Class #2276

Ballet Barre Workout

50 min - Class
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Description

Grab a chair, counter, or step up to the nearest Ballet Barre! Diane Diefenderfer is back with a fun Ballet Barre workout to bring out your inner dancer! She shows how the work on the Reformer can be done standing up and applied to classical dance technique. This class is great for everyone because it has the same basic principles of Pilates - healthy alignment, balance, and breath. Enjoy!

Diane is using Portable Barres, however you can use anything that is stable like a chair or counter.
What You'll Need: Portable Barre

Transcript

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All right. Hello everyone. I'm Diane Diffenderfer and I am going to present a bar class today, B. A. R. R. E. Here it is. I'm a ballet based on a ballet bar, uh, also based on the [inaudible] principles that we use throughout the pilot program. And I will be comparing some of the work that we do here to the work that we do primarily on the reformer spinal articulation, stretching of the legs, bending the knees. I'll use some balletic terms just kind of for fun, um, needing to be a dancer to do this. I hope you just enjoy and remember of course, to practice Palladio's fundamentals, which I'll be talking about throughout the class. Good core concentration, posture and alignment. My feeling is that all healthy, good work, whether it's dance or modern dance or other forms of activities or [inaudible] has the same basic structure of healthy alignment and balance. So and, and breath. And so that's what we're going to do today. Um, I have Jia and Laura helping me, so thank you ladies for being here. Um, we are barefoot.

You could certainly do this in socks. You could do it in socks with grippers or you could even do it in a sloths soft slipper or a jazz shoe or something. Whatever feels comfortable. It's nice to be able to feel the floor though. Um, and carpet is okay, but preferably a bare floor would be best. So we are going to start actually facing the bar. One more thing. If you are practicing at home, you don't have a bar, you could certainly do this on the edge of a, of a banister or a kitchen counter or a sturdy high chair.

Um, you'd want the bar about this height just slightly lower than your shoulder. So you're not grabbing up high, causing the shoulder to lift, nor is it too low. So this bar would be for a, a slightly shorter person. Um, yeah. Or in apply studio you could hold onto the corner of a trapeze table and use that for a bar so we can make this work in different ways. Okay. So ladies, we'll face our bar in our sixth position or parallel position. And I'm just going to talk about the body for a moment.

The arms are going to be down by the sides and we want to practice a nice posture and stance. I'm going to talk about from the bottom up. We have our toes spread, our balances on our foot centers, so we're both pressing into the ball of under the big foot, under the little toe and onto the heel. So if we lift our toes, it puts us back more on our heels. If we put the toes down and go more toward the ball of the foot, where a little bit more forward, which is more where we will be in dance ready to move. So just for those purposes, uh, the legs are lengthened and pulled up. There's a sensation of pulling up the muscles.

Media meaning engaging them without gripping. So we're in between completely soft and completely taught energy down through the floor, long through the legs, engaging the buttocks. The pelvis should be in a neutral position, whether we're in parallel or later on in turnout. So we have a feeling of a straight line through the hip flexors. So you're neither tucked or released.

We want to feel the tailbone pointing downward, the spiny long gate, and there's natural curves in the spine, but let's not have anything unnatural. So that's different for different people, but we can imagine that we're lying on the trapeze table or on the reformer just for that idea of a straight, long, straight ish lengthened spine abdominals in. And we're going to start with our arms by our sides, sides, eyes open, eyes open, and we're simply taking breath with a little arm movement. [inaudible] he'll wake up the body [inaudible] expanding through the back, the sides. [inaudible] and one more like a fan opening and closing. And we'll shrug our shoulders up and down like we have weights on our fingertips.

Lifting the shoulders up and pressing them down, lifting them away, up, pressing them almost a little back and down. Once more, inhale up, exhale down. We'll turn the palms up and we'll reach to the ceiling. Looking up slightly. Turn the palms and down. [inaudible] hmm. Lift up. Try not to lift the shoulders, turn the palms and press down. Big Arms, reach, turn and press through space. And we'll do one more. Bringing the arms up and gently taking the bar.

