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In relation to straddle splits - "How do you pick which type to train for?" I go for the one that feels best for me - which for me means feet flat on the floor for support, feet pointing outwards as much as possible, knees rotated forward but upwards as much as possible (i.e. about 45 degrees upwards), and pelvis tilted forward a bit. It is said to vary between individuals, but I get the impression that a turnout rotation of 45 degrees (of the thigh bone on the pelvis) or so is enough to release the mobility of the hip bones (stopping the greater trochanter hitting the socket of the hip joint). Another factor is minimising the sideways force on the knees, as any stretching of the ligaments at the side of the knee can destabilise the knee joint - one of the most vulnerable joints in the body. The more the knees point up, the less the sideways force on the knees will be. But I think in the end, it depends on your own pattern of flexibility and strength.

There is a saying in the dance world that I heard many times when I was doing limbering classes at the Australian Academy of Ballet, that "the turnout that you take to your first class is the turnout you'll end your career with". It is, in fact, complete nonsense. I had no turnout when I started and now my turnout is almost perfect. I will write a tutorial about this one day, but the key thing is to make every effort to not only point the feet up, but even up and out behind you (this strengthens the external rotators of the hip joint). To work directly on external rotation, you need s strong partner to hold a thigh in external rotation; you then try to internally rotate against that force, then you help the partner externally rotate more, while he is trying to help you do this. It's intense, but extremely effective.

Yesterday, I spent the whole evening reading the forum and watching videos about turnout. Why haven't I ever heard this term? It is possible that this subject is key for some of my hip limitations and the knees falling inwards. I am able to rotate my leg, but in many everyday (or gymnastics) movements or positions, I don't do it - I have to concentrate on it if I want my leg turned out. And my range is very limited. I tried doing a plié - which I haven't ever done. My feet are about in a 90° angle which is not spread out wide. Like this, I can lower myself into plié about 4cm? Very little, then my feet move away from the line above the toes, I did not go further. Quite some muscle work is neede for this. But I think that I should be able to develop the muscles (outer tigh) and that this would help me a lot for improving the turnout. I think it will help just doing a plié every once and then. I also looked up youtube about improving the turnout. Many of the videos are ballet-orientated which provides a good guideline. But for most of them, an more improved flexiblity in other body part is required. I still have to find movments that I can do properly for improving the turnout. Meanwhile. I have bought Olivias follow-along class about pancake. I like her pace in class. And it is helpful to experience the movments I already know from the master the pancakes series explaind a bit different. Thanks again very much, @Kit_L for the "turnout" input!

@Kit_L "my turnout is almost perfect" - great to hear! Please can you post a photo of yourself, with bare knees, standing in perfect turnout, in other words, with the knee caps pointing out to the side? (ballet 1st position). Would be interested to see! My turnout has hardly improved over the years. Thanks in anticipation, Jim.

@Jason: The secret is "turnout". There are two ways into side splits; the first necessitates a strong anterior tilt of the pelvis; here is Mary Lou Retton showing this approach to perfection: see how her sacrum is perfectly flat, while her trunk is as upright as she can get it: Note that her knees and feet are pointing forwards; in other words, her thighs are in moderate internal rotation. Actually, I just did a search here (I knew Emmet and I had talked about this at length; see here: https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1264-rethinking-the-dancers-split/. Please read that thread, and we can keep talking. For many people (I'm one of them) turnout is absolutely necessary to side splits. And, yes, loose hip flexors are necessary, too. The hip flexor partner version (free on my Youtube channel) is the best way in to this one. The basic test is, when you put your legs in side splits, or as close as you can get, what does your body want to do? If you are like most people the pelvis wants to tilt forwards to facilitate the hip movement. Then try SS with your legs externally rotated as possible (feet pointing to ceiling). If your hips go lower, then concentrate on turnout, and get into SS using that direction.

