The perfect arabesque is one of the most stunning positions in ballet. One of the things I love about arabesque is that, with the right training, pretty much anyone can achieve a beautiful line. You don’t need to be uber-flexible, nor does your leg have to be super high for your arabesque to look picture-perfect. Google pictures of arabesque, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Anything about 90 degrees or higher with the back leg will achieve a great position.
It’s all about strength and balance.
It’s probably a little controversial for me to say this, but… achieving a great arabesque doesn’t have much to do with technique or classical ballet exercises. From my perspective, as a physio, it’s really just all about strength and stability. The key muscles required to perform a great arabesque are your lower back, glutes, and hamstrings. If you have enough strength in these muscles, you can easily adapt your alignment to achieve proper form. Of course, you also need great balance to stabilize yourself throughout. Many arabesque training exercises have you holding onto a bar or lying on the floor. However, these type exercises take balance out of the equation. When you get to the center, it doesn’t matter how high you get your leg holding onto the bar. If you don’t have the stability and balance, you won’t be able to achieve the same height.
In the video below, I go through two of my favorite exercise to help you improve your arabesque. Both of my exercises work on increasing your strength and balance at the same time. Don’t be tempted to ‘cheat’ the exercises to get your leg higher! Work just to the maximum you can achieve with proper form. As you get stronger at the exercises, you’ll find that your leg height will start to improve quite quickly.
If you have any questions about the technique of the exercises, leave your questions below, and I will try to answer them!
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