Ballet Barre Basics

Hi, I'm Lindsay Bomgren, and we're gonna talk about barre basics. So let's jump right in. What is barre? Barre is a combination of ballet, Pilates, functional strength training, and yoga. All bred into one. Now, if you've got a little scared at ballet, don't worry. No formal dance experience required. I certainly don't have any. And barre's great because its for everybody, every age, every body type, its low impact. So we're gonna jump in and talk about some typical terms you might hear in taking a barre class as well as the proper form that accompanies those terms. So let's jump right in to what you can expect when you show up for class. You can do class barefoot or with socks on. Socks might typically have little stickies at the bottom of them to help with gripping as you'll be on your feet and toes a lot, okay? And then you also might need a chair if you don't have a bar and you're doing this at home. That just might add a little extra stability, as we'll be doing some workouts just standing on one leg. Okay, so that's what you can expect when you show up. Now let's get into the terms and how to properly do them. So we're gonna start with first position. First position is heels and toes out, okay? Standing upright. Form's very important here as well as this is the very core centric workout. So you always want to focus on pulling that belly button back towards the spine. Nice and tight, okay. Keep it engaged. Posture, shoulder over hips, core pulled in tight, flat back. First position heels in toes out. Just like this. You may also take this into Releve, which is simply to raise up onto the toes. So going up onto the toes in any exercise is going to make it more challenging, okay? its gonna add that stability balance. You can always just keep your feet flat on the ground. So that's first position, nice tight core. And then you might step into a second position, a nice wide stance. Also known for people who've done hit and other forms of working out, kind of like a sumo stance squat. That's how I know it as. But this is what they call second position. Heels in toes out, again, posture, shoulders over hips, core in tight. To take this into a plie, which is just simply bending at the knees. You're gonna drop down. Pretend like you're sliding your back down a wall, okay? Keeping the crown up towards the ceiling and keeping my shoulders stacked over my hips. Again, belly button, nice and tight. Hips turned out. When you're going down, we're gonna do a lot of isometric holds and pulsing movements. Which is just up an inch and down an inch, okay? Very tiny movements. As you move in this fashion, when you're in second position think about pushing those knees out away from the body as I go down. And then as I pull up engage the inner thigh. Push and pull its a tiny movement. Okay, again, you always have the option to bring this to releve. Coming up on to those tiptoes, making this much more challenging. You can keep the arms in front of you, just gracefully shoulders, relaxed, rolled down and back. Take them to the side, okay? So its a just simple, simple movement. What's really important here is think about a heavy tailbone. Think about that sitting down while tucking that core and really pulling that button, keeping the glutes and hamstrings engaged at all time. Very posture centric, okay. So that would be your second position. You could also bring it up into what we call attitude. So there's front attitude, which is just simple leg lift in front. So I'd be balancing on one leg. On the standing leg, nice micro bend, leg still engaged. Here I am turned out. Heel, toe out. Okay, right here, we're engaging the inner thigh, lower core turn-on. You would perform simple leg lifts here, lifting up and down, okay? Really focusing on that lower core, inner thigh. Could also take this behind you for attitude derriere, what's behind you. Simply lifting up, engaging those glutes. Again, posture so important. Shoulder over hips core in nice and tight, crown up towards the ceiling. So those are a couple of moves. You can also do arabesque which is another standing on one leg. Simply put... Its basically taking your leg out to the side, floating it. You can bring the arm overhead if you need to. Okay, Core in tight and you do some pulses or leg lifts here. Could be all the way down, all the way up or it could be holding here and performing some things like oblique crunches, things of that nature. Barre workouts are very core centric but they're also for developing those long lean muscles especially long lean legs. As you're holding isometric holds and pulses to take muscles to complete failure and fatigue. So I hope you'll consider giving a barre workout a try soon.