Came across this video: I only skipped through it because it is quite long. It points to faults in training that lead to damage. It reminds me of a friend who was trained as a rhythmic gymnast in the early/mid 1990s. She said they were encouraged to sit on each other in straddle splits, or the teacher pushed them. This may sound OK, but apparently there was NO KNOWLEDGE of the role of turnout in allowing hip abduction. They didnt bother to turn out. One girl had her pelvis fractured, and has been left with reproductive issues ever since. She said she didnt blame her teachers, because "they were only teaching how they had been taught themselves." This is inexcusable; even I as an amateur knew about the role of turnout many years before. It makes you wonder about the level of training of gymnastics teachers (in gyms by the way, maybe those who teach in schools have proper qualifications). I hope they are better informed now. The video had a mention of this paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29506306/ (Thomas et al 2018; The Relation Between Stretching Typology and Stretching Duration: The Effects on Range of Motion) - available free if you go to the "pirate" science literature website at https://sci-hub.se/ and put in the reference, I find it easiest to use the DOI which Pubmed tells me for this paper is DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-101146). The paper amalgamated results from a large number of studies on hamstring stretching. The age range of the subjects was 10-46, and the duration of the training sessions varied from 4-16 weeks. The results were analysed into active stretching (held stretches with the stretch held by the antagonist muscle), passive stretching, ballistic stretching, and PNF stretching. Where no distinction in the papers was made between the first two types (how could anyone report results like this???) they just put them in a category called static stretching. The results were that active, passive and static stretching were best and statistically indistinguishable from each other in their effects (not surprising as the categories seem to overlap), ballistic stretching was worst, and PNF (from descriptions it seems to refer to what we call CR stretching) in between. Also, increases in flexibility were greatest the more days you did/week, up to 6 and dropping at 7 days. Time spent stretching was the critical factor, not the length of number of each session independently of that, but while 5 minutes total PER WEEK was better than less time, there was no improvement with longer times. Well some of this experience differs from what has been described in the ST community. 6 days/week best? It suggests they're not stretching hard enough. PNF worse? CR has shown itself of proven benefit in ST. I suspect that amalgamating a lot of studies done differently and with different subjects and conditions leads to - let us be frank - nonsense results. Also, even the longest times - 16 weeks - is very short to produce anatomical changes in the muscles (in contrast to adaptations of the nervous system to stretch sensations). So I wouldn't act on the findings of this paper, and am just posting it as a warning. There are some results that seem reasonable to me - from my detailed experience (n=1). Ballistic stretching is poor (for me at least). I am surprised that 5 minutes/week (on a single hamstring) is as good as longer times, but maybe that is true. I certainly spend longer than that stretching but once I divide it up into all the different things I am stretching, maybe it comes out to that figure. Jim.

Cool! I would really appreciate to see and learn from a new turnout/tailors pose video from you. I will defently try to implement more partner stretching..it is a completely different feeling and helps me to relax way more in the stretch than doing weighted stretching. Concerning the picture from the hip flexor stretch: I am touching the yoga block with the front of the thigh. Every rep I try to push it away a bit more far. But it is defently not a hard resistance which I can relax into. It is more a target to reach to get deeper. But I feel this is a quiet "active" approach. Whereas I think during the next month/years I want to experiment/train more with your relaxation based approach. Looking forward for your updates on the turnout specifics on your YouTube channel! Andi

I would also recommend going over to our youtube channel, and getting someone to help you with the partner hip flexor stretch; it's intense, but could make all the difference. And I agree strongly with Nathan's recommendation of learning about turnout in the link that he presented above. For me turnout was the key to getting side splits.