Fingers four. All right, drop the elbows. We'll take a breath. As we exhale, we'll lift the chin. Careful not to drop the head. Inhale, center. Exhale. Gently draw the chin over the chest and center. We're just warming up here, getting ready to do more movement center and exhale forward.

Bring the head right on. Center profile, right center profile left and be mindful that the shoulders don't move. Center and to your right and center and to your left and center and whole. Good. Now we're going to take our first play or bend. We want to make sure our knees are in line with our feet. We're not sticking the bottom out or not tucking it forward.

We're going straight down, almost like we're an on the reformer. We're going to inhale here. Exhale, stretch tall four times. Inhale, ple, ae or bend. Exhale, stir hatch again. Press into the floor and press into the floor. Rising up and lower and lift.

Lift up through the center and Lower and lift. Make sure you're on the center of the balls of your feet and center and lower for Benz. Inhale one, exhale, stretch and a two. Feel the parallel inner thighs together and three, and for a long spine rising up, we'll feel our calf muscles and to make sure you're not gripping the bar. Yeah, I'll just gentle touch and lower and up and oh, or will all come up again. Lower the left heel point. The right to rise up other side and rising up.

It looks a little bit like running in place. Yeah. Up and lower down. Next year your hips stay square and lifted and uh, and and lift and lower and lift. Well, continue. Come up again. Now when you lower a little, bend the left knee and rise up lower. The right knee is in line with the foot up. Lower the Dan Duff.

Yeah, warming up the ankles, centers of the balls of the feet. One more each side and down and up and down. Let's rise both up. Fill the ankles in, alignment the inner thighs together and see if you can let go. Test your balance and calm down. Good. Let's turn out to a small Pilati stance.

So we're in a small face the camera for a moment, from parallel to a small stance. So earlier when we were bending our knees, we're in line with our feet. Now when we bend, our knees are still in line with our feet. None of this. Yeah, don't roll out either. All right, so go back to your bar facing your bar. Turn out small and we heap the spine and we ple a one and a stretch and two we'll turn out more later. Stretch three. No stretch. Are you girls doing four and a stretch? Now we play, we push over the balls of the seat. We pull up, we lower down again. Plea a one knees in, line with the toes and pull up and lower down again. Please make sure you're picking up under your buck. Not with your hand, but with the muscle plea.

A push over and lift and come down again and one and two please. Yeah, your spine is tall, your belly in and three and four. Now the added plead a over the balls of the feet and roll down. Jeremy, please push over and lift and down and Yanni. Push over. Feel your inner thighs facing your front. One more, please.

Push over. Come up and hold. Lift up under your belly. Take your balance. Try not to roll outside your little toes and come down. We'll take the right arm. Reach it out, lift up, exhale over to the side. Come up to center. Look at your hand. You have a little movement in the head. Replaced to the bar, left. Reach and up. Your hips aren't moving.

You're bending from your waist up and open. Come to parallel. Put the right foot back, hands on the bar. Make sure that you're not pushing too hard so your furniture or whatever you're using doesn't move and you're pressing to stretch your calf back there. Try not to stick your bottom out. We'll left the lift the back heel a little bit.

Press it a little deeper into the floor. Oh their side left leg back. Next year. Your knees are in line with your feet. Press forward for a good calf stretch. Lift the back heel slightly and press down. Now we'll put both legs behind us, slightly open.

We're going to arch. Just drop down into a nice arch. Go ahead and stick your buns out. Sitz bones. Exhale, whirl through the spine and up. Inhale, exhale down. Sure. Take a breath, roll up, scoop the belly, look into your center two more times.

Arch the back, release the pelvis. This should feel good on your back. And inhale. Exhale. Last time. Inhale, exhale. And this time we'll put the hands to the floor. Do the best you can. And if you get dizzy, don't come up too fast, but do stand up if you feel dizzy.

