head of the teacher training department of the international network of ballet and stretching studios LEVITA
“The most difficult thing in classical choreography is not so much high leg lifts or strong swings, but small elements that are performed very quickly. For safe and effective classes, the technique of movements must be perfected, which is impossible without the correct basic positions of the body, arms and legs. Teachers, perseverance, experience and home training help to create such a base”.
Is it possible to learn ballet at home?
In general, yes, but it’s important to understand what your ultimate goal is. If you want to learn the basics of ballet solely for the variety of home training, you can do it on your own. If you want something more: to dance and perform complex elements, to get more into the culture of their performance – then it is necessary to work quite meticulously with a teacher.
Of course, you can try to master non-intensive training at home to understand whether you are interested in this direction in principle. At the same time, classes with a teacher from scratch – it’s about a competent start. Ballet is a rather complex art form, as it involves a lot of twisting positions, unfamiliar elements and muscle tension in general.
For an ideal start of training it is important to first put the body and learn the basic positions and elements with a professional, and then to study on your own. Or you can combine both at once. In this case, if you feel that you do not understand the principle of exercises and are afraid of hurting yourself with the wrong technique, you can promptly consult with a teacher and continue classes without risks.
Where to start and how to build a regimen?
If you have never practiced anything before, the first thing you need to do is to smoothly enter the training process. Don’t rush to cover everything at once, don’t try to master all ballet positions on the barre from the first class. If you haven’t spent enough time on your daily activity before, start with something simple, such as morning exercise or an evening walk.
Before you start training, especially if you are practicing at home, be sure to do a 15-minute warm-up – it will help prepare your body for ballet elements. Gradually increase the pace, move to more complex exercises, but do not forget that the warm-up should be performed before each class, not just at the start of training.
Take classical ballet classes two or three times a week. If you want more workouts, then it is better to alternate them with full-fledged stretching. For example, today you do classical choreography, tomorrow – a break, the day after tomorrow – stretching, and then – again classics. In any case, ballet should be combined with stretching, because, firstly, it helps muscles to relieve excessive load, and secondly, it makes it possible to perform exercises more efficiently and effectively: to lift your legs higher, to hold your body in the upper point longer, and so on.
Transition from the old regime to a new one is always about getting out of your comfort zone, so it’s easy to get frustrated at the start and abandon regular workouts. To prevent this from happening, you can invite a companion to go to classes with you.
An experienced teacher can also give you a boost of motivation, as he or she is able to build a training plan in such a way that you will find it interesting and enjoyable to train. In addition, teachers help to correct mistakes, which is also very important, especially at the beginning of the journey.
In parallel with the implementation of training, customize your daily routine to help your new approach to life spread to all areas of your life:
- drink water – both during exercise and throughout the day;
- don’t forget your sleep schedule and allow your body to fully recover from an active day;
- watch your diet: don’t overeat, don’t starve, listen to your body’s needs;
- create conditions for diversity in life – the world should not revolve only around training and work, personal life is also important: walks, meetings with friends, hobbies.
Warm up before exercise
Warming up can vary in duration and complexity – it depends on what kind of training you are going to do. If we are talking about stretching or morning exercise, then here the warm-up will be easy: it is enough just to stretch the joints with circular movements, do a few bends, simple squats, stretch, a little “shake up” the body. Stretching is a rather calm direction, so you will smoothly enter each position, and the risk of injury will be minimal.
Before ballet training, you need a more structured, consistent and long warm-up – it should necessarily cover the whole body. Stretch your joints, pay special attention to warming up the lower limbs, ankles, make rotational movements, rolls from side to side, lifts on your toes.
If desired and possible, use additional equipment for maximum effect, such as a tennis or massage ball. It can be rolled before the class on the feet, which will strengthen the preparedness of the feet – in ballet their condition is especially important.
Exercises for the beginner
A small disclaimer: not all exercises, even at the beginning level, can be performed at home, because beginners do not have the body yet, do not have basic knowledge and skills. So if you decide to start training on your own, then it’s better to choose floor gymnastics.
This complex of exercises is performed only in a lying position and prepares the body for the machine. In each of them, do from 8 to 16 repetitions.
Exercise #1
Täitmistehnika
- Starting position: sit on a mat, towel and the like, so that it was soft for you, but at the same time the material did not slide heavily on the floor. The back is straightened, legs stretched forward, heels turned to each other, knees turned outward. The top of your head “pulls” upwards and your stomach is taut.
- Start stretching straight arms to the sides, fix them at the maximum point for you and stay in this position for a while. You can make the exercise more complicated, for example, you can do different variations of arm movements, such as swinging up and down through effort, lifting them above your head or stretching them out in front of you and pulling them back to the sides.
- This exercise strengthens your back muscles and prepares you for standard ballet stance. And if you twist and tense your legs more, the muscles of the thighs and abdomen will be connected to the back.
Exercise No. 2
Täitmistehnika
- Keep the starting position.
- Perform bends: raise your arms above your head and bend forward with a flat back, then return to the starting position without a round back.
- Perhaps, at first the amplitude of the bend will be small, but in the process of the exercise the leg muscles will be connected and stretched well.
Exercise No. 3
Täitmistehnika
- Keep the starting position.
- Lift your legs – leave your hands on the sides or put them on the floor behind the body.
- In this position, start alternately lifting the right leg and the left one.
- In the process, try to keep their twisted position. As you lower your leg, do not drop it, but gently and carefully place it on the floor. The slower you perform the exercise, the stronger you will feel the work of the muscles.