This is not recommended, unless I have misunderstood you: use the contractions every third day only. To experience the feeling of being able to lengthen, it is essential to fully recover from the previous session's contraction's effects—and this only happens when you rest. Do the tailor pose daily, if you want, but without contractions two days out of three—this turns it into a limbering movement. Please be clear about the distinctions between "stretching" (which uses contractions, and yields greater ROM in the session) and "limbering" (no contractions). Stretch twice a week only for any part, especially if it is tight (your case) and you have had injuries in the past. I can tell you from 30+ years experience in this field it is a failure to distinguish between these two critically different activities that is the greatest barrier to people's long-term progress. Regarding slipping forwards in the tailer pose: put the mat on the floor and your back against the wall, and concentrate on using the glutes to pull the legs down (don't press them down with your hands); actually, before I go any further with this, what is your reference for how to do the tailor pose? We have amended the directions a number of times. The free tutorial on YT gas all the latest cues. Short suggestion: concentrate on getting the legs to the floor first, before trying to pull yourself forwards (that is 'part two' of the pose and this will be hugely easier in the hips IF you can hold your legs properly onto the floor with your glutes). In other words, master part one first. It is not possible to engage more turnout in the frog pose (femur position is more-or-less fixed in an internally rotated position); instead, use the Cossack squat (tutorial on our YouTube channel; search on "cossack"), where you can actively engage more turnout. Keep trying to turn the outstretched leg further into external rotation – this allows the greater trochanter to move more easily in the hip joint. It was Cossack squats that got me side splits back in the 'old days', not the squashed frog. Having said that, getting decent side splits allowed me to do a good squashed frog, but it took many years of Cossack squats and other exercises to get there. Getting real turnout was key for me and probably will be for you, too.

Today I did tailor pose stretching after warm up. This is the only pose where I feel really ready for contract-relax and do it about once a day. After the stretching, my knees are about 10cm above the ground which is great! Then limbring with chinese grinder, the oder standing wide leg limbers, skandasana and half pancake. My little problem with tailor is that if I lean against a wall/door, I tend to slip forward. I have a wooden floor which is too painful to sit directly on. So I squeeze a Yoga mat under the door and do tailor pose in shorts (naked legs slip less than leggings). But either I slip on the mat or the mat slips under the door. It is certainly because I am still not able to put my pelvis completely upright, but still, I struggle a bit with this. Has anyone any suggestions or ideas? While the tailor pose improves, I see no difference in frog pose. In frog, it is the adductor longus that restricts deeper stretching. The strange thing is that I don't even feel a good stretch in the adductor. The muscle is like a cable, like an artifical thing which is not possible to lengthen. I can even grab it from outside, it is really solid. I am a bit lost with this, because also in other poses/limbering actions/stretches I never get the feeling that I can adress this muscle strand. I feels as if it is just impossible to let it loose. It has't to do with my "sore spot", this one ist further back. I also feel restriction in gracilis, but this is different - I think I can approach this one slowly. If anyone has any suggestions about how to adress adductor longus, it would be very much appreciated. Is there maybe an antagonist I overlooked that needs to be strengthened first? -------------- after some thinking and trying: is this again the "turnout" theme? When I activate my "turnout muscles" (outside thigh) while standing and do a demie plie, the adductor longus is loose. Is it therefore possible that I am just not able yet to activate these "turnout muscles" in positions like frog or straddle hence the adductor longus can not let loose?

I understand! I could never stretch every day, I am usually sore after contractions! ----------------------------- I made very interesting observations in my body in conjunction with turnout: I have a hollow back and forward rolled shoulders. Not a medical diagnosis, it is just how I perceive my body - and how i know it from sewing.... Especially after walking on tarmac I use to develop some lower back pain, not bad. I could produce relief by "tail tucking" and it always went away quickly. Now I am practising turnout for a while. I still think it is not (mainly) a question of capacity, I am just not doing it. So I try to include a more turned out position in movements of my everyday life. This morning, when I was waiting for my train, I discovered this: When I am standing and tilt my pelvis for reliefing my lower back, my shoulders are rolling forward. I can work against this, but it is a "normal" reaction for keeping balance. But - if I am turning my knees/tighs out instead of it, the pelvis is also tiltig a bit - and the spine is "unravelling" so that my shoulders are lifing! My whole posture is much improved like this! I guess I felt this effect pretty much because I was carrying a heavy backback. I was retring it in the train without backback and the effect is still there, but to a much smaller degree. I would maybe never have discovered it if I haven't tried it with the backpack on (time well used!). I now have to digest this. I could be a key for a lot of posture/movement inconveniences I have. It might be that my legs are kind of wrong linked to the hips, but it is not that the attachment is wrong, it is just that the the "straps" (muscles) of the attachment are not tied correctly: in some places, they are too strong (mainly inside), in others too lose (mainly outside the thigs). But it's just this what Stretchtherapy is for, isn't it? This might also be the reason of my 'problems' in horse riding: My riding teacher keeps correcting my posture, but all she corrects (like "lift your breast, tilt your pelvis, don't lean back, loosen your ankles" etc.) might be symptoms of a turnout-not-there. I don't know if all this makes sense, explained just in words, in english words... But it is fundamental for me and very deep. I cannot say how much it would mean to me to have discovered this eventuality and if I could improve this. At the moment, I keep observing, working and I thank you so much for your input!

