Placement and Alignment for Basic Ballet

Jerry Gates: Hi! I'm Jodie Gates professional ballerina, teacher, choreographer and director and I'm teaching you basic Ballet. Always in Ballet, you must keep in mind placement and alignment. What I mean by that is placement is a rotation from the hips. When I say rotation from the hips; it means that the turn out that we're using in Ballet, begins thoughtfully from the hips. For instance, if I show you a good way of finding your own and honest sense of rotation is stand in a parallel position what we call sixth position actually in Ballet, put one hands or you can put two hands on a doorknob, a bar whatever you have, place yourself, stay lifted in the hip line, lift up the toes gently, open them out and place them. This is your true, what we would call first position of the five basic positions. This is your true turnout. As you move forward in ballet technique, you'll be able to use this as rotation with Tendu, Degagé, Rond de jambe and so forth and so on. So the turn out again comes from the hip line. You don't want to over-rotate and feel that your knees and your feet are rotated but your hips are not. This is actually not a healthy maneuver and you want to keep a very correct placement and alignment in the body. This is also going to happen when you change positions at the ballet bar and then later in the center where you change into a fifth position, your thighs are crossed but you continue to feel rotation at the top of the thigh. Alright, now we talk about a little bit about where the hips are placed as opposed to the shoulders, it's something called the building block theory. The building block theory, I like to call it that, is simply like a skyscraper, how each bone on bone is set on top of one-another. So in other words my shoulders and my hips and my knees and my feet are all one line. You want to stay very lifted and long. Belly button to spine theory is also a great way of thinking about not necessarily holding in your belly but a sense of compression and lift and a very long spine, you don't want to push into it and you don't want to stick out your popo. You need to stay very long and lifted. Here are your hands. Here everything you do up on top, this stays strong, that building block alignment, as we call it. Skyscraper is a very strong foundation, yeah. But let's talk a little bit about the anatomy and how you want to think about bone on bone. With ballet, you would like -- you really need to think that you're constantly lifted from back here. So the Port de bras, Port de bras meaning all the movement we do with our arms in ballet, always begins from back here, your wings. So you want to feel lifted and long and all movement initiates from behind your back, yeah. And you finish and it should stay quite long, this part of your body and torso will never change, it stays lifted, long, belly button to spine, shoulders, hips, it's all very square facility for you to work off of. Now as you've noticed, I've said a few words that are in English. The vocabulary in Ballet is French because Ballet, the technique, originated in Paris. And don't feel nervous or feel like it's too daunting through repetition, trough listening to your teacher say Tendu, Degagé, Rond de jambe, Derrière, you'll memorize the words. So don't be too nervous; it will come slowly, you'll start to put together that Tendu is a direct line, toes are pointed. It will become natural, like learning a yoga pose or a palates exercise. Next, we'll learn the basics at the ballet bar.