EDUCATION Carol Rossignol, MD, MS, MG, MPD, MFF
The Importance of Plié -
A Tutorial for Skaters and Dancers Alike B Y A N N E T T E T. T H O M A S
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f there is one underlying movement which connects figure skating and ballet, it is certainly the “Plié”. One can hear both coaches and ballet instructors around the world imploring their students to produce a deeper, springier, more dynamic bend of the knee. Every other movement in both dance and skating vitally depends on the quality of execution and timing of this one seemingly trivial movement. Good use of plié is what enables a dancer to appear to float across the floor and a skater to flow seamlessly across the ice. A strong, well supported plié gives a skater deeper edges, higher jumps and more solid landings with less risk of injury. Plié helps to center spins, improves carriage and increases the capacity to breathe properly. Good plié provides the control for more precise timing and more expressive musicality. Unfortunately the intricacies of this deceptively simple and yet so fundamentally important movement are often overlooked or taken for granted: “Well, everyone knows how to bend...they just need to do it more!” is often the attitude. And with the ever increasing social media “stars” demonstrating how to do just about everything, amateurs and professionals alike are taking a stab at sharing their own perspectives—which can be confusing at best.
A closer look at the Plié Most beginning skaters tentatively move about with very little plié as the fear of falling prevents them from feeling that the ice is to be pressed into rather than to be avoided. This stiff action actually causes less stability and more uncertainty, as they are not “appreciating” their surface medium. I once had a ballet instructor tell me that I must learn to love the floor. She said “The floor is your friend; it is your canvas—push into it, feel it, and learn to use it”. From the very first lesson, the skater should apply these same suggestions: learn to love the ice, press into it, and learn to use it. Let’s take a look at some of the fundamentals of plié from a methodological and biomechanical perspective so that we can begin to feel it from the “inside out”. Whether in turn out or parallel, on two feet or one, it is important to understand that a plié is an action (not a
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NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2018
Photo by Dr. Peggy Willis-Aarnio used with permission
position) that goes in two opposite directions at once. While pushing down into the ice or floor from the hips and lumbar vertebrae down, the plié simultaneously lifts from the thoracic vertebrae (bottom of the rib cage) through the top of the head and up to the ceiling. This stretch of the spine in two opposing directions, when combined with constantly drawing the deep abs in to the spine, creates a stable torso enabling us to find and keep our “center”. It also strengthens all of the muscles in the pelvic girdle to cushion against back injury especially during jump landings. In “demi-plié” (meaning “half-bend”) the foot should feel the floor at all times constantly exerting equal pressure on the big toe, the little toe, and the heel. This means that in both parallel and in “turn out” there will be no rolling of the foot either inward or outward (a stable ankle), producing well aligned “tracking” of the knee over the toe. In demiplié everything depends on the foot being flat, firmly placed but no curling of the toes, rocking, or lifted heels. This foot