Three lunar cycles is always a highly auspicious time period many traditions claim. I am one week in to this challenge today. I am alternating sets of baithaks (the so-called "Hindu" squats and our ordinary flat-footed ones. Each method emphasises different muscle groups. I exercise/play six days a week. Numbers are done according to how the old body is feeling, but usually 40 B, 30 S, 30 B, 30 S (so 130 total). I will add sets, and then try to join sets. The first set I can always do more, and I am doing them slowly, concentrating on smoothness of movement, and rhythm. High bodyweight squat numbers emphasise muscle endurance, which I need. These are alternated with chin-ups and wall HS supports for time on one day, and horizontal pulling and pushing on another day. Chins are a current best of 7 reps, and then descending sets. The wall HS supports are for counts of ten to fifteen (one thousand, two thousand,...). Then some fairly innovative arm exercises done on one side of a set of parallel bars. Bodyweight dips to start on these days, sometimes. Also current best dip # is 7. Then side splits: all the usual suspects here, including the tailor pose, parallel feet legs apart, then maximum depth with legs fully turned out (I have written about this before, but this is my test to see which of the two methods is most likely to yield success in the briefest time—in my case, SS has come via turnout and not lumbar hyperextension). Two or three repetitions, trying to use the leg muscles to support the body—today, only index fingertip support (feet on slightly wet grass). Turned out, I am at least 6" lower (150mm) than the parallel feet version. A few sets of both. Front splits: the approach I have been using for a while now is a both-legs bent standing lunge, opening out the front leg as far as possible and straightening the back leg as far as possible, and going for depth and time (light arm support). Around 30–45" here, sometimes quite a bit longer, depending on energy levels. Two or three sets. I intend to ask Miss O to film segments of these sessions in the next week or so, and I will post on YouTube. This too is part of the 90-day challenge: we all should be able to see what progress looks like (and it will keep me toeing the line!). The biggest difference I have felt is that compared to the Monkey Gym days there is much less DOMS (I am nowhere near as strong, so this makes sense to me) and I can feel that, currently, I have quite a lot less energy than before, and I know instantly when I ned to stop. On the other hand, this has been improving over the last few months. WRT SS and FS, I have been improving every session, and this is new for me. It might be that because I am muscularly not as strong, there is corresponding less resistance in the movements (my tendons and ligaments have been conditioned now over a great many years of these kinds of practises) and so far no real DOMS—only the awareness of having used the body the day before. If anyone would care to join me in this challenge, please append comments/images/posts/numbers below. Let's do this together!

Yes to your description of how I use the setup. I will ask Olivia to take a pic or two once I get over today's soreness! The deep anatomy tells the story: it is precisely because of the mechanisms I describe above (pubo-femoral ligament, psoas and iliacus, and numerous un-named fascial connections; all the mechanisms that sitting enhances) that most everyone needs to allow a strong APT to get the legs wider apart. What I am working on, SS with little APT, is quite a bit harder, I feel, and if successful should give the kind of relaxed "do SS cold, and pancake too" flexibility that Olivia and Yuri display. SS with flat back actually stretches additional areas, too, in my experience. I used to have good SS (in Stretching & Flexibility, you can see an image of me in SS with heels on blocks and hips lower than the top of the blocks) but the way I am working now is stretching places I have never stretched before. I do not see an APT as a key to SS; more a necessity given everyone's tight structures. But turnout is a different matter: this requirement is dependent on the structure of one's hips; if you look at Jujimufu's perfect SS, he does not use any turnout to achieve them (but does use massive APT). This is the difference between Chinese SS (feet on floor and pointing straight ahead) and full turnout (legs externally rotated in the hip joints; feet pointing up to ceiling, or even slightly backwards). For some people this external rotation is necessary in order to get full SS, to allow the greater trochanter to pass the ilia (rather than squashing tissues in between). I will note, though, that many people have found that once they can do SS, using either approach, the other version is usually not too far away. Last comment is that some people find the Chinese version easier, and others the latter. Both need to be explored, as each stretches part of an intersecting set of structures. Jujimufu: SS sans turnout and SS with turnout.

