) headcap or on your paint palette until you get a consistency you like.
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From my conversation with Duke Roufus in the latest Technique Talk:
I don't want you to give away your whole gameplan, but if you could give me one thing, what is one sort of technical flaw that you think could be taken advantage of against Aldo?
I'm not gonna say it's a flaw, but the one thing is the low kicks. The leg kicks are going to be a non-issue. Leg kicks are a cool thing until someone knows how to block it. When you know how to block it, he's the one that gets hurt, Aldo, not Anthony. That's the one thing that has given a lot of people trouble and that's the one thing Anthony prepared for real well with Cerrone and that was a non-issue there, too. Those leg kicks he launched, you saw Anthony block it and strike back right away. You did not see him throw a leg kick anymore.
That's the thing about MMA. Guys suck at blocking leg kicks. They're so worried about takedowns that they sometimes forget the leg kicks and when you know that someone likes to throw them a lot, you're ready for them. In other sports, they're not as common because people know how to defend them. That's the one thing I'll say will definitely affect Aldo's game. The kicking will be out. I believe Anthony's faster than him so the hands and other weapons, Anthony won't be in front of him for his knees and I can just say what Aldo is not going to do to him.
