HOW TO MAKE YOUR FEET LOOK AMAZING!

Hi dancers, welcome back to my channel. I'm Claudia Dean and today I have a new dancer on my channel. This is Ella and Ella trains at Prestige Dance Centre. So dancers, today we have an amazing video for you. Basically I'm going to be teaching you hacks, techniques and exercises on how to make your feet look amazing from all angles. So Ella's feet, as you'll see, I would say they're just normal, aren't they? They're just sort of normal, they're not over over archy and obviously they're not restricted either. They're just normal but what we're going to be going through is how we can make her feet look like Vetlanas. And this is actually just done through exercises to strengthen the areas that I need you to strengthen to shape your feet and then obviously being very clever about your angles and knowing where your audience is and making sure that you're shaping your feet so it looks good for them. Before we get started make sure you like, comment and subscribe to my channel. Now let's get straight into it. Now dancers, the first thing I want you to look at is Ella's feet. So just point your foot to the side for me Ella. So as you can see Ella's got, I would just say normal feet. We mentioned before they're not overly overly archy and they're not restricted either but she does have nice feet. The thing is though, Ella has to be very careful with how she shapes her feet as well because on top of her foot line she's actually also got bowed legs. So actually can you show everyone your bowed legs for a minute? Yeah and I've got bowed legs too and this is the thing. Even myself, I wasn't blessed with amazing amazing feet and I've got slightly bowed legs too so we're bowed leg twins but it's just kind of proving the point that you don't need to have that to become a dancer. It's about being clever with your lines. So I'm going to show you something. Now Ella, can you do something for me and just fully stretch your foot to the front? Okay now keep it fully stretched and just keeping in mind dancers, you are our audience at this point okay. So we're trying to make all the lines look good for you. So Ella, now go quasi and keep that foot fully stretched and don't shape it, don't shape it. Then can everyone see for a second, can everyone see that line that that's created? So I think when we fully stretch our feet, usually we overstretch it a little bit more which can lead to a slight sickle. Not everyone's like this once again, it just depends on the shape of your feet and how flexible they are. But as you can see here with this line that is not overly flattering for the audience and for you. So what Ella would have to do would be to fish her foot and I'm sure a lot of you have heard of fishing your feet. So this is what we pretty much do. I'm going to teach you all the exercises on how you can master fishing your feet as well but that's basically a much better line. As you can see look how beautifully shaped it is. You can probably rotate it a little bit more. There. Okay but now Ella, while you're holding that, can you now shift me to the front and show them how almost flexed that foot is. Can you see now dancers she's not fully stretching her foot but it looks beautiful from that quasi line. So this sort of proves my point that it really depends where your audience is and you've got to be clever about it. So Ella if we're doing an exercise and I said next size and I say go to fifth face quasi. So just go to fifth and face quasi. Okay now tendu your foot devant. What line would you go for? Obviously the fish line exactly but now let's just do another example. What if the exercise is set on fast? So start on fast and I say okay now do a tendu devant. What would you go for? A fully stretched foot. Yes because basically that's the nice line for the audience. Now I'm going to show you a very similar thing for derriere as well because it's exactly the same. So let's go on an open line here Ella. Okay now if you can just do a tendu derriere and fully stretch your foot. Fully stretch it. So can everyone see there? Like it's an okay line but it's not overly overly flattering. So now if you can fish your foot. That's it. Okay good. Now keep it fished and now just go completely on fast because if you've got an exercise that started on fast, if you fished your foot it doesn't look overly pleasing for the audience. So what you'd want to do there is if you're on fast you'd have to fully stretch it. So fully stretch it. Good. That's it exactly and the same thing actually with this croisé line too. So if you fully stretch the foot. So fully stretch it. Yep it can look slightly sickle but now drop the heel down and fish it. That looks a lot more flattering. So you can see that point of view can't you dancers? So what I was doing with Ella was obviously fishing your feet and I know there's a lot of controversy about fishing your feet but I really believe that you have to in order to make your lines look long and make them look continued. Like what I was showing you with Ella before. If you fully stretch your foot it cuts off the line, it breaks it, it looks slightly sickled but if you slightly fish it you can see it just elongated the line completely and completely changed it for all of you. It is definitely a skill to be able to fish your feet and there's definitely exercises you can do to strengthen all the areas in your foot