Retiré + sickled foot

[airchild]

Hi there,

I have a technique question: When I do retiré, my hip is able to externally rotate close to 180 degrees. However, my teacher told me that my foot is sickled, as it is pressing too hard on the knee of the supporting leg. If I get my foot aligned and not sickled, then the hip cannot open as much, which to me sort of restricts my movements such as pirouettes. Besides, it does kind of look ugly with the knee pointing slightly in front and not to the side. What should I do to make things right?

[Victoria Leigh]

Practice the relevé to the position over and over and over again. If you have the rotation, you can do it with the foot in the right position. It does not need to press against the supporting leg to create the rotation, if the rotation itself is coming from the hip.

[airchild]

Thanks for your reply, Miss Leigh. I am not sure if my rotation is achieved through pressing my foot to the knee, because when I let go of the foot from the knee, the hip rotation reduces. Also, I do have tibial torsion, with the right foot slightly everted and not aligned with the direction of the knee. Would this have affected my alignment during retiré?

[Victoria Leigh]

Yes, tibial torsion would affect the shape of the lower leg and foot. You may have more rotation from the hip than you can manage with the lower leg because of it's bone structure. This will take some time and work between you and your teacher to find the position that will create the best line for you.

[airchild]

Oh, I see. Thanks again for shedding light on this, Miss Leigh! I will try to work things out with my teacher.

[Victoria Leigh]

No need to quote the previous post, airchild. It is right there for everyone to see.

[Hamorah]

At the same time as using those gluteal muscles to hold the turn-out, think about bringing the heel of the pointed retire foot forward away from the knee of the supporting leg - that helps prevent sickling.

[Mazenderan]

I have this problem, too. I have to think about really keeping my heel forward in the retire position. I've actually found that concentrating on keeping my heel forward makes the rotation from the hip even better and stronger - you can really feel the turn out muscles work.

 

Still working on maintaining it during my pirouettes, though......

[Victoria Leigh]

If one is aligned correctly in the retiré position, when you push the knee back against the supporting hip and gluteus and the heel forward against the knee back it creates a triangle that makes the position solid and prevents the foot from sickling.

[airchild]

Thanks all, for your feedback.

The heel trick seems to work! I discussed with my teacher after class today and she pulled my heel out toward the front and then I felt the turnout muscles working really hard, and the foot became aligned. Great stuff!

[citibob]

We were taught to begin any retire with moving the foot into coup de pied.

 

And in order to move the foot into coup de pied, we were taught to initiate the movement by moving the toes back and the knee sideways. This will start the foot off in an un-sickled fashion. Then you can maintain the foot un-sickled as you move it up the leg to retire.

 

It is critical to get a good coup de pied, and avoid a sickled foot from the start. If your coup de pied is sickled, then the foot will be sickled all the way to the top. Not only will it be difficult to correct at the top --- trying to do so is like firing an arrow at a target, noticing it did not hit the bulls eye, and then walking up to the target, removing the arrow and stabbing it in the bulls eye by hand after the fact.

 

It is possible to twist the lower leg with this movement in ways that are not healthy. So it's important to avoid rotation below the knee while going from fifth position into coup de pied (and beyond).

[spinbug]

It is possible to twist the lower leg with this movement in ways that are not healthy. So it's important to avoid rotation below the knee while going from fifth position into coup de pied (and beyond).

 

Except that with tibial torsion the lower part of the leg is already in a "twisted" position before the foot comes off the floor into sur les cou de pied, so even with proper rotation at the hip the foot will appear sickled unless one also pushes the heel forward. Doing this doesn't actually change anything in the hip joint and isn't forcing anything in the ankle area, either, just accommodating an already twisted lower leg.

 

I'm pretty sure that tibial torsion is what the original poster was having issues with and so a few adjustments are what she needed in order to correct the sickle in conjunction with the proper technique described in the post above. Every body is a little different and some need more "tweaking" than others.

[citibob]

Except that with tibial torsion...

 

Hmm... I just looked up tibial torsion. I said what I did with the assumption of no tibial torsion. I really don't know how this affects things.

[spinbug]

Here is an interesting link about tibial torsion. There may be more on this website about that subject matter. Very interesting information available.

 

Tibial Torsion

[Laschwen]

 

 

 

That link is fascinating.

I have never seen anything in print about tibial torsion or spoken to anybody who knew much about it beyond one fantastic ballet teacher. When we met I pointed out my lack of knee over toe like I had learned to do before any teacher saw my first plies. She said pretty much "OK Fine" and Keep aiming your knee over as much as you can. Others had looked at me like I was nuts for being there in class at all.

I don't know how or when I got rotated.

I had some kind of orthopedic problem with my hips from infaancy that nobody in the family remembers the name of. I was to grow out of it before puberty and luckily did. It had me in orthopedic saddle shoes through Kindergarten is all I remember. I always thought out growing the one problem caused the other. No doctor ever diagnosed the torsion until I was 17; that anyone remembers.

My mother says the orthopedist I had as a little kid told her to keep me out of ballet because of the hip thing...or so she thought was his reason. Later on I thought he must have been badly mistaken and if I'd had good training throughout childhood, I might have straight legs. Maybe he knew about the rotation all along and thought it would get worse???

I would love to know more than the article stated about causes and such.

I only had a little "play" ballet in late elementary school so I don't think there is any connection there. My teacher did at least ask for knees to go over toes in plie (I don't know if I failed at that back then or not) and the knee to be pointed at the ceiling in a la second. That was hard for me on the one side where I continue to have less turn-out. I knew I had crooked turnout. It is also the same torsioned side like the article says is common.

I know there are several of us here on the boards with some torsion from previous discussions. I don't know how many are externally or internally rotated. It might be interesting to hear who is which and if they think poor technique in childhood brought it on or worsened it. I'd love to hear somebody's got better with good training too; just for morale.

Oh and, nobody else in my family has the same torsion thing, though a few of the women have one leg that swings out and around when they walk (like a bad turned in rond de jambe) instead of swinging straight through. I do not do that.