Tips from the pirouette mini-workshop!

Hello beautiful dancers!

I'm so impressed with the group of dancers who attended the mini-workshop I held on Zoom this past weekend. Practicing pirouettes at home is not easy and these students were all-in. If you missed it, here are a few takeaways that you can try to apply on your own.

1. In every workshop I teach, I always try to give students a new way of approaching pirouettes en dehors. The fact is, every dancer responds to different images, concepts, and techniques. If the one I give you in a class doesn't click for you, maybe a different one will. That's why I tell students to never give up on turns. Saying, "I can't turn!" is not real. It's something you tell yourself or in some cases, something someone else might have told you.

I was told by a teacher I would never do more than a double turn. That stuck in my head for years!

The concept I introduced on Saturday was using the knee to guide the turn: an image of drawing a circle in the air with your knee, kind of like a compass (does anyone use compasses to draw perfect circles anymore?). This will prevent you from losing your rotation as you turn and also keeps you level. Once you are up in your releve, you let the head snap you around and let the knee guide you.

Compass drawing

2. The second thing I try to do in each workshop is to emphasize the rhythm of a turn, from preparation to landing. Every turn, inside or outside, attitude or arabesque, etc. has a rhythm to it. You need to keep that rhythm in your head - in your muscle memory - so you always do the same thing. But what is in your head is not necessarily in someone else's head.

On Saturday, I gave my dancers the rhythm of --

Reach

Reach the arms out

 

Look

Look at something

 

Land

Land the turn

If you can keep in your head a rhythm of Reach/Look/Land, you will have a rhythm for every single turn. My dancers reached their arms in front of them, saw what they were going to spot, and then landed the turn. Reach/Look/Land. Reach/Look/Land.

Honestly, it doesn't even matter what those three words are. They could be --

Prep/Spot/Land  

or Bend/Stretch/Bend  

or Start/Rise/End 

or Arms/Head/Knees

I prefer single syllable words because they pack a punch and are easy to recall. You just want to have a word in your brain that means - for you - what the start of the turn is, what word reminds you to focus on during the turn itself and a word that reminds you about finishing the turn.

Hope these 2 tips help you the next time you take a class or spend some time working on pirouettes. Especially now while you are home without a mirror, it's important to develop proper muscle memory. When you do get back to the studio, you will find turning even easier!

Happy dancing~

Easy fix: Raise Your Gaze!

Ever have a problem in class, whether it's turning or a balance on one leg, and you find yourself wishing there was one simple way to fix it? Something that didn't require hours in the gym working on your core or quads?

Well, there is!

(cue the dramatic music)

Raise your gaze!

cc lic Clare Black "black eyes"

Sometimes it's as easy as that to get your balance, to stay lifted in your pirouettes and get more height in your jumps.

Many of us tend to dance small in class, whether it's because we are focusing on learning or we're tired from a long day or we're anxious about something. That can often translate into a gaze that is cast downward or inward. Our shoulders might roll forward and our centers might collapse as well. All of this leads to a very heavy energy in your body which prevents you from feeling lifted in turns or supported in adagio or jumps.

But by simply --

lifting your gaze

opening your eyes a little wider

actually seeing something

--you can change your posture, alignment, and energy in one easy move - and you will see an immediate result.

I can nearly guarantee it.*

*Note: nearly. I mean, I'm 99% certain it will work for you but there's always a tiny chance it won't but really, what could it hurt to just try?

Happy dancing~

cc lic Ethereality Pictures "Generations of Perfection"

Why do we do grand plies? PLUS: Why Leigh gives super fast degages at the barre

You can always count on people who love ballet, dancers or teachers or simply avid balletomanes, to argue about the art form. Is that a tour jete or a grand jete en tournant? A pas de chat or saut de chat? Do you point or flex the foot in a frappe en releve?

Lately I have heard the argument against doing grand plie at the barre.
"They are too hard on your knees!"
"They are not used in the center!"
"They are really hard to do correctly and I don't feel like doing (or teaching) them!"

Those are all valid arguments. As a teacher of many levels of dancers, I can say unequivocally that grand plie is not easy to teach, to learn or to re-learn, which many of us do if we weren't taught correctly or if we skim through them without actually using the correct muscles. And let's face it, plies at the barre are often an exercise people do by rote. If it's the first or second exercise at the barre, you may not even be thinking about them! You're thinking about where you parked your car, what you might have left at the office, and if you need to stop at Trader Joe's on the way home. So plies are an afterthought.