Let's bend the knees a little bit and stretch. Now you can either bend or keep your knees straight. Slowly roll up through the spine and stand tall and come back to where you are. So that was our little pre ballet warmup facing the bar. Okay, how are we doing? You good? Okay, let us now go to a little bit more classical ballet. So we walked, worked in small Palati stance. Now we're going to work in a little bit more turnout. So be careful that you do.

Turn out from your hips, engage the seat muscles correctly without talking, without releasing or talking. Yes, we good. All right, and we're going to take our arm front and to the side. We have our left hand on the bar, our spine tall, and we're going to do a little demi or half clean, one and open and two and open little pulse. Denny and Demi and demi stretched tall from the beginning and CLIA and you're opening your head and arm in coordination and you have to think a little bit about this and Demi and demi and pulse and open grand plea. Yeah, you ball all the way down. I'm not going all the way down because I have a knee replacement and open again.

Demi, let the heels lift and Jenny stand. Oh, forward band too. You can touch the floor. Roll through your spine, Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra. Bring your arm up. Take your arm forward, press down in the shoulder blade and recover. We'll do that again. Breathe in forward. Stay over the balls of your feet, people so you're not sinking back onto your heels and round up through the spine. Arm Front, press, back and back. Come Center. Open the arms. Hold. Feel your arms and rest. Good.

Alright. I just a moment to say something. Arms in second position in ballet class or modern dance or other things. Just take a parallel stance for a minute. Relax your turnout. And if you would all take this position. We use this in hug a tree on the reformer we use maybe with the pepole pole circles. Just holding, I shouldn't say because it's more than that.

Holding your arms here takes a lot of work. The tendencies to drop the elbows. Yeah. Then we tend to fix our elbows. Lift the elbows in, the shoulders come up. So we want to pull the shoulders down, broadened across the chest, broaden across the back. Good lift the beautiful posture. Hold the belly in. This is an exercise that's unto itself. So you hold there for 30 seconds. We're going to have to do it now. But sure.

I feel the width. The Cross your back. Are Your arms aching yet? Yeah, maybe so relax. So that is an arm exercise. Yeah, I just wanted to point that out. Alright, thank you. We're going to go ahead and turn around to the other side and I'm going to have my back to the camera here, but that's okay.

And now we're going to work in second position. Okay, so here we are in a nice open second. Sometimes it's narrow or I'm going to say, let's go ahead pretty wide. Make sure that you're not overturning your feet. Your tailbone is down, your belly is in, your spine is tall and we'll prepare with our arm, front and open. We're going to do the same thing we did on the other side in first, but now we're in second. We do a dummy plea, a one and stretch two and straps, little pulses using your seat. Pulse and pulse stand tall again. Head and arm towards your bar. Open and again, open and pulse and pulse and pulse.

Yeah. Now in the ground, clean a, the, he'll stay on the ground. Two, three and four. Straight down, tailbone to the floor, six and seven. I'm counting music that I don't have. Let's do that again. Four and two so you can imagine that you're sliding your back along the universal reformer, not tucking, not hard. Shane and we'll hole now. We'll reach out, up and over. Get a good side stretch. Come back to the center and open.

Hold your balance away from the bar. Reach and over round your elbows. Open them side and stand tall again. Keep hips still. Reach out and over to the bar. Change your hand and make it look nice. Calm up. Ribs over your hips. Hold other side, reach and over.

Let's bring the arms to the middle. Hug the tree and open. Bring your legs in a little bit. Take your bar up. Yeah, see if you can balance. Yes. Ribs in and rest. Checking my girls. All right, excellent. Good. We good? All right, so we did some plays. I'm not going too much into third or fourth or fifth position. He goes, this class is meant to be fun and not, not that it's not challenging. It's challenging to stand up and squeeze your muscles properly and hold beautiful posture. I don't want to get too balletic at this point, so we're going to work a lot from first position.

