I am Jodie Gates, professional ballerina, teacher, choreographer and artistic director. I am teaching you basic ballet. We're ready to learn about ballet barre technique.
Let's first talk about when you first begin ballet class, particularly at your first lesson. Most likely, you'll start facing the ballet barre. The barre is used to support you in learning the technique. So you don't want a grip on to it too tight. You want to gently place your hands on the barre depending on the exercise you're doing. You don't want to be too close to the bar and too far away. It should be a very causal distance so that again the alignment and placement which I spoke up earlier, stays the same and you gently place the hands on the barre.
The hips also should be facing directly toward the barre. It's a great way to feel that alignment and placement that the bones and the shoulders continue to face the barre directly even though you're moving your feet arms, legs or head. You continue to keep this building block theory facing the barre.
Alright, as you're studying ballet and placing your feet and hands on the barre, don't allow things to shift on the diagonal so easily. Again, when we learned the placement of the feet and legs, we'll begin facing the ballet barre.
Now for learning the portabra, what we call portabra which is hands and arms. We'll begin doing that by facing away from the barre. Standing very casually and feeling your back again as long and lifted. If there is a wall here, you want to stay pressed up against the wall again belly button to spine theory and all the portabra comes from the back.
Your arms don't want to over extend behind you. You should always see from your vision if you're facing forward, I can see my hands to the side, don't allow to go too far back. Again, they should be lifted from the back, elbow a slight slope, if you're look at it this way. It's a slight slope from the sternum bone, the hand in front of the chest.
The hand is held as well you're holding a barre gently but the fingers also have this feeling than released. Yeah, the middle fingers slightly lifted in. It's a very ornamental feeling when you first learn ballet. So we start facing away from the barre when we begin to learn our portabra which is the use of hands, shoulders and arms.
Alright, now as we move things forward and connect the arms, the legs, the hands and the feet, we'll start with one hand on the barre. Right now, when we are standing and facing either.
You'll start with again the same sloping feeling you had with the portabra when you are standing away from the barre. But now you want to be in a casual stance where your hand is gently placed in front of you on the ballet barre. Again, don't grip it. It's there to aid and help you and keep your balance but it's not a crutch.
Okay, so as you put things together as we move forward, you then have the barre in one hand. You can keep that as a balance and continue to coordinate your arms and your legs.
Now let's talk a little bit about vocabulary. The vocabulary for a front position is called devant. Front meaning, if I was to Tendu, I go front, it's in front of my body devant. If I want to Tendu behind my body, its derriere and that would be behind my body. If I want to Tendu or Degage to the side of my body, any direction side, it will be a la seconde or a la seconde, it's to the side of my body.
As you've noticed, we've been using a little bit more vocabulary. Again, don't make it a big deal; don't want to make you nervous. As you hear it over and over derriere, devant, a la seconde, degage, you'll memorize it. So for now, try to just memorize the positions with the words. Next, we'll learn the five basic ballet positions.
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