and also on the side of your calf to make sure that your foot can get into that position and can be stabilised. So I'm going to show you now on Ella a few amazing exercises which will encourage you to fish your feet correctly. The first exercise we're going to do is to get the feeling of fishing your foot. So Ella if you hold onto the bar for me that's it and just tendu your right foot to the back that's it. Now all I simply want you to do is actually lunge down so into quite a low lunge until your ankle hits the floor there that's it. So as you can see here see how she's created that line with her foot. So it's a beautiful fished foot and a beautiful leg line so the whole line looks long. Keep going down yes that's perfect. Okay now recover that's it and now let's do the other leg and go down down down that's it and then recover. So that really gives you the feeling of how much you should fish your feet. So now if you swap back to that right foot that's it so now almost shape the foot as much as you did on the floor there that's it and now lift it up into arabesque stunning perfect. Now we're going to move on to exercise number two. Now Ella you're going to grab a theraband you've got a theraband at home perfect. You're going to tie a knot in the theraband and you're going to create a loop about that wide okay. Now you're basically going to put your feet parallel for me good and then just separate them about that much perfect and then now let's put the theraband around both of the feet good. Now this exercise dancers is going to strengthen the muscles. So the previous exercise we focused on the feeling of fishing your feet this one we're really focusing on strengthening up the side here the ankle and all those surrounding areas for fishing your feet. Now all you're going to do Ella is you're going to point your feet down for me that's it and you can just slightly relax your toes that's it. Now do you have a little bit of resistance with that theraband or do you want to go even wider there we go. So the wider you go with your feet obviously the more resistant it's going to be and that's obviously going to make it a little bit more challenging. Now all you're going to do for me Ella is you're going to open out and separate the tops of your feet this way I'll show you like that and then come back to parallel that's it and then recover good and now do a few more and then recover and another one and then recover and another one good and then recover. Now as you can see as Ella's doing that she's not moving anything here in the leg it's all in the feet so you don't want your ankles to be moving and if you find that they sort of are it might be a good idea to have someone hold here so just do a few more Ella that's it so when I'm holding obviously then she's not able to move anything else that's good and I'd recommend Ella for you I'd recommend doing about 10 of those every day. Now dancers the next exercise we're going to do you just need to be sitting on the floor relaxing and this is a perfect one even if you're just watching tv it's going to improve your turnout and at the same time it'll give the opportunity for yourself to shape that foot to bond. Now Ella I might get you to actually face quasi because we've also got a mirror right in front of us dancers I think that's another really good idea if you do have a mirror at home that you can move in front of you make sure you do that because then you can check your line as you're lifting your leg. So Ella all we're going to do is we're going to flex our feet as much as possible that's it and I basically want you to try and get the outside of your feet touching the floor that way that's it and in order to do that you may have to bend your knees like that so let's focus on your right leg so knees are pretty much bent that's it and we're just going to work the right leg for a second first of all now stretch that knee fully good and let's try and keep that turned out exactly now while you're sitting down here can you try and activate that tiny little muscle that's on the inside of your knee there for me so see if you can activate it so if you have a look at mine dancers and Ella as well so I'm going to go lock and then watch that inside part of the knee trigger that's what I'm going to call it lock trigger like that try and do that for me again lock and then trigger good that's better so you can work on that and same for you two dancers now you're going to try and lift your leg but at the same time you're going to go lock trigger point the foot and it should shake like my whole leg as you can see it's shaking as I'm lifting it and I'm going to lower it down and flex again so try and do that again so we go lock trigger now slowly point the foot good and use that little muscle so you're only allowed to use that muscle to lift your leg I don't want the quads to be taking over I want that muscle to be used now as you're lifting this to Ella this is this is the opportunity where I really want you to you're going to check that you've got that beautiful long fished leg line there perfect so dancers this sort of goes back to what I first showed you when I was doing the angles with Ella and basically explaining that when you're quasi devant your foot has to be fished when you're on fast it doesn't because then it's going to look slightly fleck so if we're in a quasi line something I want you to really