Just explaining my thinking here. All right. We're going to do an exercise called ton do. Todd do simply means to stretch, so it's a stretch, but it's a taut stretch so the musculature is engaged without gripping. It's a lengthened feeling, so keeping that in mind, we'll do our Tonya is you. We follow along. We're going to take our hand and put it on her hip like we have a beautiful Spanish sort of flavor to this lifted, lifted chest.

We're going to slide the foot forward and pointed and flex it and pointed. Slide it in. Now we do to to the front and another close. First to the side. Reach. Our hips are facing front point and close Tang do and close time do to the back.

Your hip will open slightly flex and point and close and back. The knee is stretched and back. Close. Open the arm. Bend the knees, bend forward, hand on the floor. Stretch your knees. Roll up, coming up. Arms up, hand on the hip to the back. One, flex the foot.

Work your foot and ankle point and close and back and first and back and first to the side. We work in these different positions. Front, side and back. This is to the side of the body, close and side to the front. It's in front and flex and point and close and front and close and front and open. Please [inaudible] Ben forward. Put your hand on the floor. Stretch your knees, roll up, come up and put your hand back to your hip. Other side, they have to do everything on two sides. We have two legs at least we don't have three legs. All right handed the hip.

That should remind you to press your shoulder down. Next, you're not pinching your elbow fondue. Stretch front. Flex the foot and point and close and front and close. Your standing leg is still and pulled up. Side your seat muscles tight back here. Clothes and tondo and cloves and Tom do and to the back.

The knee is open. Yeah, not turned in. That works. Your seat and back and first and back. First Open plea. A Ben forward hand on the floor. Stretch the knees, roll up through the spine, hand to the hip to the back. One flex into the point and the close to the toe point and first and back and side to the side of your body.

Flex the foot point and close. Slide along the floor, Tom. Do to the front and reach. Push the heel out. Point and close. Tom, do and close. Last time Demi plead a Ben. Forward hand on the floor. Stretch your knees. Roll up and hand to the hip and pause.

All right, so good. Let's come back to our first hand on the bar. So we've been working with the foot, the extending foot on the floor. Now we're going to do a dead [inaudible], which means to disengage. So we're going to be actually leaving the floor with our uh, gesturing leg. I want to say too, in dance and in many things, there's two, two working legs. There's not just one working legs.

Sometimes we think about the one that's up in the air as the working leg. The standing leg is really an important working leg because you're standing on it. So how you stand on it, how you balance on it, where your weight distribution is. Can you let go of your bar or whatever you're holding onto and see if you are on that standing leg or are you going to fall over? So I like to refer to the working legs. They're both working legs. One is a support one is a gesturing one. So now our gesturing leg, which is the outside leg, is going to disengage from the floor, not high.

We're building up to height. We're still working fairly low and we'll do our dead goes. Yay. All right. What should we do on the reformer when we use to jump forward a little bit? Yeah. All right, so we're back to first position. Inner thighs pulled together. This time we're gonna put our hand on the shoulder and this is a reminder again to keep the shoulder down and the elbow is up.

So you should feel this under here. We're going to brush the leg out, turn it in, turn it out. Close. First two brushes and close brush and close and side. Turn it in. Turn it out. Feel your bottom. Again. Brush and close. Brush and close to the back end.

Turn and turn out and a close and a brush and a close and a brush. Open your arm. And first and two and three and four. Close. Five. Close. Six closed. Seven back to your shoulder. Eight to the back. One. Turn into turn out three close four and a brush and a first brush.

End. First point the toes. Turn the hip in. Turn it out. Close brush. So your foot is disengaging from the floor. It's turned out, it's turned in, it's turned out and close. Brush. And first we open the arm. Reverse the arm outside. Make a circle. Three, four, five, six, seven.

Finish. Put both hands on your shoulders. Yeah, make sure they're down. Thank you. Other side. Good. All right, so we're in first position. We're pulled up in the inner thighs. Bellies are in buns are lifted. Hand to the shoulder. Brush one. Turn into out, close out and in and out. Back to first side in, out close brush. First.

