Why Your Développé Isn't Higher (And What to Try Before Your Next Class)

If you've been working on your développé and feeling like your flexibility should be giving you more height than you're actually getting, you're not imagining it. Extension height is rarely a single-variable problem — and the variable most dancers focus on (hamstring flexibility) is often not the limiting factor.

Here's one that surprises almost everyone: where your eyes are looking affects how high your leg goes. Not just how it looks. The actual height.

The chain nobody tells you about

When your gaze drops, your head follows. When your head drops, your upper spine responds. That shift increases trunk flexion, which affects your pelvic position, which reduces how freely your working leg can travel upward. Research on gaze direction and spinal kinematics confirms what experienced teachers have observed for decades: downward gaze lowers développé.

The key point here is that when you look downward, the chain you set in motion tilts your pelvis so that your hip bones angle downwards. In this position, your hip range of motion is reduced. No amount of flexibility will override skeletal alignment.

Why you might be looking down

If you're not actively keeping your eye-line lifted, there is a good chance you have lowered your gaze at least a little.

When you're focused on getting the leg higher, your instinct is to look at it — either in the mirror or at your foot itself. We say we're just information-gathering, but a lot of the time we're really trying to will the leg higher. Glaring at your reflection has never helped a dancer improve, but that doesn't mean we haven't all tried it at least once.

What to try

In your next class, take your développé combination and experiment with one change only: hold your eye-line up through the full extension before releasing it.

Don't adjust your port de bras, don't think about your turnout, don't change your effort level.

Just the eye-line.

Most dancers notice a difference within the first few attempts. The leg travels higher, the position feels more supported, and the whole thing requires less muscular effort than expected. The increased sense of ease often surprises people. Développé will never be easy but letting your eye-line pioneer the path the leg will take does make it feel easier.

And if you're a dancer who struggles with visualizing their eye-line, don't worry. Some people prefer to think of something more concrete like their eyebrows or the top of their ears. I've even offered googly eye stickers to my students if they want to add an eye in the center of their forehead. (That one helped with développé and spotting, I was surprised to discover.)

The bigger picture

Eye-line is one of nine artistry elements and it's the only one you genuinely cannot check in a mirror. The moment you look at your own reflection to see if your eye-line is right, you've broken it. This means developing eye-line requires something most ballet training doesn't ask for: trusting what you're doing without visual confirmation.

That's a different skill than flexibility. It's also one that pays off across your entire dancing, not just in développé.

If you want more of this kind of thinking — the places where artistry and technique turn out to be the same instruction — my newsletter is where it lives. New issues go out twice a month.