However, I would argue there are two very valid reasons to do grand plie:
1. Jumps
2. Stability

The first is obvious: when we do deep knee bends, we are building our quads and our hamstrings, both of which we really need if we want to jump off the ground. Of course, we move through our demi-plie at the beginning and end of each jump, but the power has to come from somewhere!

The second is less-obvious: when we are in the center performing an adagio, we need to stabilize our center so we don't wobble and our knees don't buckle. When we talk about holding our core muscles (front, back and sides of our torso) we really want to engage the very deep muscles in our abdomen called the rectus abdominis, which are two long muscles running down the center front of your body, side by side, and the transverse abdominis, which are under our obliques and connect on the sides of the pelvis. These muscles are critical to holding us steady away from the barre. And what's a great way to engage them? Grand plie! How, you ask? When you perform a demi-plie at the barre, it's easy to correct the pelvic tilt but when you go just a bit deeper into a grand plie, it's that much more challenging to keep your pelvis aligned properly. To do it correctly requires that you engage the muscles very deep in your center.

Source: Wikipedia, CC lic

NB: correct pelvic posture is important to fully engage the deep abdominal muscles and strengthen them for center stabilization so be sure to either ask your teacher for guidance or take a quick peek at your profile in the mirror to see what's happening in your pelvic region. If you're tilting (i.e. spilling your cup of water!), engage the muscles and align them properly.

Source: Wikipedia, CC lic (NB, the darkest shade of red is the Transversus Abdominis)

Now, do you really need to do a super deep grand plie all the way to the floor? Absolutely not. And it's very difficult for many dancers to do that and maintain the turnout in their hips without forcing it. You should take your grand just to the point before you begin to turn in. You need to be able to lower yourself to this position and then recover from it without turning the knees in and allowing the hips to swing back behind the heels. Again, this may require a bit of guidance from your teacher, especially if you're not exactly sure what it should feel like. That's what we're here for! We want you properly aligned and building strength!

It's up to you and your knees (and your teacher!) as to whether you do a grand plie and there may be lots of good reasons for you personally to not attempt them but if there isn't and you find that you're wobbly in the center or you can't get off the ground in big jumps, consider working on your grand plie.

BONUS!

QUESTION from the class: "Leigh, why do you give such fast degage combinations at the barre? They're hard and confusing!"

Good question! No matter what level class you take with me, I will give you a fast degage combo at the barre. You might have trouble with it because of the speed but I want you to try it anyway. Why?

1. Step out of your comfort zone! We all have a tempo at which we like to perform certain steps (for instance, I like slow grand battements so I can get my leg high which takes time) so if you push yourself a little bit, it will be that much easier the next time you try it. This goes for anything! Try for the triple turn when you want a double, etc.

2. Focus on speed for allegro. Fast small steps in the center require quick feet and fast reflexes. If we do a fast combo at the barre and constantly shift our weight from side to side, that's going to have a direct impact on our movements in the center later. We will be more likely to be able to shift our weight and our muscles will fire up faster.

3. Engage the inner thighs. Slow degages tend to use the quads more than the inner thighs, especially if the accent is on the degage extension rather than the close to the position. When we do a quicker action, we are accenting the close, which requires us to use the muscles that close the thighs together. Again, this has a direct application to our allegro combinations in the center.

Do I expect you to perform a super fast combination perfectly? It would be nice, sure, but it takes time to feel comfortable or at least allow yourself to not be perfect. You will flub it and feel like your feet and toes are made of concrete but the more frequently you do them, the more you will find the time to work the feet properly.

Happy dancing~

The Forgotten yet Powerful Middle Back

Do you have a sagging, unengaged back?

Some signs:

You sink into your hips when you shift from two feet to one in the center (e.g. during adagio)

Your arms get left behind when you turn

Your quads and calves get tired when you jump

Your big jumps feel labored and grounded

These are just a few tell-tale signs that you're not using the middle muscles of your back. Think of the muscles in the center as the T's: Trapezius, Teres major and Teres minor. Your Traps are a pair of triangular muscles that also wrap up across the upper back but we're interested in the lower portion of the triangle. Your Teres major and minor are under and to the side of the Trapezius. You can find them if you reach under your arm pit and walk your fingers toward your spine.