Brush beyond that standing leg back. Turn it in. Use your seat and your rotators brush first. Brush, open the arm and eight two, three, four, five, six, seven to your shoulder, eight and back. Turn it in. Turn it out and a close back. And first back to the side of the body and in and out. Remember that standing leg is your working one. Also front, rotate in, rotate out and close.

Brush first brush. Open the arm, reverse it outside to three. Four, circle across the body. Six and seven. Finish hands on the shoulders. Feel your lift, belly in and rest. Good. Thank you. All right, good. So now having worked in first and in second, we're going to work in fifth position.

I want you all to be careful that you don't overdo it. So fifth position, I know a lot of you know dance is legs crossed. If you'd prefer to work in third, that is fine. Fifth is a lot more work. Please don't slam your feet together to get into it, but it does enable us to really work the inner thigh. So that's what we like about it so much. All right, so we're going to take fifth position from the side. I just want to point out something. Your legs are equal.

Equidistant in rotation. Yeah. Don't have one one way or you know they should be equal. And if your fifth is there, that is fine. That's just fine. So when you bend, your knees are still working over your feet. When you stretch your legs up, make sure that your tail doesn't go out. Lots of things to remember.

But the ballet technique gives us good strong limber bodies. Yeah, if worked correctly. All right, so now we're going to put our hands on our hips again and we're going to have a flexed foot and we're going to work that inner thigh. Like you're holding a piece of paper in here and you don't want to drop it. So we'll do eight flexes accent in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight point point, point, point, stretch, hold, hold on and close back. Front, back front. You have to hold very still and point, point, point, point hold, hold, hold close. Back in the back.

Really good one for your seat in at six and seven and eight point point, point. Point, Huh? Hold, hold, hold. Now. Brush side, arm to the side. Let go. Feel your balance and finish. Yeah. Do you feel are in your thighs a little bit. All right.

You see dancers beating their legs sometimes when they're jumping. A lot of inner thigh power, so that's what we're after. Whether we're jumping or we just want good looking in her thighs. Okay. Fifth position. Handle the shoulder, hips still shoulders down. Remember the whole body extend accent in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and point, point, point, point. Let go stretch and close. Close back, front, back, front, back, front point, point, point, point and stretch.

Close back and in and in. And use the seat. N N n n n n n n n point and stretch and close brush side. Let go. Other arm, woop. Got To get my balance and finish. Alright. Just shake your legs out for a moment. I like that fast stuff.

I hate it and I like it. It feels good. Yeah. It gets your body going. Gets the blood going. All right, so I think what we need, I heard a hip hop. It's okay. I mean ankles popping, popping and certain popping is okay in the course of good movement. You don't want to force yourself into a whack in your back around, so be careful of that. I know it's tempting. Um, yeah, I'm out of breath. We're now going to do just 15 of those beats.

Hold the 16th count. We often work in sets of eight so we're doing eight and seven and hold the last count, front and side and back. Faster tempo. Then we're going to do a stretch. All right, so let's have fifth position again. Hand on the hip, 15 to the front. Stay with me. Ready? And in in two and three and four and five and six and seven. Eight and nine and 10 1112 and 13 1415 and back in two and three and four and five. Eight and nine and 10 1112 and 13 1415 go the back into our, you owe me one, two, [inaudible] and one and two and three and four and five and six and seven. Ben, forward too. Three, four.

Roll Up. Six, seven. A arm forward. Two, three, four. Recover. Let's take the arms down. Pull in the belly. Lift up beautifully. You feel your inner thighs. Yeah. You do. I do. Bye.

Do you do okay? Fifth position. Hips facing square. The only time your hip will open is when you go to the back. Turn your whole body around, but the hip will open a little bit to the back. Okay. Hand on the hip. Accenting in and how? One into five and six and seven. Eight one and two and three and four.

