I'm wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a cue to young ballet students (7-10 ish) about how to keep the knees straight on the "out" and the "in" of battement tendu. I don't think this is too young to be worrying about it as I have heard from some teachers but it seems like explaining the anatomical and physical whys and hows is too technical. What I've been doing is telling them to lengthen the spine when they release the leg and bring it back as well as shift the weight to the standing side. But this doesn't always seem to get through.

Can anyone help?

I think it helps to do barre center, hands on waist, so they can watch themselves. Slow movements and only to front and side. I talk about pushing into the floor. Some get it and some don't. I also do alot of exercises sitting to help lengthen the spine and practice reaching through the leg and foot.

I have students pretend to ice-skate around the room to feel the push through the floor.

I will place my portable barre in front of mirror so they can watch themselves and I place a smile sticker on each hip bone and tell them to do a tendu and keep the smiles level.

Also do grande batt's lying on floor emphasis on lengthening at the back of the knee.

this is a bit of imagery help...have the students imagine that they have stick man legs or I say "get out the duck tape" and they imagine that they tape their legs all the way so their knees cant bend

Ok this might sound strange but the imagery works with the little ones, they get the push into the floor, their knees stay straight and they get that tendu means stretch.
I tell my little ones that I am giving them a gum ball to chew. Then (and this is a little gross but works) we take out the gum and stick it to the bottom of their foot, because the gum is sticky their foot is stuck and they have to push into the floor, the gum stretches out into a long straight line and as the gum retracts it pulls their foot back in. When done we chew another gumball and stick it to the other foot. Lol, silly but they love it and it works!

I tell them to push into the floor too. It also helps to have them watch themselves in the mirror.

I have the kids sit in a circle on the floor. We talk about lifting their knees and we watch our kneecaps move up and down, then we point our feet and lift our knees and hold it for a few seconds at a time.

I spend about 5 minutes of floor time in each class period for that age group (not stretching time), we point while rolling through our feet, turn our legs in and out, lift knees and do some extension exercises. When they sit in a circle I can really get them to focus because we are closer and they can't wiggle as much!

I tell mine to rub the bottom of their foot on the floor and to have pencil legs (because it's no fun to write with a broken pencil!). But somehow the word "rub" makes more sense to them, sliding or gliding or pushing or pulling hasn't worked, but rub has for me. Feel your whole foot rub on the floor. And I talk a lot about growing and being tall - sometimes we tie imaginary strings to our heads and throw them onto the ceiling. Then if we slouch or bend our knees, the ceiling will fall on us! I go on to tell them that if they pull the ceiling down, then we'll have to sweep it up and it'll be so dusty and then I'll have to tell the SO and then their mom will have to pay for us to get a new ceiling and it'll just be a big mess! They giggle, but get the idea to stand tall instead of sitting in their hips.

Lol I Love that!!!I am stealing it! I do the string to the ceiling thing too and it works for a short time till they slowly sink back into a slouch, I never thought of the ceiling falling idea. I love dramatic imagery for this age group it really works!!

I tell them to pretend that they have no knee, like a pencil, and let us see who can keep their pencil from breaking. I have them slide the foot to "five toes" (demi pointe), "big toe" (full pointe), "five toes" and flat to close. By doing it slowly, like that, it helps. I only teach front in parallel at first, and second from a narrow first position. I do not attempt back for quite a while.

I use the gum idea as well...I also talk about drawing in the sand at the beach or playground. This carries over to Ronde de Jambes as well so they make the full half circle without cutting it short to close. They like to draw a moon in the sand.

In a different thread someone had talked about putting a quarter under the students middle toe to make them use their feet in a tendu, it works wonderfully. I also had the kids put it under their heel and explained they only needed to move it a few inches, but then on the way in they have to grab the quarter and pull it back in with their heel, it is an image that has stayed with them and I can refer back to as well.

Another issue that could be causing the bent knees is if they are hyper extended, they have to learn how to work their legs and stretch them without pulling into their hyper-extension. My only luck with this has been an anatomical explanation, I've had students as young as 8 understand this.

I have my younger students turn their legs into markers... you can't bend a marker! Then we draw a line with our markers on the way out and we erase them as the foot comes back in. If you bend your marker then you can't draw with it. I use the same idea for degage.... we draw a line out, lift up our toe and dot the "I" before we erase it.

Try this:

Tell the children to try to pull their knees "Together" as they extend their leg in the tendue and keep trying to squeeze their knees together as they close.

Also get them to tendue or degege devant or to 2nd and again ask them to try to squeeze or pull their knees together in a static open position and then get them to relax and then repeat the process.

You need to look at the shape of the childs legs and determine if they are hyper-extended or not, because if they are you will have many problems with both the extending and the closing of the leg due to the shape and degree of the hyper-extention.

Try sitting them on the floor and simply pointing the feet trying to encourage them to "tighten or squeeze" the knee until the heel is off he floor and that this is what they should feel in the tendue.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Mr_B