By Henry Vandyke Carter, derivative work: Rafael Di Marco Barros, Public Domain

Above from Wikipedia: Posterior view of muscles connecting the upper extremity to the vertebral column. A -Trapezius, B - Teres Major, C -Teres Minor, D - Latissimus Dorsi, E - Levator Scapulae, F- Rhomboid Major

The middle muscles, like the middle child and the middle manager but not the middle of an Oreo cookie, often get neglected on pirouettes, jumps and adagio in favor of the flashier muscle groups.  We think of our quads and hamstrings on jumps, our glutes on adagio, and a whole host of things during pirouettes.

But the one thing all of those actions have in common is the mid-back. If you can engage these muscles, you will find yourself far more lifted in adagio, more suspended during turns which will allow for multiples, and lighter during jumps.

Accessing the muscles is a matter of being mindful at barre.

--When you prepare through first to a second position arm, feel the fingertips reaching out from your center and to the side.
--When you cambre forward, try not to let your shoulder roll but lengthen the spine as you tilt forward and really try to think of your middle back returning you to your neutral position.
--When you bring your arm overhead in fifth, try to initiate the movement from the middle of your back rather then your elbow or biceps.

Think of these mid-back muscles as the complement to your torso. Just as you engage your torso (your core, your center, whatever you choose to call it), you need to work the muscles on the opposite side of your body.

As you start to become more aware of those muscles (and of course, you are also incorporating the Serratus muscles we talked about in this blog post), your muscle memory will kick in when you are off the barre and moving with nothing to hold onto. These powerful muscles will provide added stability in the center.

Happy dancing~

Year-end technique tip for 2019

As we bring the year to a close, I tried to think of one correction that represented 2019.

Was there a common thread among the issues I seemed to constantly be correcting among my students?

Was there a single thing that I seemed to be focused on primarily?

Could we condense 2019 into one technique tip that everyone could learn from?

I talk so frequently about turns, about visual images that help us in the center, about performance quality, about technical details...was there one that connected everything? And then it hit me:

LIFT.

It is the number one thing I have been talking about throughout the entire year: lifting.

Lifting the sides of your waist at the barre or in the center.

Lifting your heels on turns and balances en releve.

Lifting your eyes so you don't direct your energy into the floor.

cc lic Shannon Clark

Lifting your elbows on chaine turns.

Lifting your collarbones on turns and promenades.

Lifting your back on arabesques and turns.

Lifting your core on jumps and developpes.

I talk a lot about lifting your rib cage out of your pelvis, which gives you more room under your hips for fast footwork and bigger battements. We especially talk about this in pointe work. You want to move your rib cage slightly forward when you bourree, when you echappe, when you turn. The only way to accomplish this is to feel your torso lift up and out.

cc lic Oregon State University

There is, of course, an internal component to this notion of lifting. Often when we feel exhausted, mentally or physically, we express that in our posture: our shoulders roll forward, our centers collapse, the backs of our knees soften. Sometimes we don't even realize we are doing that; it has become so much a part of us. And it doesn't help to commute long distances, to sit in front of computers at desks for so many hours, to stare down at our phones all the time. Those activities, seemingly innocuous, take a huge physical toll on us.

Ballet combats this. 

Ballet - wait for it - battles it.

(Ha! Dance joke!)

Seriously, though, we are constantly adjusting our alignment in ballet and the smallest details can have a great impact. A tilt of the pelvis, a curl of a toe, or an over-rotation of an ankle can lead to big problems when we walk or drive or sleep. Conversely, making those minor changes can solve lots of real-life issues, not just in dance class:

--Finding a new way to hold your upper back can lead to less fatigue when you're driving.

--Engaging your core muscles can energize you when you're at your desk.

--Pulling up your knees, supporting your arches, freeing your neck from tension - all are ways to prevent you from being tired and creaky and sore.

And when we feel good physically, that can help improve our mood. And vice versa.

cc lic courtesy tshein

So I will add one last tip to this: do what you can to lift your mood.