I discovered when I come to kind of a standstill with certain stretches, I have to approach it from a differen angle. I am so happy that Stretchtherapy offers different exercices for poses/muscle areas and that it is said that there is no order, not given time to hold it etc. I learnd a lot about what I can feel in my muscles. Eg deep lunge, a pose I do for years. It was never targeted and it never changed. With the approach of not being strictly square but to find the thight line of today, I found out that the square position at the moment is not leading me anywhere. I love the "rolling on the kneecap". I do movments towards cossack squats every day. I do work my "turnout muscles" when I walk. I do turnout exercices. The muscles in my thighs have changed.

Hi Kit, I appreciate it very much that you respond in this thread - so I never expect you to reread anything. Yes, i certainly do relaxation exercices. I think they are crucial. Do you mean any specific ones or just muscle relaxation in general? I usually do it before sleeping (right beside my bed.. I go to bed pretty early) or in the morning just when I get up. My feeling is that the limbering has the biggest effect on my body at the moment. I do the contract-relax, but I have the feeling that I am "not there" yet. It is helpful in tailor pose, but in the other poses I am not sure. I keep trying (I know that it works as I have experienced quite often it with my gymnasts) We have also tried the deep lunge partner stretch and the turnout partner stretch Kit described, but I am not sure if it really helps at the moment. But I love the pancake partner stretch where the partner leans onto my back. It is difficult to keep the back straight, but it is such a good feeling. When I do my walks and runs, I try concentrating on "turnout" -> acitivating my outher thigs, TFL. It changes the movement and I use the muscles differently. My favourite limbering movment at the moment is deep lunge and then rolling the hips (rolling on kneecaps) as demonstrated in "rolling around the floor class". I feel it loosens up the hips a lot. I really like the aspect of "finding the thightest line" instead of concentrating on perfect alignment. I do love all the movements in this class. They feel just right for me. At the moment, I oscilliate between "there is so much change in my hip, everything feels loosened up, it is great" and "I can still not lean further down, I still feel so restricted in straddle, this will not lead anywhere". I am aware that it needs time and rationally, I know that it works and it will get better, but the feelings sometimes trick me. Therefore, I am really greatful for this forum, for the reason to write down some words, for someone reading it every now and then - and for reading what others are doing. It is a bit lonely work, I have to stay at home and do training for myselve and I try to keep my gymnasts and my family happy. So a big thanks for everything and everybody here (and sorry for my English...)!

I am sorry that I didn't react for a coupe of days - I went back to my home village, did some ski hiking including some digital detox. I have to think about what you wrote. You are certainly right, I have to interpret it. This is all pretty new for me. It is a worthwhile thougt to improve the posture not by adding tension, but to remove restrictions. (Excursus: I looked at some before-after stretching pictures of my gymnasts and me. Where it really worked, it really looks as if some strains were cut, but tension - in a good sense- is not lost. It looks like "loosened up"). The feeling of "realigning" is exactly what I got. I am not sure, but maybe "turnout" is not exactly the term that describes what I do. Generally, when I stand, my kneecaps look towards together while the feet are in a natural position. When I do "turnout". I activate the muscles on the outside of my thigs so that the kneecaps look straight forward. So there isn't anything turned out, but just turned to neutral. But it is more "out" than the position I am used to. And this neutral position is what I am looking for while horseriding (I can go riding as soon as I am out of quarantine). I do practise the turnot or rather "neutral position" at the moment in quarantin by walking stairs. Each step I concentrate on keeping the knee over the foot and not to let the kneecap "fall in". I got me some mildly sore muscles on the middle back 😉 Yes, by "hollow back" I mean an excessive lumbar lordosis. I do the "long hold hip flexor sequence" by Liv about once a week and additionaly some deep lunge limbering on several days per week. I guess this supports this influence. For quadriceps stretching, I practise the reclining hero pose. I started last may. First. I could not sit down in between my heels. Now, I can (slowly) ly back completely. In the hip flexor sequence, there is also a quadriceps aspect when I crap the back foot. When I started Stretchtherapy, this was impossible, I had to use a pretty long strap. Now I can hold my toes, but still much work to do. I hope this track is ok concerning hip flexors/quadriceps. Generally, I feel that there happens a lot in my hips at the moment.

