Hello beautiful dancers!
While watching students in a class that was not my own, I was struck by a common element that seemed to distinguish beginner dancers from experienced ones, messy technique from clean technique:
The Second Leg
No matter what the student was doing - a glissade, a pique turn, chaine turns, pas de chat - the second leg, that is, the leg that follows, was an afterthought or placed incorrectly. The first leg - the lead leg - was fine! In some instances, it was great! But the second leg...
...not so much. Some problems I saw:
In a glissade, the second leg is turned in and placed into fifth instead of extending to second with energy and the toes melting into the floor before the foot closes.
In a pique turn, the second leg steps across the lead leg instead of cutting under it.
In a series of chaine turns, the second leg both turns in and crosses over the lead leg instead of staying in tight first position.
In a pas de chat, the second leg doesn't propel the body to the side but instead lifts in place by the knee and turns in.
There are many, many more examples I could use so okay, let's talk about some of them too:
In a pirouette en dehors, the second leg - the standing leg - doesn't push up to a full releve but spins in place on the ball of the foot.
In a grand jete developpe (or saut de chat), the second leg doesn't actively battement off the floor but drags behind.
In a grand jete en tournant (or tour jete), the second leg doesn't kick higher than the lead leg and gets turned in.
In a pique arabesque, the second leg doesn't maintain its rotation and gets turned in.
And on...
Do you see where I'm going with this?
**Focus on your second leg.
**Focus on the leg that you're not actively thinking about.
We spend a lot of time thinking about stretching the leg fully for a pique, and we brush the leg very high for a grand jete, but we forget about the leg that follows - the Second Leg. Where is it? What is it doing? How does it need to be activated? Is it staying turned out?
All of these things should become second nature to you and when they do, then your technique will be clean. Remember, it's not about height in a jump, not about the number of turns you can do, not about the speed of your traveling turns...it's about proper placement of the feet and and maintaining rotation.
And it's also about safety! If your second leg isn't working correctly, if you're overcrossing, you will spin out of control on turns and run into other dancers or off the stage. If you're not kicking that back leg on a jump or pushing for a pas de chat, you can land badly and hurt your knee or your hip.
So next time you're in class, take a moment to focus differently. Learn to love your Second Leg!
Happy dancing!
(And don't forget to sign up for Gentle Ballet on Sundays at 11:30AM AND get your tickets to the streaming event of Hotel at the End of the Universe on July 9 &10!)
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