Five and six and seven and one and two and three and four and five and six and seven. Eight and nine and 10 11, 12 and 13 1415 and back. Five 67810111213 1415 and breathe forward. Oh, over rural up good and back stretch. Try not to push the pelvis forward and soonish. Okay, good. Thank you. All right, we're going to come back to our first side again, left hand on the bar and we're going to do something called Rhonda Zhang, which is a circle or around movement of the leg and we certainly do that on the equipment, several pieces of equipment and when I teach leg circles on the reformer or on the trapeze table, the first thing I talk about is pelvic stability, so that takes place as well as we're standing up, as I mentioned before, we have a strong standing leg. We have an opening, circular, circular ring without a word I leg making a circle and we work to you seen by now we work to the front, we work to the side and we worked to the back.

I want to take a moment, you can see them facing sideways, but just to talk a little bit about how you go to the back. It's wonderful for the dairy air if you're in the front year to the front. So your front is in front of you, right to the side is to your side, maybe a little bit forward of side. When you go to the back, you don't want to turn it down. You want to continue to rotate that outside gesturing leg so that the kneecap faces that way and yet your body doesn't twist. So you've got that twist. Nice rotation in the spine.

I'll pull up on the standing leg and an outward rotation of the back leg, which means you gotta use your buns. So think about that when we do a [inaudible]. All right, we'll take our fifth position. Take it easy. Don't screw the legs around here and we're going to take the arm, front and side, leaving the arm there. We take the leg to the front. We're in a clear, we take it side, we take it back, we come to first, we take it front. Cool.

Back now. Straight leg front end around. You're making a half circle and around continual movement and around, around. Close back to the back. Make sure this knee is open, not turning in first back. Turnout turnout first. Back show, front show, back side front. Continual, continual. We're going to close fifth, tight legs forward. Band over the legs.

We're going to go into the bar, get a good side stretch. Keep your legs straight back where you turn around. Reach into the bar, side outside, back. Watch the neck stays in line with the spine side and forward all the way. Roll up like we do and so many of our exercises hold the arm.

Let's brush front low. Get your balance, hold, add, finish. Good. Other side, we got that other leg door icon. Alright, in fifth position, your hips are square. We'll prepare with the arm, front and open. Hold that elbow nicely. We extend in play back first. Bend your standing knees open back and first front. Circle around. Keep the pelvis stable.

Continual circle, circle, circle close to the back in plea a saw front stand, tall, back side front. Stand tall all around and around. Continual and the ramp. Close. Fifth. Bree forward down into the bar. Back. Try not to move your legs so they're not moving around.

As your body moves, reverse rate, look out past your fingers back. Get a good stretch. Step forward over fold in, half up. Brush the leg, let go. Whole rast. Good. Alright, good. Got good balance girls. So I'll share something with two years ago, this summer I had a total knee replacement on my one knee.

I've had problems with both knees through my life. The plot, his work has helped me immensely. I'm still working on balance on my one standing leg, so it's a work in progress for everybody. All right, let's go to now an exercise called [inaudible], which means to withdraw. We're withdrawing the leg from the floor into a position. Let me have you show it and I'm going to face the camera please. Yeah, you can hold the bar a little bit and take the knee. The leg is going to withdraw to here and then you'd closing first and it's going to withdraw from the floor and come right up to here. So to do this, do it incorrectly and lift your hip. Yeah, no. Okay, good, good. Incorrect.

Now keep the pelvis stable, work the inner thigh open, use your dairy air and open out good. So that is essentially what we're going to do. We're going to combine it with turning in and turning out so we really get a nice workout on the seat. Okay, let's go in first position ladies. So we're going to have our arm to the side, a little arm coordination at the same time. We'll bring the arm in in front of the sternum, which is half of hug a tree. We'll bring the foot up and then open it out, up and open it out. Up.

Turn the leg in, turn it out and close and up. Open it out and stay tall on that standing leg. Open it down and up. Turn it in. Use Your glutes and close again. Up and open and up and open and up.

Turn it in. Let's hold it. There are middle. Get up on your standing. Yeah, leg hold, hold, hold, hold and finish. A little balance exercise. Good. Other side. We're working from first as we do Rito a red Teray, withdraw the leg. We need to get the weight over our standing leg. I mean don't sit on it, but get over that standing leg. Yeah. All right. We'll take the arm out to the side and up. One, two, up. One, two.