remember as well that that inside of the knee here that has to be triggered too so you've got a beautiful turned out leg as well because you can't have just a fished foot with no turn out in the leg so just make sure when you are practicing this particular exercise that you are thinking of here as well as the foot so how many should I do Miss Claudia? I would probably do 10 on each leg and you can actually alternate to Ella so you could do right leg relax it lock trigger lift left leg right leg and just alternate so you end up doing 10 on each leg so it's going to be 20 in total. Exercise number four dancers so this one again is more of just a reminder of how your foot should be shaped when you have your leg devant so Ella this is what I want you to do if you can just put your foot flat up against the wall here now dancers remember just keep in mind that this wall here has a skirting board so it's probably better to just get a wall without the skirting board because it's kind of harder to feel that shape in line if not now all you're going to do Ella while your foot's flat against the wall here I want you to then straighten your knee but try and keep your ankle as close to the wall as possible that's it good and then go again and bend in good yeah and just as you do it again remember to turn out a little bit more so we go here and you're going to activate that little inside muscle again good girl so that one's a really good exercise to get that feeling of shaping isn't it yeah and last but not least dancers if you're struggling to find the shape of that foot for a fished position or if you have to show beginners how to do it a very simple way is to just do a wrapped position that you would do in a petty baton so just wrap your foot up that's it now that is actually the perfect line for a fish too so if you face that way for the audience good so they can see here there's your wrap line exactly and then now keep that wrap and just go to derriere for me yes so that's perfect Ella now try the other foot for me so now other foot so let's go wrapped and then now go extend perfect so that's the perfect line for a fished position and another thing to remember dancers is that when you are in that petty baton position you can also lift it up to a full retiré so try that for me Ella so you go here petty baton position that's it now we're going to lift up towards here and we're going to keep that wrap that's it because for a lot of dancers for some reason we always like to change the line of that foot so if you sickle it there when we're in retiré so you have to remember that same wrapped feeling so now wrap it good stunning now dancers I thought it would be fun to show some examples of Ella on different lines and of her shaping and not shaping her feet so I think obviously first of all it'd be good to start you on different lines and you trying to do the right line so here's our audience now I'm going to call out different positions for you to be in okay now Ella stand in fifth quasi for me that's it and now try and do a tendu devant and keeping in mind what you're going to do with that foot because here's your audience go stunning now close in for me now let's go en face and now tendu devant and remember here's our audience so tendu out for me that's it and you'll fully stretch it good now can you just fish it for me so that's incorrect dancers that's it now fully stretch it fabulous now if you can pivot around again for me to the right that's it and now can you do a tendu derriere for me keeping in mind what we need to see that's perfect okay now don't wing it that's it that's fully stretching the foot and now go back to shaping it perfect so how much nicer does that look dancers now let's go on fast for me Ella that's it and now just tendu that same foot derriere for me that's it clever because where your audience that's a great line now can you wing it for me so see dancers it doesn't look quite right because it's a bit exaggerated there it looks too obvious she's winging her foot so now be clever and fully stretch it yes so that's much nicer and then wing it again so incorrect and then stretch it correct so basically dancers it just depends who's your audience and where they're sitting also dancers i thought it would be good to show you actually Ella lifting her leg too so once again you don't need amazing feet to make your leg look like Svetlana have a look try and lift up your leg Ella go lift look at that looks stunning because of that line so now go back to a full stretch foot look at that so she's fully stretching her foot there but it completely changes it now fish it stunning so dancers it's essentially slightly flexing your feet but finding the right amount of flex and there definitely is such thing as too much fishing so you've got to be very clever at finding that line actually Ella can you just do for me a tendu derriere now and shape your foot to the back and now lift it up for me and do too much of a wing so now lift and now too much too much even more even more even more like can you see there that's just a little bit too much and you can tell that that whole part there is crunching so you've really got to find the fine line between too much fishing and just the perfect amount i hope this has educated you all a little bit on how you can shape your feet and make your feet look amazing and of course i'll see you on my next video bye