The ballet beginner and the adult going to ballet class want to learn and understand the best stretching exercises. Each asks “what is best for me”? Those in love and already watching ballet closely can see that high leg extensions, long back bends, springy knee bends and jumping cat landings, and high jumps in splits are the mere norm in classical dance. A difficult task for most!
After training hundreds of ballet students, I tell you, everyone is different, and almost everyone wishes they had just one more physical attribute, the one that everyone but them has. She may be a ballet student with high arches, supple hips, and yet she has lousy turnout.
You may be a dance student with a long neck, elastic shoulders, a slender upper back, and high arches, but you have a tight pelvic area. Trust me, it seems that even the most talented ballerina has an area that needs a lot of stretching, just to catch up with the rest of her physique.
Ballet is not easy for practically anyone, only in this aspect. However, if you learn some functional anatomy and KNOW your least flexible muscle group, you can put it right up there with your most flexible muscles.
Don’t despair if you don’t have easy, flexible ankle joints, but you do have a deep, springy demi plie. The long, springy calf muscles will provide you with a range of motion from the depth of your plie to the top of your foot, giving you a powerful spring up.
If you have a shallow demi plie, but more movement in the ankle joint, that movement will give you a strong push off the feet. Either way, you can work on the other, to get more movement, as well as a more modern look in the result, which as we all know, ballet is very demanding.
If you have a small range of motion in both the ankle and demi plie (calf muscles), you will have to patiently work both areas. The good news is that, no matter how slowly, you will get better, with an understanding of your muscles and joints, and not just a hard push on them.
The essential arabesque: You need to be flexible in the hips, psoas, or the long postural muscle that runs from the thigh to the front of the spine and through the upper back to the shoulder girdle, for truly fluid movement. Some dancers are more tense in one place, which is very annoying… but it can still be corrected.
Understanding myofascial release
Releasing tension in the fascia, the enveloping tissue that surrounds and attaches all the muscles from head to toe, will also release tension and lengthen the muscles. Returning to the flexibility of the lower legs and ankle joint, a relaxation technique for myofascial release of the shin muscles can be performed BEFORE stretching the ankle joint. You will feel more flexibility if you do it in this order.