We hold it up. We turn it in, we turn it out and we close our Teray or withdraw it from the floor to the side of the knee up. Turn it in. Turn it out. One more set up, lower up, lower up in, out hold. Arms Middle. Get up over the standing. Lift in the belly. Hold, hold, hold, and close. Good. All Right, nice. We're now going to do an exercise to free up the hip called bottom on cloth.

Cautious of bell, so the legs going to swing like a bell. Again, important to have a strong standing side and the strong center. We're going to work on extension to the front. Excellent. In dance extension is when the leg is up to actually flexing the hip and then extending the hip to the back. All right. The spine stays as tall as possible. We're going to start in first position. I'll come down here so it won't kick.

You will do 16 hand on the shoulder and the knee will be slightly bent or in attitude. Here we go. Front, back, not too high. Swing, swing, swing, swing a little higher. If you want up, up, up, up and up and up and rest. Other side. We'll start low. Yeah, don't kick each other or the bar. Hand on the shoulder. Here we go. Start low. Up. Back. The leg is turned out. The knee is easy. The hip is loose.

A little higher if you wish. Okay. Up, up, up, up, up and up. Close. Good. All right. Now to open the hip to the side, we're going to face the bar. Be careful that you don't kick your bar or your toe or anything like that. Facing your bar and you're going to take the time due to the right leg to the side.

We're going to cross the leg and then we're going to swing it out to the side. All right, so you know what you're going to do, so I don't hit your knee or your foot or anything. Again, body placement, structure, power from the center, strong standing leg balance over that leg. Shoulders down. Here we go. And Cross side, cross side, cross side, cross side, continue. Does this feel good? Cross side, cross side and cross side. Let's go to second position and clear and nice moveable bar here. Two and three come off for plea.

A five or when those knees, six Paul up the n or thighs. We're back on our backs on our reformers. Please hold at arch your back a little bit without pushing your pelvis forward. He's got a nice lift in the chest. Pull the belly in. Come back to center. Other side. Oh yeah, we're still facing the bar. Sorry. Right. I didn't do the outside did I? I'm losing my mind. Okay, Tom, do the left leg.

Don't get so close to the bar that you hit your knee. I said that already and cross side. Cross sign up. Try to look calm on top up. Cross, cross up, cross up. Second position. Open it. Why please to ferry for your tailbone goes down like a plumb line and up please.

And two, three. That's all arc. Lift into it. Don't sink into it and recover your placement. Good. We feel in our bodies. Yes we are. Okay. Laura, why don't you come around? No, I suppose you could stay where you are.

I'm thinking, thinking out loud. All right. We're going to do an exercise called fondue, which means to melt and right now I feel like I'm melting. You could think of chocolate or cheese, but the quality is melting into plea. A and fondue usually describes a plea AA on one leg, not two melted or you fall on the floor. So there's structure in the melt and there's a lot of work. Again, I talk a lot about this because after all, you know that was what we're standing up on. Yeah, and the spine.

So we're going to face away from the bar. We're going to work to the with the leg to the front, right leg, left leg, right leg, left leg, and we're going to face the bar and work to the back. We've got it. Got It. Kind of. Okay, so we'll be in first position. Try if you, you know, wherever you are. Not to be like this. So you'll need to get fairly, you know, up against your bar.

We're going to bend the right knee and the left knee. Fondu the foot goes to the ankle and straighten the knee again, fondue and straighten the standing knee. Once more, take the leg through. Past the knee. Front, close. First other side, bend and stretch. So we're melting on the standing leg and we been, we go through Posse, we stretch it front, close first, right leg, then pull up on the standing leg, then up then through posse. Take it front and close. You girls look good.

Then stretch both knees open. Look at the diamond in their legs. Shape bend, take it up, extend it out and close. Now without pulling your bar off the wall or whatever, just arched back slightly and re cover. Face the bar. So now we see Jia from the back and Laura from the front. All right, working to the back.