I really like Skandasana-like movements. I am pretty far away from "sitting in Skandasana" (or however it is called in Yoga), but moving the way I am inspired from the pankcake videos is great and interesting for me. I spend quite a bit of time standing in straddle and just moving from left to rigt. Very slowly, I can get lower, not the same every day. It is interesting to move around the hips and try out how this changes the use of muscles the adductor area. Playing around with different upper body positions can add to this as well as placing the upper arm inside the thigh and add some pressure. The turnout plays a role here as well. Today I tried the partner exercise in pancake where the partner lies back to back on my back. My daughter. who is 16 and just 10kilos lighter than me, was my partner and surprisingly, she didn't feel heavy at all (yes, it is mentioned in the video...). The feeling was really good. I do the frog exercise, no difference there so far. I work on turnout and cannot really say if there is a difference. But when I look at my legs, I can turn them in a "better" position (my legs in straddle or lunge etc. often look really "wrong" - I mean: unhealty, locked, distorted). There are positions like a deep lunge where I can't turn them out so far. Shoulder work is going along pretty nice. I still prefer doing mostly long static stretches there because it works. I added some weight, though. I do the bridge several times a week (I never expected that I can write this sentence down!) with focus on shoulder opening. Maye still room for improvement there. Knees are still totally bent. It is nice to write this log to keep track of the stretching activities.

Thanks for these words, very valuable words. I can say that I do love the stretching with stretchtherapy. Sometimes, i prefer a follow-along (from youtube), sometimes I prefer doing some of the exercices at my own pace. However I do it, time always flies by. Even when I did not feel a big difference in the forward leaning angle, the whole aspect of doing the exercices made me feel good, did a lot of good to my hips. Yes, the turnout is a very small aspect I never considered and is apparently key for me (thanks again). Altough I could lean forward more or less to the same degree before I started working with turnout (I took a picture a couple of days ago), now it feels completely different. I can kind of relax the legs - hard to describe, it is a tense-relaxation. By turning out the knees, so tensing the outside of the tigh, I can relax some muscles in the hips, some parts of the adductors I guess. It feels like more space in the hips (which is what I am looking for). Certainly such an important input provides great results in a short time... it will go slower. But more important than the leaning aspect is that my hips feel so much more "workable" (its the same in backbends - I started working with backbends because my spine became slowly inflexible. Becoming able doing a bridge is just a nice sideeffect)

After a couple of days playing around with turnout, I tried the seated figure 4 again. Ah- that's something different! I really feels like another movement. One strange feeling I get is that especially in the leg that I "let fall in", I can adress the "turnout muscles" (outside hamstring). If I activate them, it resonates in my hips - I can put them more square. Work to do! Thank you so much!

Thanks very much for the information. To my shame I have to admit that I never thought of different ways of doing sidesplits. In gymnastics, I use to say "kneecaps pointing to the ceiling", but I never got to the bottom of this subject. I've struggled a lot with the position of my knees, but I never heard the term "turnout" - altough its a logical description. Yes, I felt that I should work exactly in this direction not only for improving pancake and "splitability", but to improve my leg position in general to keep my knees healthy. The actual position causes also problems while horseriding, I''m pretty "locked" in my hips on a horse. This might be based in this "turnout" subjects.. Thightenin the quadricepts and generally the outside part of my thighs improves the position a lot, not only in straddle. I try to integrate it in my usual movements. You gave me a lot to think about and thankfully a lot to read about it. Thany you so much for this, I't try to digest it and start working with this theme...

