Crazy turnout!

[swan#7]

I can do this http://www.pinterest.com/pin/210965563767560612/ if I use my hand, but I can't hold it. Would I ever able to hold it? I'm guessing it has to do with a lot of strength? Should I keep clamshelling?

[Victoria Leigh]

No way to know if you will ever have that much rotation, but not very many people do!

 

"Clamshelling" is fine, but the very best way to improve your rotation is to use it well in every single tendu, dégagé, developpé, rond de jambe, etc., etc. It all starts with alignment, weight placement, knowing HOW to rotate, and we see it first in tendu, which of course leads to everything else. Your classical line starts there.

[swan#7]

I know that the best way to engage turnout is in tendu, but my teacher also recommended clamshells as a good turnout exercise? If someone has the flexibility, why is it so rare to be that turned out.

[Victoria Leigh]

Flexibility is not exactly the same thing as rotation, and especially rotation in weight bearing positions. Clamshells are fine, nothing wrong with them. But they are just an exercise, and there is a lot more work to using rotation well than that. Being able to 'do' a split does not necessarily mean you have a wonderful line in arabesque. Splits are just a stretching exercise, which can improve the things needed to do a great arabesque, however, as with rotation, there is a lot more to it than that.

 

I'm not saying that doing stretches is not a good thing, but they are an adjunct thing. And, like ballet, which is a long, slow process, so is seeing great improvement from stretching. There are no short cuts in ballet! Teachers always wish they could wave the magic wand and create rotation, flexibility, great feet, etc., etc. :wink)

 

The rotation you see on that photo is relatively rare, or at least not common in the "normal" human body, because there have to be structural elements in play there as well as lots of flexibility and lots of technique. One might see that more frequently in Russian dancers because they are selected for all of the elements prior to training. More dancers in other countries are trained and still manage to become very good dancers, and some exceptional, without having been born with all of it there and just waiting to be trained. They had to work even harder for some of things that might not have been there so naturally. So, it is doable, if there are enough of the physical elements, along with excellent training and with all of the other qualities that make a dancer.