It’s working!! In a very short amount of time using Balanced Body Precision Rotator Discs my students are uttering sentences like “Wow, I didn’t even know that muscle existed!” As an Irish Dance teacher, adjudicator and former Riverdance cast member my career is built on identifying and helping others to build their skills and technique.
In Irish Dance specifically, part of that skill set is being able to isolate and maintain turnout from the top of the leg or hip. This came easily to me as a young dancer from what I remember. I just stand that way without thinking about it, and in fact I don’t even recall how my teachers taught me to turn out my feet besides physically showing me and saying “TURN OUT YOUR FEET!”
For ten years I have been running the McKeever School of Irish Dance in Sacramento, CA. We have over 150 students of all ages and abilities, but a decent size of the student population competes at major championships around the country and sometimes the World. They train really hard, and have so much talent but often we come back from a competition and get a comment from a judge “turnout your feet” or “turnout more”. The hard part for a dancer is when they know this is true and they literally don’t know how to fix it!
The interesting thing about coaching dancers to have this elusive and all important skill we call turnout is that it can be a different combination of awareness, flexibility and strength. The fact that these Precision Rotator Discs come in different resistance levels and sizes is really a game changer. I have been using the light resistance disks on my younger dancers and helping them visually understand where this control should come from and how it feels.
For my champions we have been using the higher resistance discs and creating more challenging drills. One of my favorites so far is placing the supporting back leg on a disc in a turned in direction, then having the dancer turn out the back leg and release the support of the front leg, lifting it slightly while they have to hold their back leg in that turned out position! Challenging to say the least.
These Precision Rotator Discs are so well made and durable which gives me peace of mind as a dance studio owner that investing in any extracurricular equipment like rotator disks is worth it.
I am excited to discover how these tools can be used for other modes of strength. I haven’t even accessed Balanced Body’s free workouts for the upper body and core that come with this accessory! Needless to say this might be a new era for my dancers. Once they unlock the ability to turnout, strengthen it and have the awareness to control it while executing such detailed and fast paced movement their results in competition are going to greatly improve. More importantly they will be achieving turnout the correct way, not forcing from a knee or ankle and getting irreversible injuries down the road.
