Sunday, November 23, 2014

Tibial torsion's effect on ballet

So I finally got around to taking some decent photos last night. AND I taped my knees. First, here is a side-by-side photo. (My left leg is on the right.) On the left is how my legs, especially knees, look when my feet are parallel and touching. (My right knee has some tibial torsion as well, but it's not as bad as my left and it doesn't affect my ballet attempts too much.) On the right photo you can see that I can laterally move my knees out using only the muscles of my legs, which rotates the kneecap and tibia.

Tibial torsion is exaggerated on my left knee (left leg is on the right side). Leg muscles can pull the kneecap and tibia into a more straightened position. Note the location of the "V" shaped shadow on my left knee in each photo.
Here are my legs when I have them lying flat on the ground. On the left my feet are kept touching in parallel. On the right, my kneecaps are pointed  straight up. Both feet lean outwards, but my left foot's rotation is far more pronounced.

On the right photo, my ankles are held parallel. Kneecap on my left leg is exaggeratedly pointed inwards. On the left photo my kneecaps are held straight up. Both ankles point outwards, but it's definitely more noticeable on the left.


I want to show you now exactly why this sucks so bad for me in regards to ballet, and why I've been obsessing over it so much. Here is what my legs look like in retiré. On the left photo my left leg is the standing leg and my right leg is in retiré. On the right, I've horizontally flipped the photo so you can compare them side by side. (In the right photo, it's my left leg in retiré.)

Legs held in retiré. (Left photo is right leg in retiré. Right photo is left leg held in retiré.) Notice the difference in line and aplomb.
See how much forward my left knee is? That is not pretty in terms of ballet. This is also how my legs look when I plié: my right knee is aligned quite well over my right foot, but my left knee is very forward of my left foot (in spite of the fact that both legs have similar turnout). (Actually, my left leg LOOKS like it has even better turnout than my right because of the extra rotation in the ankle- but the location of the knee, especially in plié, tells a different story.)

Now that I look at these photos for the first time, it also looks like I am holding my body quite differently in each photo. I had something I was holding onto for balance, and it was definitely harder to lift my left leg up, but it seems my standing right leg is pushed more forward and I am leaning more forward. This may just be because I had a ten second timer to get myself into position, and it was more difficult to do with the left leg going up, but definitely something I'm going to pay more attention to now. (My knee is also blocking my backside more in the left photo, so it could just be that.)

Anyway, I got to taping last night and took photos of that as well, but I'll get to that post later. (I will say that right now, my left knee looks more like my right knee, for what that's worth!)

3 comments:

  1. Conclusion, the ballet fix your mild bow legged?

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    1. I'm going back to class tonight after a long break. I do think that ballet (combined with Pilates) has the potential to fix this issue by 1) having me focus more on it so I can work with it more and 2) building strength. I've gotten so used to my body being this way over the years that it's become habit, and there has been some atrophy in the muscles I thus don't use so much, but I really believe that becoming stronger will help fix these problems- if not totally, then it can at least help! But that's just my own idea. :)

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  2. Your legs look almost identical to mine, as well as the ultra-flexibility in my left ankle that allows me to fake my turnout on that leg when standing. It really sucks, however, when doing any step that requires the left knee to be bent. That's when it's really noticeable, particularly in petite allegro when you really don't have time to compensate or fake.
    I know this is a two year old post, but what is your taping method, exactly? I'd like to see if this works for me.

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