Exercise No. 4
Täitmistehnika
- Keep the starting position.
- Perform a “corner” – take the body a little back and lift your feet off the floor. Your task is to hold this position of the body as long as possible.
- In this exercise, the muscles of the whole body work, balance and coordination are included. During the fixation in the upper point, you can perform the movement “scissors” legs (parallel or crosswise).
After parterre gymnastics, move on to exercises in the standing position. Each of them can be repeated four to eight times.
Exercise No. 5
Tehnika
- You can start with a basic plie. Starting position: the first (heels together, toes turned diagonally), the second (toes pointed to the sides, heels – inward, between them a distance equal to the length of the foot) or the third position of the legs (one heel is in front of the other, toes turned out). Do not turn out your feet too much, watch how you feel – it is important that at the initial stages you do not hurt yourself and do all the movements carefully.
- In one of these positions, start squats.
- In the process, make sure that the pelvis does not go backwards, as in classic squats, but goes straight down.
- If necessary, bring it slightly forward, help yourself, tighten your abdomen and align your back so that your body is in balance.
- Imagine that you are lowering yourself parallel to the wall, slowly squat down, bringing your knees apart. Just as gently come back up, bringing your knees back together.
- All movements should be performed on resistance, because thanks to this, the optimal load is distributed between the muscles and forms a taut relief of the body.
Exercise No. 6
Batman tandu is the base of classical dance. The exercise is performed on the principle of sliding the foot on the floor. Starting position: feet in the first position (heels together, toes turned diagonally).
Tehnika
- Start bringing one foot clearly forward, trying to keep the heel on the floor as long as possible.
- When you feel that you can no longer keep it down, pull the toe forward and place it on the floor on the toe of the big toe.
- Make sure that the supporting leg does not shift, you should stand on it confidently. The pelvis should be level, the heel of the pulling leg “tends” forward, thus eversion.
- Return to the starting position according to the same algorithm: first lower all toes to the floor, begin to slowly lead the leg to yourself, simultaneously lowering the middle of the foot and heel to the floor.
- You can perform the exercise in directions: forward, sideways and backward. It perfectly strengthens and tightens the muscles of the legs and body. To connect your hands to the work, place them in the first (in front of you), second (to the sides) or third (above your head) position and hold them throughout the exercise.
Exercise #7
Raising the leg up or releve liang. Starting position: similar to the exercise batman tandu.
Täitmistehnika
- The beginning of the exercise coincides with the batman tandu: you lead your leg forward, sideways or backwards, but this time you do not stop, but continue lifting it up. You do it up to the height that is maximum for you at the moment.
- Make sure that the body does not fall down, the body is taut and the top of the head “stretches” to the ceiling.
- Fix the body in this position and count to eight, and then gently return to the starting position. Put the foot on the floor as gently and lightly as possible.
Exercise No. 8
Exercise technique
- Starting position: one foot is on the floor, and the second is on an elevated position (a stool or a small pouf – focus on a comfortable height for yourself), the whole body is tense and stretched.
- In this position, start lifting the leg that is lying on the elevated position, bring it up to the maximum height possible for you, fix it briefly and lower it back down.
- When you have already learned to raise and hold your leg in this exercise comfortably, you can also learn to bend it at a height.
- Everything is repeated similarly to the first algorithm, but in the top position, you need to bend the leg, and then unbend it to the sides, forward and backward.
- Make sure that the hip does not drop, perform all movements slowly, eventually accelerating to a comfortable pace.
- When extending forward, you should feel as if you want to take your knee behind your ear. When extending backward, try to open your knee as much as possible. Repeat the flexion and extension several times in each direction.
Exercise #9
Another movement that can be performed and perfected by beginners is the grand battement or swing. Grand batman can be performed both lying down and standing.
Technique (lying down)
- Starting position in the lying variant: lie on the mat, arms stretched out to the sides, legs – forward, knees directed to the sides, stomach pulled in the direction of the floor.
- In this position, start throwing your leg up, but not a sharp jerk, but a push with the help of muscles. Let you not have a large amplitude, but the muscles will work well. After the swing, smoothly lower the leg back down.
- After repeating the exercise several times, turn over on your side, put one hand under your head, and put the second hand in front of you for backup.
- The pelvis “does not fall in”, the legs are turned out to the sides. In this position also throw your leg, but not forward, but to the side, as if trying to put it behind your ear. Repeat such swings on both sides.
- After that turn over on your stomach, put your hands under your forehead, straighten your neck, turn your legs apart.
- In this position, start gently doing upward swings. Do not try to create a large amplitude, so as not to overload the lower back.
- If it is uncomfortable to perform the exercise in this position, then you can replace it with a stand on all fours – the “table” pose. To do this, place your knees at pelvic width, and place your hands under your shoulders. In this position, extend one leg back and plant it upwards. Try not to bend in the lower back.
Technique (standing variant)
- Starting position in the standing variant: feet in the first position (heels together, toes turned diagonally).
- The algorithm of actions is similar to the execution of batman tandu and relevé. The leg is smoothly stretched forward on the floor, and then raised to the maximum up and down. But the lift is not smooth, but through a sharp movement, the supporting leg should strongly “squeeze” the floor.
- Return the leg down should be active, but softly and smoothly, without dropping on the floor, with the connection of muscles.
- Try not to move the body, it must be fixed, so that the load is distributed correctly.