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From Greenthings

Good control of balance and balance of the foot and leg are important in just about any dancer. Nevertheless many dancers are not aware the many things that combine to offer good stability, and how exactly to prepare the components individually. Your supporting foot wobble may be made by poor balance reactions and you could find it hard to strengthen en demi-pointe, or be constantly corrected for moving arches! Bad stability in your supporting leg is a big screen in growing how high you can raise your leg en l'air, as you will be working off a shaky base.

There are therefore several things that can influence your balance, including; your vision; your feeling of where your foot and ankle ligaments are (proprioception), and the balance detectors that really remain within your inner ear. It is very important to prepare the security of the leg while eliminating one or two of the feedback systems that people use to build up all elements of the whole program. Several performers depend far too much on their vision to keep their balance, and this becomes a problem when turning or doing in low light conditions.

Test yourself and the potency of each system by trying each of these exercises. Take to sitting on an individual leg in parallel or turnout, with each one of the following variations:

Closing your eyes.

Sitting on a, or soft foam pad.

Decide to try turning your face from side to side.

Tilting the head from side to side.

Try a fondu/small knee bend on each leg.

If you are currently in pointe shoes, try most of the above in bare feet and then in your pointe shoes and feel the difference!

Most of these are good tests and teaching ideas for improving your get a handle on of your legs. Be sure you always turn on your deep turnout muscles and primary stabilizing muscles when balancing in turnout, so that your hips dont angle a lot of!

Developing control of the small intrinsic muscles of the legs are necessary to developing good stability. Several ideal exercises for this are discussed in The Perfect Pointe Book, a resource created especially for performers to achieve perfect get a handle on of these legs and feet. It is an important component of any dance training if the dancer is en pointe.