Working with Elementary Division dancers is incredibly rewarding. The students make so much progress in such a short period of time. I love getting to watch their ability soar! Part of that skyrocketing growth is a lot of opportunities to offer corrections. One of the reasons I am able to maintain a fun and positive atmosphere in my ballet classes is because I am confident that I am offering corrections in an exponentially-beneficial way.
As I'm helping students sense their alignment and build the strength to maintain it during movement, this is my priority list:
pelvis→knees→ankles
Align the pelvis. This means that the hip bones and the hip dimples are as close to level as the dancer is capable of. Most people can get them level, but every once in a while you'll have a dancer with a skeleton that doesn't do that. They can still be a great dancer though, because we're aligning their body instead of demanding that they match some poster on the wall. And yes, I know that the anatomical terms are the iliac crest and the sacroiliac joint. But I also know that kids aren't usually in a headspace for anatomical terms until about age 12. Hip bones and hip dimples are descriptive and easy to remember. (I talk more about alignment in my book, but this is the starting point.)
Straighten the knees without pushing back. We do a lot of conditioning in Ballet Foundations and the Elementary Division to activate the VMO muscle because it is such a key player in straight and stable knee joints. If students are hyper-mobile, I have them separate their feet in first position just wide enough so that the knees can extend without overlapping. If the pelvis is already aligned, it is impossible to push back into the knee joint. See how it matters what correction you prioritize? You don't need to worry about locked knees, etc. As students get more advanced and stronger, they are able to bring their heels closer together but not everyone will have a first position with the heels touching.
Ankle alignment is where we fix sickled feet. Sickled feet are unsafe and against the ballet aesthetic so I understand why you might be tempted to fix this first. But if the knees and pelvis aren't in alignment, any correction you give will need to be redone when you do fix the knees or pelvis because the structure the ankles are supporting (the skeleton above them) will shift. If you wait to fix the other two issues first, correcting the sickled shape will happen faster. That doesn't mean that I wait 3 months to help anyone with their feet, but I do look at the whole checklist before I give any feedback.
These three corrections build on each other, so offering information in this order is a great way to make sure your students are progressing safely and quickly while also feeling successful!
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