Help Your Beginning Ballet Students with Retiré
Today, I’ve got a few tips for you for helping your beginning students with a turned out retiré.
First—a quick note—here at Once Upon a Ballet, we don’t recommend teaching retiré turned out until the age of 7. In our teacher certification course and in our toddler and preschool dance curriculums, we primarily recommend a parallel retiré. This is simply because of anatomical development. It will serve your students better to work on posture and balancing on one leg with correct alignment at this young age. Occasionally in our 5 to 7 year old age group, students will do a retiré turned out, but it always comes from a turned out tendu in order to help keep them from lifting their working hip. But that is the only exception.
By the age of 7, children have much better control and awareness of their bodies. We also work much more on turnout, especially turning out correctly and safely at this age. Because of this, we work more on a turned out retiré.
Here are 5 tips when it comes to teaching retiré to your beginning students. These tips can even be applied to older students as well!
5 Tips for Improving Retiré
Paint the Floor in Your Retiré
No, not literally! Pretend your foot is a paintbrush dipped in your favorite color of paint. As you draw your foot up into sur le cou de pied, imagine it is a paintbrush. Move through your entire foot. Then as you continue lifting into retiré, imagine there is still paint on your pinky toe (coming up the front) or the side of your big toe (coming up the back). Paint a line up your lower leg, making sure your working foot is always connecting with your standing leg.
Know Where Your Balance is Coming From in Retiré
A lot of people focus on errors like wobbly ankles or not stretching the standing leg when it comes to balancing in retiré. These are great! BUT what dancers often forget to think about are engaging (engaging, not gripping) their glute on their standing leg, lengthening up through their standing hip and up through their standing side, and holding their core.
Focus on Your Hamstring in Retiré
If you want a higher retiré, work on your hamstring strength. Yes, your hip on your working side is working hard too. But when you lift from your hamstring you'll likely have better results. Too many people focus on the hip (whether consciously aware of it or not). They end up trying to lift with their hip flexor. This places unnecessary strain on their hip and causes many dancers to lift their hip on the working side.
Keep the Standing Side Long in Retiré
We touched on this when it comes to balancing in retiré, but keeping your standing SIDE long will also help you to keep your working hip down.
Remember the Candy Cane Image in Retiré
In a past post, we mentioned using the image of a candy cane spiraling as you bend and stretch in plié. Think of it here too. Think of the energy of your standing leg spiraling around like the stripes on a candy cane as you turn out. Think of your standing leg (and ankle when on demi pointe or point) staying stiff like a peppermint stick.