Thank you so much for this video! You are making a great work! 🌺🌺🌺

This is great work! Thanks so much for your analysis!

Excellent and clear instructions. That is exactly what I was looking for in my footwork exercise routine. 🤩

I cannot believe all this content is on here for free. Thank you so much! I’m a dancer with Ehlers Danlos syndrome, so following random tiktok videos is a no-no for me as I have to be very careful. Science backed videos like this make me feel much more confident to (carefully and slowly!) follow along. Thank you so much!

It makes me beyond sad to see younger women “influencers,” especially those who are teaching, wearing flats or socks and dancing without putting their heels down. Some do that very proficiently, but they will not age well as dancers. Further, they feel ungrounded to their partner. Most followers are not trained or conditioned in any case for dancing “up,” and when they do their development is retarded. Very sad. Tango is much about the relationship with the floor, not just the music and not only the partner.

Thanks! For several years I've been trying to convince my female students to wear smaller heels. Greetings from Munich, Germany.

I see people dancing on their toes in Tango flats all the time and think to myself that must not be comfortable! You wonderfully break down WHY. thank you so much!

thank you... hello from uk.. that was very useful. !!

Question: why do you lift the heel to pivot? I was told to stay low to the ground with knee bent when pivoting in ochos

And women were once thought to weak and stupid to be doctors

Hi, what is the name your practice shoe ? Want to buy one, seems comfy. Tks.

I have hallux valgus on my right foot, which one do you recommend?

Super useful video! Would be so thankful if you share the brand you are purchasing tango shoes from. Thank you!

Thank you so much for this video!

Another great instalment in this fantastic series, I think Part 1 is probably my favourite so far. Thank you for uploading. 🙂

Hi, where did you nuy the one inch heel? Thank you for this video!

But does not your supporting foot bend when going back? As a rule, knee of the supporting leg should not bulge out/pass your body in order to give space to the leader. I am confused

Really liked your video. Can you share the brand of flats, style, vendor please. Also the short heeled shoe. Many thanks!!

Very informative. I used salsa and jazz shoes for Latin dance for years. Spent so much money. I’m considering taking a tango class. This is in preparation for that. Lol

Very useful video thank you❤

This video is so informative and helpful! Thank you

From the story about feet - it sounds a lot like zoom - if we see ourselves we don't pay as much attention to what others are doing, others that we can learn from

Thank you so much for these tips! I’m a dance teacher and already knew about “rice”, but would have never thought to use a leg warmer for compression before they get home. Thanks!

i do pool ballet. I'm 58, I have arthritis pretty much everywhere. Still working on my plies & tendus.

Well I got the pencil test, but I need to be stronger to do the others. I love this evaluation tool ❤

Plenty of adult ballet dancers don't have good ankle plantar flexion and they adjust to it by using shoes with a small bit of knuckling in the toe to get over the box. This is obviously far from ideal, but it's workable if the dancer is reasonably close to passing the pencil test. Other ballet dancers might have a sharp bend below the cuneiform and an extreme arch in the foot that can compensate for a lack of plantar flexion. That's not ideal either, but it's the reality a lot of ballerinas face. Other times the ballet dancer's pointe shoe is too loose and soft or the box knuckles, so they don't fully stretch the ankle to avoid going too far over. That should be addressed with different shoes that don't permit knuckling. A lot of professional ballerinas have too much of an arch and plantar flexion, and they need a vamp box that's slightly flexed to avoid going over too far.

Super Love <3

On 4:21, this basically backs up what I suspected for a long time. I think there's too much unnecessary focus on the muscles in ballet pedagogy and dancers should think about where they want their bones to be instead of trying to micromanage the muscles. Our muscles and movement should be handled by the subconscious motorfunction portion of our brain. Our conscious brain can think in more generalized terms about the desired line and shape we want with our bones and then we'll fire the minimum necessary muscles. BalletMotion guy.

😢 classic example of the warnings come after the spell...so many dancers will rush for the moves and forget this kind of safety and efficiency and effectiveness boost... Great video.

Also a ballet teacher, but my students are blind, as am I: I find that the most important cues for developpe are not actually pertaining to the extending leg itself, but how to actually stabilize the pelvis (rotators) and the entire torso. Learning to create the proper architecture is supreme, and being able to truly feel which muscles are working, being able to sense how the femur fits in the acetabulum, that's more important than anything else.

As a 51 year old who just spent the last 20 months getting back in shape, I had to fight through two bouts against patellar tendonitis and one bout of lower back/hip pain. I was able to do my first big pas de deux as the cavalier for a school production in Nutcracker 3 weeks ago, and it's been 6 years since doing a big pas de deux. What worked for me was doing the Knee over Toes Guy workouts, especially the slant board squats carrying 135 lbs. That's what cured my patellar pain and now I can still demonstrate big double tours for my male students.

