The key to having beautiful, balletic arms is to lengthen through your fingertips. You want to think of extending through space as you move. Pretend your arms are 3 feet (1 meter) longer than they are and that you are trying to paint the walls, ceiling, and floor every time you move. The elbows should always be soft and lifted and the shoulders should be down.
Most dancers work for years on their turn-out, often forcing it, which has dire consequences for the knees. You want to rotate the leg from the hip socket, not the other way around. Try to have the legs turned out equally from the hips, in a comfortable position. The most important aspect is not the amount of turnout you have, but that the hip, knee, and foot are all turned out evenly and point in the same direction.
In ballet, turning out from the hips through the knees and feet is extremely important, and not just for aesthetic reasons. By keeping the alignment of your body within your range of motion, you are protecting your joints from wear and tear. If you let the knee roll inward, you would put unnecessary strain on the inner part of the knee joint. Conversely, if you let the toes roll in and the knees roll out, you would be putting strain on the outside of the knee joint.
Toe taps 1 help to mobilize the joints in the legs and feet and they warm up the body through the shifting of the weight. In Toe taps 2, the spine starts to loosen. By keeping the hips still and twisting, the chest - in other words, the upper vertebrae in the back - are stretched and rotated. In Toe taps 3, a sideways jump is added to raise the heart rate.
The abdominal muscles are extremely important since they help support the spine and internal organs. Try to do a few abdominal crunches with your hands laced behind your head every morning. Even doing just 10 simple crunches will help to strengthen your stomach muscles and support your spine and back for the rest of the day. I'm not sure of the feet on Forward & back 3.
This movement is challenging since the feet change from being parallel when you are walking forward to being turned out to the side. The weight of your body stays on the front leg while you point your other foot to the back and circle the arms. Always be sure to have the knees over the toes, both when the feet are parallel and when they are turned out.
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