Thanks you for these images. I think that working on "turnout" will yield massive benefits for you in your pursuit of the pancake (and side splits). Some search results: https://kitlaughlin.com/forums/index.php?/search/&q=turnout&quick=1 And if you tighten quadriceps while doing any legs-apart work, the knee will be protected (this will lift the heel off the floor, too). Having said this, some people's hip joints do allow full side splits with the knees and feet pointing fully forwards (so internally rotated femurs); a quick search of YouTube on "side splits" or "middle splits" will show you what this looks like in the end position. If done on the floor (so the natural valgus, the angle between the lower leg and the thigh is not increased), is safe. Most Asians get into SS this way. But many Europeans will need to externally rotate the femur maximally (so knees actively point up, or even slightly back) to allow the greater trochanter to move back to open the leg angle. This is due to the normal variation in hip structure seen in the population.

Since this is all things splits, and one reason for starting the discussion was dancers split (leg forward/backward split with turnout) vs the forward split with no turnout, Kit (and maybe other teachers) would like to bear in mind an experience I had. I was less flexible than now, and was either down flat or not quite down - either way, there was a great deal of force on the hamstring and related muscles of my forward leg (which had knee facing the ceiling; i.e. no turnout). I tried rotating the leg to give more turnout, to see if it would make it easier. There was a loud bang from the ouside of my hip, as a ligament obviously decided to take an easier course around some bony protrusion. It didnt exactly hurt, but it was tender afterwards, and I did not stretch that area for 3 months to let it settle down. Just to be safe, I'm still wary about that rotation while in forward splits, though I can do it OK now. A teacher might like to bear this example in mind, when encouraging people to make the non-turned out to turned-out transition, in students with less than full flexibility. Jim.

I have seen this, yes, but not in everyone. That's a good degree of extension and alignment you've got going in the image above. My only reservation about this approach, is that the front of your leg is not touching anything – and it's very hard for the mind to let go of the fear of tearing something if there's nothing pressing up against the front of your quad. And if your leg is in space, it is almost impossible to let it relax much, and definitely not to the extent that we need it to relax to to get the maximum amount of extension in psoas itself. It is very hard to achieve this when you're doing the stretch that you're doing, and that is the reason I recommended doing the partner hip flexor as well. But if you can't find a partner, keep going with this—you can see your thighs are almost in the front splits position. Re. getting out of the tailor pose: have supports high enough that you can use your elbows/arms to lift yourself out, or drop a rope from the ceiling in front of you so you can carefully pull yourself out. I realise I have not made a turnout-specific video and I should – and I realise that that's not even in the Mastery program either. The reason I have not done this up until this point is you actually require a partner who has really strong hands and arms. I will ask Miss Olivia if I can demonstrate the technique on her, and I will film it and put it on our YouTube channel so make sure you subscribe there and when it goes live you'll be the 1st to know about it.

Hey kit! Thanks for your recommendation! I liked the partner hip flexor a lot, when I did it. My problem here is consistency missing a regular stretching partner. I currently do the exercise in the picture attached, to work the hip flexors (integrated in my program). I definitely gained some flexibility in iliopsoas due to it (also some ROM gains in the back legs front split ability). But for the moment it does not (yet?) carry over to better rotation. Do/Did you see it often that opening up the hip flexors helps carry over to improve rotation? I defently think that external rotation (that's what you refer to, when talking about turnout, or not?) is the missing link for getting better in legs apart for me. But here especially my left hip fires up like crazy (doing the tailors pose variations).. also coming out of the stretch is overly intense. Any recommendations of how getting out of the pose might be less intensive?

Hi Andi, Good to hear you've talked with Emmet about this and he gave you the go-ahead to experiment with other techniques. My first recommendation (again) would be to return to daily relaxation practice. What you describe above is a reactive approach. This is not a bad thing, but far better, IMO, is to make the relaxation foundational, so that (ideally, and in time) you completely shift your whole baseline. To try an "even more relaxation-focused approach," you must (re)learn how to truly and deeply relax, not intellectually, but in a direct, embodied way. @Kit_L has struggled with both of these positions in the past and discovered solutions for his body. He may reply here, but I'd also suggest searching the forums. Off the top of my head, you will find a lot of good discussion around side splits and turnout in MaRo's workout log. From a quick search, here is something about tailor pose. There have been threads about FAI as well. Lots of gold scattered around the forums