3 Things You Should Do Daily to Improve Irish Dance Turnout

To excel in your Irish dancing journey it is important to nail the basics, and one key element that often comes up in our MWM community is turnout. If you're passionate about your Irish dancing, you know that perfecting your turnout is crucial for a strong performance. While your teachers will guide you on turnout during class, it's essential to complement that with exercises outside the studio to enhance your strength and flexibility in order to improve your Irish Dance turnout. 

Perfect Your Irish Dance Turnout: A Guide for Dancers

Here, we're sharing three exercises specifically tailored for Irish dancers to help you enhance your turnout:

1. Front Lying Turnout

To make your turnout stand out on stage, your hips need to be able to rotate externally. If you've been struggling with turnout, it might be due to tight or immobile hips. This exercise focuses on improving hip rotation and overall posture.

Instructions:

- Lie face down.

- Ground your toes and flex your feet.

- Rotate your heels from an upward position to a turnout position while keeping your toes in the same place.

- Keep your hips on the floor; avoid sticking your bum out.

- Squeeze your glutes 

- Don't use your ankles; feel the stretch in your hips.

- Repeat the exercise 8 times, rest for 30 seconds, and complete 3 sets.

2. Sliding Wall Turnout

This stretch is a hit in our MWM Gold Club turnout challenge and has shown impressive results in improving turnout. (Ask your parent's permission before completing this exercise!)

Instructions:

- Lie flat against a wall, ensuring your glutes, shoulders, and feet touch the wall.

- Slide your heel up the wall, turning your foot out when it's about 6 inches raised until your little toe touches the wall.

- Hold for a few seconds, lower with control, and repeat.

- Keep all touching points against the wall throughout the movement.

- Repeat 8 times on each side.

3. Seated Crossover Stretch

Tight piriformis muscles can affect your ability to turn your leg out during dances. This stretch targets your glutes, enhancing your ability to hold your turnout until the end of the dance. 

Instructions:

- Place your ankle on your knee, not your foot, allowing your foot to dangle over the edge of your knee.

- Aim for a 90-degree angle at the knee.

- Track your progress by taking photos.

Try these exercises daily for two weeks and share your before-and-after pictures with us. Let's work together to perfect your turnout and if you’d like to work on this more then take a look at our Essentials Range.

We have a specific Irish Dance Turnout Essential Programme for £19 or you can purchase our complete Essentials Range to work on all of your Irish dancing basics (which is over 7 hours of focused and expert training) for £47.