Pelvic Placement
The key to proper alignment
The pelvis is powerful when organized and balanced, and understanding how it works in coordination with the legs can improve your students’ alignment and enhance their technique. A stable pelvis allows the thighs to move freely in the hip socket, and the working leg can relax to produce fluidity and a greater range of motion, because the pelvis is the link between the trunk and the legs. Dancers must learn to move from their centers and remember to engage the core and lengthen through the lower spine to locate a neutral, supported position. If your students are unable to apply abdominal strength to their placement, their pelvises will most likely tip forward, causing tightness in the lower back and the inability to utilize the inner thighs. And tucking the pelvis (a common result when trying not to arch the lower back) will overuse the gluteus maximus, put undue stress on the lower spine and tighten the front of the hips. Use the following exercises to help dancers reorganize their alignment and learn which muscles work together for pelvic control. DT
Passé Press:
1. Begin on the right side, bottom arm overhead and your head resting on it. The top arm is on the floor in front. Place your left leg into passé position and place the foot on the floor in front of the bottom leg. The bottom leg must remain turned out. Feel the outside edge of the left foot against the bottom leg. Reorganize the trunk by engaging the abdominals to feel an added lift along the right side, and inhale to prepare.
2. On exhalation, engage your deep abdominals and begin to contract the deep muscles in the back of the pelvis, opening the front of the pelvis. Continue the contraction, pressing your leg into the resistance of a partner’s hand. Hold this for six counts and slowly return. Repeat 10 to 12 times.
3. As the deep contraction occurs, feel the separation of the thigh from the pelvis and supporting leg. Keep the turnout working with the bottom leg as well. Resist twisting of the pelvis—move the thigh, not the pelvis.
Dance Focus:
While they are performing this exercise, tell your dancers to visualize the strength of the passé leg giving them the power to execute multiple pirouettes. Dancers must make a coordinated effort with the working leg turning out in passé and the standing leg turning out. If turnout is lost in either hip, the pirouette comes to an unattractive end. This exercise will help dancers stabilize the supporting leg and pelvis, while working the passé leg separately.
Inner Thigh Press: (pictured)
1. Lying on your back with arms by your sides, lengthen through the spine and organize your trunk to locate a healthy, neutral pelvis position. Flex your hips to 90 degrees (a table-top position) and place a ball between your inner thighs. Exhale, and engage the deep lower abdominals and extend your legs to approximately 60 degrees. Secure a position of leg height that allows the pelvis to remain in neutral. Avoid arching the lower back.
2. Squeeze the ball with your inner thighs, while turning the thighs in and out just from the hip joints, like moving from turned in to turned out. Maintain the abdominal contraction. Repeat the hip rotations and ball squeeze for six sets.
3. With inhalation, bend your hips and knees to 90 degrees, bringing them in toward your chest; relax for a moment before reorganizing. Repeat four more sets.
Dance Focus:
This exercise helps dancers zero in on the relationship between the lower abdominals and the inner thigh. The inner thigh muscles play an important role in pelvic stability and also help with hip flexion and extension. And while it is important to stretch this area for more flexibility, it is just as important to strengthen it.
Parallel Dégagé:
1. Stand with your legs parallel. Loop an elastic band around both ankles and rest both hands on the barre.
2. Breathing comfortably, begin to move the gesture leg in a series of parallel dégagés against the resistance of the band.
3. Maintain a steady neutral position by lifting from the waist and holding the pelvis steady and firm. Feel the gluteus medius—the muscles on the outside of the pelvis—of the gesture leg working against the resistance of the band and the gluteus medius of the supporting leg helping to maintain a secure pelvis.
4. Begin with 8 to 10 repetitions on each leg. Work up to three full sets of 10.
Dance Focus:
This exercise engages the whole body due to its focus on stability. It will help dancers get in tune with the outside of the pelvis to assist in gaining strength. The outside of the pelvis needs to be extremely strong to improve développé, grand battement and all jumping combinations. For added pelvic stability, feel the lengthening along the spine and squeeze the buttocks together. Former professional ballet dancer Jacqui Greene Haas is the athletic trainer for the Cincinnati Ballet and director of the Wellington Orthopedics dance medicine division in Cincinnati. She is the author of Dance Anatomy: Your Illustrated Guide to Improving Flexibility, Muscular Strength and Tone.
Illustration courtesy of Human Kinetics
