George_Ou
Diana Vishneva in La Bayadère shows knee rotation
Screen capture from this video clip at around the 50 second mark. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQ9tLBxx6U
Diana Vishneva demonstrates that that rotation below the knee socket can be close to 90 degrees. That rotation comes mostly from the tibia-fibula rotation, the knee socket, and ankle. Eyeballing it, it looks like she's achieved 80 degrees and I know a few ballerinas who can do this with ease (if not risky). This photo is meant to illustrate the extreme end of what is possible in the human anatomy.
Let me make it clear that the photo scares me and my knee hurts just looking at it. Whenever I see students doing this at barre and I tell them to at least push the knees out to the side more and lessen the foot rotation to decrease the amount of knee-foot misalignment.
Virtually all dancers who achieve a completely turned out 5th position with each foot rotated out 90 degrees are using some degree of below the knee rotation. If you look carefully at photographs or a dancer in person, you can see this. If the thighs and knee cap only rotate 60 degrees but the foot is rotated 90, then 30 degrees must come from below the knee socket.
Very few dancers have pure 90 degree rotation per hip socket when standing upright with legs tight, especially in 5th position. We hope for 90 degree hip socket rotation by the time someone is standing in 2nd position, or at least close to it. For the troublesome positions where legs are close together, a little bit of below the knee rotation is safe so long as it is well within the maximum angle for that particular dancer and so long as they immediately increase hip socket rotation as the legs separate to bring the knee and foot into alignment.
This is why when dancers plie, the knees are often going diagonally forward. But as the thighs separate, the rotation in the hip increases and they push the knee out to the side so that the knee is going over the foot. But many students don't know this and they don't actively push the knee out to the side. I often see girls over turn out their feet (120 degrees per foot) such that they're pointing backwards, yet the knees are still bending towards the front at the bottom of the demi plie or jump. That's really bad and dancers should not exceed 90 degrees per foot rotation, and never allow the knees to be that far out of alignment especially in plie or coming off a jump.
Diana Vishneva in La Bayadère shows knee rotation
Screen capture from this video clip at around the 50 second mark. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQ9tLBxx6U
Diana Vishneva demonstrates that that rotation below the knee socket can be close to 90 degrees. That rotation comes mostly from the tibia-fibula rotation, the knee socket, and ankle. Eyeballing it, it looks like she's achieved 80 degrees and I know a few ballerinas who can do this with ease (if not risky). This photo is meant to illustrate the extreme end of what is possible in the human anatomy.
Let me make it clear that the photo scares me and my knee hurts just looking at it. Whenever I see students doing this at barre and I tell them to at least push the knees out to the side more and lessen the foot rotation to decrease the amount of knee-foot misalignment.
Virtually all dancers who achieve a completely turned out 5th position with each foot rotated out 90 degrees are using some degree of below the knee rotation. If you look carefully at photographs or a dancer in person, you can see this. If the thighs and knee cap only rotate 60 degrees but the foot is rotated 90, then 30 degrees must come from below the knee socket.
Very few dancers have pure 90 degree rotation per hip socket when standing upright with legs tight, especially in 5th position. We hope for 90 degree hip socket rotation by the time someone is standing in 2nd position, or at least close to it. For the troublesome positions where legs are close together, a little bit of below the knee rotation is safe so long as it is well within the maximum angle for that particular dancer and so long as they immediately increase hip socket rotation as the legs separate to bring the knee and foot into alignment.
This is why when dancers plie, the knees are often going diagonally forward. But as the thighs separate, the rotation in the hip increases and they push the knee out to the side so that the knee is going over the foot. But many students don't know this and they don't actively push the knee out to the side. I often see girls over turn out their feet (120 degrees per foot) such that they're pointing backwards, yet the knees are still bending towards the front at the bottom of the demi plie or jump. That's really bad and dancers should not exceed 90 degrees per foot rotation, and never allow the knees to be that far out of alignment especially in plie or coming off a jump.