That can happen just by walking into the studio, by surrounding yourself with your friends in a supportive environment, by focusing on something other than work and life problems, by physical movement and endorphins, by giving yourself permission to feel bigger and prouder and confident. In class, we can be lifted by giving others a lift: when we encourage and support others in class, whether they need an emotional boost or a helpful suggestion or even a compliment on the way they hold their hands at the barre, we can give ourselves a boost too. It's a wonderful cycle to continue!

Let's lift a toast to lifting more in 2020. Happy dancing!

cc lic State Library of Queensland

My first monthly newsletter!

Hello all and welcome to December!

I hate getting a ton of emails, especially when the good ones get swamped by the spam. So rather than send you all a bunch of my super awesome and informative emails about class changes and workshops, etc. I decided I would start a monthly newsletter!

In it, I will let you know about any changes to my classes, my schedule, my locations, etc. as well as links to cool things like pirouette tips or fun shows, my recent blog posts or even my book reviews for Dance Advantage. I'll also include brief company updates in case you are in the company or want to know more about it.

You can subscribe or unsubscribe at any time! I know that not everyone likes newsletters but I find it much easier to keep things all in one place rather than a whole bunch of emails that I send to the trash and then have to go searching for.

Here's the link on the web.

View this email in your browser December 2019 schedule All classes will be in session through the end of 2019, except NO CLASS on Christmas Day. **On Christmas Eve, 12/24, and New Year's Eve, 12/31, there will be MORNING classes only: 10:30AM-12PM at Inspire Dance Studio in La Canada. These will be Open Level classes and everyone can attend! View my full schedule here (scroll to bottom of page). December special treats! Beginner class will be learning my Tarantella dance from Nutcracker. Pointe class will be learning my Sugar Plum Fairy variation.   Special notes Beginning January 1, 2020, the price of a single class will be $18; 5-class cards will be $85; 10-class cards will be $155. As always, they have NO expiration date and may be used for any of my classes.   Featured technique tip! We could all use some tips on turns! Here is one that speaks to the UNDERARMS, an oft-neglected area of the body.  Underarm pirouettes!   LPBC News The company will have a final meeting on December 7 at Inspire from 1-2PM. Mark your calendars: Our Intention for the 2020 season will be on Sunday, January 12, 12PM. Everyone is welcome to participate if they would like to be part of the company's 4th season. More information to come! Many thanks to all of you who attended our show in October! We had over 600 guests and we performed in a beautiful new theater, the Manoukian Performing Arts Center. For those of you who missed it, the photos featured here (courtesy of Raul Paredes) are the newest characters in "Sweet Sorrow, A Zombie Ballet": Werewolves (Celia Green and Omaira Galarza), Their Innocent Victim (Kavita Master), and Benvolio (Bill Reiss)! Copyright © 2019 Leigh Purtill Ballet, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

A million tendus

If you're an experienced dancer with years of classes behind you, you've likely done thousands of tendus, thousands more degages, and perhaps a million demi-plies. As a teacher I try to structure my combinations so you don't realize you're doing the same tendus you've seen a bajillion times but honestly, there are just so many ways to combine steps at the barre.

But there's a very good reason for this: muscle memory. Just as baseball players and golfers practice their swings over and over and over again, we dancers must practice the same steps over and over and over again until they are so much a part of our bodies that we don't think about them.

cc lic Paul L Dineen "Big Swing"

 If we had to think about every muscle and every bone that must move and coordinate in order to do a grand jete developpe, we would never get off the ground!

Take a look at this breakdown of a baseball player's swing - and he's not even propelling his body into the air!

Baseball Swing Anatomy

Today I want to talk about the tiniest little things that have a BIG impact on your turns, your jumps and your lines.

Your toes.

cc lic melalouise Sous Sous

Ten tiny parts of you that really sell you as a polished dancer, no matter how many years you have been taking class. Your toes do so many things!

--they keep you on the floor
--they push you off the floor
--they start your pirouette
--they finish your lines
--they form the platform upon which you balance
--they are the basis of your pointe work
--they shape your foot and guide your leg through the air no matter what you do

cc lic Quinn Dombrowski, A Leg Out of Nowhere

 And they MUST be STRETCHED. This is an absolute MUST.

Teachers always tell you to point your toes but instead, think STRETCH, not point. We don't want to grip our toes or feet - we want to lengthen them. With the stretch/lengthen imagery, we will spring ourselves up to retire for a turn; we will spring to glissade and brush every jete.

