Improving Turn-in

[Chronus24]

I have an odd problem that (I've been told) you don't see very often. My legs are naturally externally rotated at the hip, so much so that my "parallel" or "neutral" stance (as the Modern people say) is at around 45 degrees with no rotational muscle activation on my part, even when not standing. This has always been the case since I can clearly remember people saying I "walk like a duck", as well as remember said walking, even before I knew what turn-out, or even ballet, was. While on the plus side this allows for me a beneficial degree of turn-out to work with, my turn-in is almost nonexistent. The PT measured my legs' external rotation, by the lying stomach down and rotating each leg individually test, at as close to 90 degrees as possible (other leg was in the way), but my turn in was at most 5-10 degrees. While I guess that it's better to be blessed with turn-out than turn-in, I still feel that it's a lack of range-of-motion all the same. The primary difficulty this causes is in stretches such as the splits (center and side), and of course modern class, but that's not a concern for me. I've observed that people are able to achieve a truer split by working from a parallel or slightly turn-in position rather than turned out. I have not been able to do this since the greater the degree of flexion in my hips, the less degree of turn-in I can hold. I try to have a healthy "parallel or close enough" stance when outside of ballet class since I want my knees to last as long as I do, but my question (and reason for this tiny novel) is what stretches or exercises can I do to improve my turn-in?

[Mel Johnson]

The seeds of your answer are in your question.

 

When called upon to do things which require a "neutral" leg, activate the muscles which bring you to a foot-straight-ahead position on the floor. You still have to keep the knee on the same line as the toes, and you have to make this a conscious effort in everything you do which requires a neutral turnout. Unless this natural turnout is having a deleterious effect on your normal gait in walking, I wouldn't worry about it. If it is, then that's the province of physical therapy, and beyond us!

[Chronus24]

Oh, no, it isn't causing any functional problems other than the stretching one. But I guess then I will endeavor to continue checking myself that I am in parallel when out of ballet class.

[Mel Johnson]

Just a word about splits - don't be overly concerned about them. They're really only stretches, and you do what you reasonably have to do in order to get a good stretch. (Example of unreasonable: Doing an oversplit on the backs of two chairs! )

[Mel Johnson]

PS. Turned-out splits are really, really good for arabesque lines! And who knows, you may have to do some Ashton choreography someday, and he really liked men who could do split grand jetés, especially fast!

[Chronus24]

Encouraging to know that about the arabesque line. My friend gave me a "duh" moment when I was showing him the problem and he suggested I lean laterally away from my front leg. Lo and behold a new little stretch was found that gets some of those hard-for-me-to-get-to leg muscles!

 

Heh, funny you mention fast grand jetes (albeit not Ashton's) since at the SI I just got back from we learned and performed sections of Etudes, including the big grand jete train Tarantella

[Dance_Scholar_London]

I have an odd problem that (I've been told) you don't see very often. My legs are naturally externally rotated at the hip, so much so that my "parallel" or "neutral" stance (as the Modern people say) is at around 45 degrees with no rotational muscle activation on my part, even when not standing.

 

I have a very similar issue, and standing in parallel is really hard for me. This 'problem' really seems rare, and I hardly ever came across a teacher who could give me advice how to deal with turnout/in. I never got really into modern/contemporary dance, but retrospectively, I think this would have helped to deal with this issue.

 

Are you doing specific exercises for this problem?