I’m sure most of you know that you need a strong, flexible back to gain a higher arabesque. I’m sure you have also wondered why the leg just won’t go any higher, to the back. One reason may be that the inner thigh muscles that many of you spend countless hours tightening up, can actually block higher hip extension, with turn out, if they are too tight?The trick, as I see it, is not just to stretch them, but to get them to relax and “let out” when you need them too. Also called an “eccentric contraction”, imagery work with imagined movement ( ideokinesis) often works well to help you learn this. Check out the old Ideokinesis resource books: The Thinking Body, by Mabel Todd, Human Movement Potential, by Lulu Sweigert and Eric Franklin’s works.