Ballet Basics: Tendu...

I was recently asked by a wonderful lady named Gabrielle to create a guide to how to get a good tendu. For those of you who don't know what a tendu is, it's a ballet step which involves pointing your foot in any direction, working through the floor.

I decided to make a blog post about how to do it, and while making it, I learnt how to make gif files and upload them to blog posts, and also that my brother makes a lousy photographer! But anyway, here's the tutorial.


You need to start with your feet in first position, or in the position you need to work with. Remember to pull up through your body, nice and tall. Bums and tummies in!

Next, you slowly start to push through the floor with the foot you want to tendu.

Keep pushing through that floor, with your heel forwards. Try to imagine the floor as being covered in sticky toffee, and you need to work and push through your whole foot to make it point.

Keep pushing your foot through the floor, but now start to straighten your ankle - this is important! In order to get a good tendu, you need to push through your ankle before you start to point your toes, as so to speak. This creates beautiful lines and works your foot better.

Now you finally get to point your toes! See those beautiful lines? Just remember to work and really push through the floor the whole time. One thing you don't want to be doing is lifting your foot slightly above the ground and then placing it on the ground in the position demonstrated below. Don't scrunch your toes up either!

An important thing to remember is not to put any weight on your extended foot during tendu, or it could end up looking like my foot does in the photo below. Not a pretty sight!

Also, you need to keep your ankle pushed forwards to maintain your turnout, which is a target I recieved in my Grade 5 IDTA Ballet exam.

Remember, these 'rules' apply for tendus in every direction!

Here's a gif I made demonstrating how to tendu a la second.

I would like to point out (no pun intended) that I am only a 15 year old girl who takes ballet lessons for an hour a week, and that I am not an expert on the subject. I am simply trying to help out fellow ballet students who are seeking help.

I also think that this would be a great idea for a series of posts, so feel free to leave a comment below saying which ballet steps you would like help with, and other basic steps I could post tutorials for.

But until I see you again, have fun and practice hard! Byee!!