Without exception, your toes must be stretched to a fully extended position EVERY TIME they come off the floor (unless the choreography calls for a flexed or soft foot) and they remain stretched until the foot returns to the floor. From the very first exercises at the barre (typically a plie combination), think about the toes adhering to the floor; think about them when you balance flat or en releve. Think about them as you articulate the foot during slow tendus. The more you engage the toes, the more you articulate them, the more muscle memory you're gaining. Soon it will feel weird for you to not point your feet.

Happy dancing~

Pirouette tip: use that upper back torque!

Hello beautiful dancers!

Recently I've been watching my dancers do their pirouettes en dehors and have been noticing a common issue among those whose turns are not as successful as they would like, or those who can't complete multiple turns cleanly:

They don't articulate their upper backs.

Let me clarify the difference between "winding up" for a turn and "upper back articulation."

When a teacher tells you not to wind up before you turn, usually what that means is you are twisting your entire torso and arms at the waist before flinging them around. This completely throws off your center, doesn't engage your back muscles, and causes you to spin around rather than lift up.

On the other hand, upper back articulation is when you have a slight twist in the shoulders and top third of your torso, just around your scapulae. By pulling back at the scapula and allowing a torque under the shoulders, you are engaging the back muscles and also creating a spiral effect, much like the threads on a screw.

Dancer has slight torque in upper back - note scapula of left (closing) arm. Dance Australia photo credit

A dancer who isn't using their back is probably turning as a single unit, with no energy in their arms or force in their body. Remember, you need impetus to get you moving and momentum to keep you turning. All the releves and balance in the world won't result in multiple turns if you don't initiate from somewhere in your body.

No upper back torque: this is a single unit. Mom Ballet by Megan, cc license

Next time you are practicing your en dehors turns, try this:
--from your fourth position (or fifth or second), reach the gesture arm directly in front of you and the closing arm directly out to the side.
--pull back the scapula of the closing arm and feel the gesture arm stretch even farther away from your body. You should feel the shoulders twist toward that closing arm - but nothing else! Don't allow your torso or waist to twist. This is only in the upper back.
--when you release those arms for a turn, pull back from the scapula of the gesture arm and you should feel more force propel you as you pull the arms in. As long as you are pushing UP from the floor to a very high releve, you will achieve a pirouette rather than a spin.

Try it! And good luck! Happy dancing~

2019 is The Year of the Derriere!

Happy New Year!

So much ahead for 2019: new company members, new show, new choreography and music and theaters and classes and outreach and--

Hold onto your derrieres, people! Don't get ahead of yourself - get behind yourself!

(Ha! See what I did there?)

That's right, I want to talk about behinds, butts, derrieres. That fleshy part on your backside that is ever-important for ballet is also called your gluteus maximus. Above it and off to the side is your gluteus minimus and on top, closer to the spine is your gluteus medius. The maximus is the one we use most often and we casually call it (them because there are two of them) your glutes. Along with your hamstrings (those long ropy muscles at the back your thighs) and your quadriceps (the big-bellied muscles at the front of your thighs), your glutes are responsible for all kinds of things in ballet, the most important of which is stability.

Häggström, Mikael (2014). "Medical gallery of Mikael Häggström 2014". WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.008. ISSN 2002-4436. Public Domain. or By Mikael Häggström, used with permission. - Image:Gray434.png

When you engage the muscles of your glutes, hamstrings and quads, you become an incredibly stable force, whether that stability is being used for adagio balances, multiple turns, or general pointe/releve work.

In the average everyday world, we use our quads a lot: when we walk down the street, climb the stairs, drive a car. We are most often engaging those muscles, which makes a lot of sense. They're big and they're in front. They take control. But when we do that, we don't develop our hamstrings as well as they could be developed so in exercises that require equal engagement, we find ourselves weak in the back of the thighs. That weakness translates into poor stability.

Are you weak in the hamstrings? Try this:
Stand on two feet in parallel.
Lift one foot off the ground.
Can you balance?

Want to challenge yourself further? Try this:
Stand on a pillow on two feet in parallel.
Lift one foot off the pillow.
Can you balance?

Now let's look further back, into our glutes. Those muscles are big but they might not be as strong as they could be because you are engaging your hip flexors too much (those are the muscles at the front of the hip that crease our legs at the hip joint). We use those a lot when we walk and when we drive and frankly, when we sit at our computers for hours at a time. The muscles underneath don't get used as much so when we need them to engage and be strong, they are weak and wobbly.