I started ballet at 21 coming in as a fomer football player and then wannabe bodybuilder. I wasn't huge yet but I was fairly muscular by normal person standards. My 1st position was 45 degree per foot and that was a massive struggle, and I couldn't touch my own ankle much less my toes bending forward in 6th position. But I had one thing going for me with a football player work ethic. I asked the lady at the gym who was a former gymast because she was super flexible how to get flexible. She showed me a few basic side stretches and I started stretching everyday copying what the ballerinas did. The first 3 months of training was 2 ballet classes a week at the junior college for 2 months (I started late in the semester), and then 1 month holiday break with no ballet. In the last week of the 2 months at the end of the semester, the teacher deemed me good enough to try her advanced class which included a former pro. The entire 3 months I was at the gym everyday stretching daily. When I came back from the holidays, they were shocked I was a foot from my side splits and doing pancakes, had both front splits, and I was doing huge saut de chat splits. They put me in the college production where I did some solo work. By the end of the second semester, my ballet teacher told me I needed to go to a serious ballet school to continue. Long story short, I was working gigs guesting at other schools for lead roles in 3 years. The point is that I could take an adult stiff body and transform it in 3 months of intense stretching. I retired when I was 27 because I started a family as the lone breadwinner. By the time I was 38, I was chubby and lost much of my flexibility and was only taking adult classes maybe 1 or 2 times a week. I started going to the gym to lift weights and get shape and slim down again, and 8 months later I was in shape and got most of my flexibility back. My back bend never recovered since I didn't work much on that and the extra muscle made that part stiffer, but I had pretty good leg flexibility. This allowed me to do guest performances for schools in lead roles for the next 9 years. The pandemic and lockdowns took a big toll on me and I got out of shape and didn't dance much since 2019. I lost a lot of strength and flexibility, especially ballet strength. In the last 20 months I've been working hard to get back in shape and trimmed down 20 lbs and gained some flexibility back, and at age 51 I did my first grand pas for nutcracker 3 weeks ago for the first time in 6 years, and I've started teaching semi-regularly. Note I still work a tech day job. Last week I went on a daily stretch program to get my flexibility back, but it's a bit tougher at age 51. While flexibility is improving, I seem to need a rest after 2 or 3 days because the stretching is making me sore, and it's very hard to stretch while sore. So it looks like I can only handle 5 days per week of stretching at this age so it will likely take me a little longer to get my flexibility back. I'm trying to set a good example for my students. I'm already somewhat flexible for a guy of any age, but I want to be able to get somewhat close to professional ballerinas again.

Thanks for such a detailed explanation, I can really picture the way everything works together. I started ballet 2 months ago as an inflexible adult, and I really want to stretch correctly. 😊

Thank you for this information - very useful and meaningful, Georgena Felicia 11/16/23

Gracias!!! 🙂

How long would it take for an adult to go on point?

Muito bom! 🤩

Deep breathing always gets my circulation going such as singing in choir or playing my Wind instrument will invariably get me to take off a layer of clothing

Thank you for this video. I've been teaching since 1991, but in 2023, an increasing number of students are challenging what I want to share (which is great), such as the concept of passing through the entire foot, not just the metatarsals, with arguments of "it's physically impossible" and "no dancers are really doing that so please show me videos of real dancers in close embrace actually doing that" (these arguments are understandable but not ideal). Your video goes beyond being a well-structured example. I appreciate your conciseness, real physical demonstrations, your professional background in bodywork, and your references to your teachers. Could you possibly provide some names and real-world video examples of dancers dancing (not necessarily performing) or performing (not necessarily just dancing at a milonga) in flats at a milonga (that I can forward to those who need such visual aides)? 😊 Could you create more videos like this, perhaps focusing on specific challenges like "Flats when dancing Pugliese" or "Simplifying the footwork in fast-paced dances," etc.? Thanks again! Your contribution to Follower Technique is remarkable, and it's great to see you open up discussions on the NoHeels/NoFullFoot approach.

Great Video! I didn't understand though, where does the impulse for the turn come from? Is it from the upper body without a dissociation? I also tried pushing with the legs but that felt a bit silly :P Thank you <3

Great tips and super helpful！ One more thing I would add is that you really want the arc of the shoe to fit the arc of your foot, it’s easy to move and give your essential supports.

Very helpful! Thank you!

Exercise number one is good for ski training!

Love this video, really makes you think where your foot actually lands, keep the videos coming, thanks Carolyn

My friend who used to be a principal in a Russian company just failed the pencil test, lol.

You don't need all this, especially not all those repetitions.

Make total sense! Thank you for sharing!

What about x-rays to check for ossification of the bones in the feet? It seems like someone could pass these tests and still not be physiologically, ready and damage could be done.

Regarding the key mental traits, I agree with you completely. Developing different interests is excellent advice for everybody. Too many high achievers make their identity all about their achievements. This can be very difficult to deal with when there are setbacks, or if the circumstances require the person to choose a different path entirely. It must be very difficult for the kids to find these self-discipline to put away the smartphones and social media and concentrate on something else. Turning fear into challenges is incredibly important. The difference in mindset is really striking when, instead of dreading something, one looks forward to the challenge of tackling public speaking or whatever. When you talk about resilience, and how to deal with being corrected in class, you mentioned something that I wish I had learned as a teenager: “working through the problem in a positive and curious manner”. I learned to describe this to myself as “taking my emotions out of the situation.“ Problem-solving without shame (“I’m so bad at this!”), embarrassment (“ everyone knows I am bad at this”), and frustration (“ what is wrong with me that I don’t get it and everybody else does?!”) is so much easier! For example in adult life outside of the classroom, if I know it’s going to be frustrating hooking up a sound system to the TV connected to the computer, I tell myself that it’s probably going to take numerous attempts, and instead of getting frustrated and blaming myself, or blaming poorly written instructions, I just treat the activity dispassionately, or in your words, "in a positive and curious manner”, and it works so much better! Thank you for the video! 🙏😃🩰💐

These are awesome core exercises! I haven't tried closing my eyes yet, will give it a try!