It's nice to be facing the bar so your torso is relatively square. Your hip will open up. As I described before. First position. We're bending aunt standing on the left, bending on and stretch two and stretch, and then take to the knee. The girls will go, hi, I'm not going to do that anymore. Close other side. Then stretch, then stretch, then up to the knee. Take it back and close first side, then both knees go open, then up, then take it up, fill your seat muscle and close last time and up and then and up and fondue through and out and [inaudible] lows. Go parallel.

We'll hang back again. Make sure you don't pull off of your bar, lose your balance. Roll up through the spine and good and come to back. We have one more thing to finish with. Yeah. We're going to do ground Baltimore, which sometimes we do in our leg and foot work. [inaudible] means big bottom. Amin's beat. So we're actually beating, kicking, you could say, but it's a beat kicking the air. So we want to have total calm structure.

Control in the body has the leg is free to go. Yeah, so you girls can take your legs high. I don't go quite so high anymore, but that's okay. Quality. All right, so we'll do three front weight, three side weight, three back. Then we'll turn around. All right. We'll have our arm up to the front here to the side and a classic Arabesque to the back. Yeah. First position. Take the arm up. Feel like you're lifted through the fingers, but shoulder down and oh, first up. First up, hold. Change the arm to the side. Sign up first up.

First up first. Change the arm to the back. Back then first back. First back. Change the arm to the side. Lets rise. Balance to three. I'm counting invisible music. Five, six, seven. Come down. Eight and other side. First position. Tall. Back. Pelvis.

Neutral. Yeah. Take the arm up. Here we go. Well one close to close. Three change the arm. Hold the side up. First up. First up, take the arm to the back. Back, back, back, back. Arm to the side. Rise. Balance. Lift up through your hip line. Hold and calm down.

Good. All right, let's come away and finish our bar class with just some nice movement in. Well I don't want to have you go over there. Just some nice movement of the arms to finish and call down just a little bit. We'll come to parallel. We'll pull our inner thighs together so we're strong.

No matter our height. We feel tall, we feel grounded. We feel lifted energy in both directions. We feel confident from within. We have a good spirit in our movement, so we enjoy our bodies. What we have. Yeah, we'll take their right arm out, reach, oh and rounded down to where you started. Other side and down to where you started, both arms and down to where we started. Turnout to first and holding very tall and reach and up and lower to the bottom, who reach and up and lower to the bottom.

Let's breathe down from the heart and open and another one all the way up and open and thank you. Thank you ladies.

Comments

6 people like this.
Great class thank you. I love barre workout and do wish we'll get more in PA.
2 people like this.
So excited for a good barre class
3 people like this.
Excellent class. Greatly appreciate the breaks to explain technique and ballet terms. Such a nice balance of working hard, but staying calm and elegant. On a superficial note- love Gia and Laura's hair and leotards, sooo pretty
6 people like this.
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the class. Just a side note because there was such detail to posture. I know its a dancer's thing to hyperextend (lock out the knees). You could really see that in this session, especially from the side view. For those not dancers, the calves should not be back behind the heel. Rachel Siegel Taylor did a session on imbalances in the body & she rolls out the feet standing on the foam roller that will correct this. After rolling out the feet the weight is back over the center of the feet, not behind. I had my dancers do this & they said "wow this is how everyone else must feel when standing."
Loved it! I too appreciate the breaks to explain technique and terms. So helpful to get the most out of the movements
1 person likes this.
Amazing,inspiring teaching....more please.
2 people like this.
Just lovely.....nice to be reminded of the ballet terminology. Thank you PA and thank you Diane, Gia & Laura!
1 person likes this.
Great warm up for pre-performance, auditions, or just at home. Love!
I love this class. Thanks Diane, Laura and Gia. Excellent for people that are not familiar with ballet too. Great leg workout.
1 person likes this.
Thank you, just what I was looking for, and I'm delighted to find it on Pilates Anytime! More, and floor barre too, perhaps?!
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