Are you weak in the glutes? Try this:
Stand in first position turned out.
Bring one leg up to retire and hold it.
Are you wobbling? How long can you hold that position without wobbling?

Want to challenge yourself further? Try this:
Stand in fifth position.
Releve to passe and close the leg to the back; repeat and bring it to the front.
How many times can you do this without collapsing?

Hey, I'm as guilty of this weakness as anyone else! I have to tell my brain to activate my glutes just about every time I go for a releve. It's a hard muscle to use consistently. But when I do, oh boy, can I balance!

There are loads of exercises for strengthening your glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps. Some of you may choose to go to the gym and use machines there. Some of you might cross train with yoga, Pilates or Gyrotonics. If you don't want to do anything like that, just be mindful of those muscles when you are at the barre. You can engage them as soon as you hit your warmup stretch and plies.

Whatever you do, just be sure to incorporate some exercises for those muscles or they won't be there when you need them.

Happy dancing~

Post 100! Pirouettes!

Let's discuss pirouettes. Everyone's favorite thing to do, right? When little kids come to class for the very first time, they always want to spin around and around because it's so much fun. As adults, we associate multiple turns with superior dancing skills. Both kids and adults are right: turns are fun and they do mark a dancer as skilled.

Unlike most other aspects of ballet, good pirouettes are a product of physics, not philosophy. The emotional core of a dance, the connection of dancer to audience, can be conveyed through expressive gestures and facial movements. Turns, however, are strictly virtuosic. When a ballerina does 32 fouettes, we applaud the technique not the passion, although certainly her passion for dance forced her to practice those pirouettes!

There are so many ways to teach turns, so many hints different people give that I don't proclaim to have the absolute best way to turn. Honestly, each person requires different critique and usually in person. That being said, there are certain things that are necessary in order to turn properly:

1. A sharp head spot.
Practice for beginners: stand in front of your bathroom mirror, hold your own gaze, then begin to twist your shoulders to the right and continue walking around yourself, snap your head back to the mirror as quickly as you can and then go in the opposite direction. Try not to lift your head in a circle but keep it level as your shoulders and body twist.

Practice for intermediates: perform a series of increasingly fast chainee turns across the floor, keeping your arms in tight and your feet in fifth position. This will help get your head around fast and isolate it from your shoulders.

2. A fast passe.
Practice for beginners: stand at the barre or a chair that is balanced with weight so you can press down on it. Holding the barre with two hands, stand in fourth position with your right foot in back, do a deep demi plie, then very sharply, bring the right leg up to passe (a retire position) with the toes under the front of the left knee. Hold for two counts and then put it back down to the back. Do this several times and then repeat with the left. When you feel stable during those 2 counts, try the same exercise but release the arms from the barre and pull them to first position. Always try to hold for as long as you can without tipping over.

Practice for intermediates: in the center, do half turns from fourth position. Stand in fourth, take a very deep demi-plie, then lift the leg to passe, balance and land facing the back of the room with the leg behind you, and gently lower it to the floor in demi plie. Then do the same from the back to the front. By doing only 1/2 turns you will be forced to concentrate on the leg pulling up very quickly so you can balance and not on the turn itself.

3. A strong port de bras.
Practice for beginners: pushups. I'm serious! Beginner students have a tendency to let their arms hang by their sides or curl their shoulders in as they turn. They need to feel the energy from their back muscles through their arms to their fingers. This suggestion comes from a teacher I admire, Melissa Waters, who does the same with her young students. Face the barre, about 2 feet away, feet in parallel. Place your hands on the barre as if they were in second position, then do very slow pushups. This will strengthen your back muscles and your biceps, but also will isolate those back muscles so you feel where your arms need to be controlled.

Practice for intermediates: keeping your arms in a wide second position, perform chainee turns across the floor and slowly bring your arms in to first position as your turns speed up. You will feel the muscles in your back bringing your arms in, instead of your shoulders. This is the feeling you want to have as you pirouette - that your arms are being controlled by your back.

This is just the tip of the turn iceberg! There are many, many other things to keep in mind during turns. I will probably revisit this subject again and again. Questions?

Happy turning~