Autumn Calabrese leads a ballet barre workout at home using a chair, teaching plie, tendu, dégagé, rond de jambe, fondu, and battement with focus on posture and turnout. Each exercise is counted and repeated on both sides, finishing with a cool-down stretch.
Autumn Calabrese
November 17, 2014
Eight (8)
What's up, everyone? Welcome to another workout with me. As you can see the way I'm dressed, we are doing ballet today. I like to mix up my workouts all the time. And, yes, I was a dance major in college. So I'm taking you guys back to the basics of ballet barre. It's okay if you don't have a barre. You can use a chair. It's just there for balance. You're just gonna lightly rest your fingers on it as we move through the foot positions. Don't hang on it, pull on it. That's not the purpose behind it. Everything in ballet is about being drawn up, connected from the head to the toe. So the abs are in, the rib cage is closed, and we are going to have some fun. So let's get started. I want you to start with your feet in a second position. So they're just a little bit wider than your hips. Your toes are turned out, your abdominals are in, and you're going to keep the pelvis pulled under you. So we're going to bend at the knees, and the knees are going to track out over the toes. We're going to do eight of these. So we just bend, and then you squeeze up through the inner thighs. We're just warming the legs up here.
Arm can move gracefully with your legs. If that's awkward for you, you can keep it right here. That's okay. I'm going to let mine flow.
And again. You see my hands are barely on the chair. And we're going to bring it up. So now we're going to bring the feet into a first position, which means that your heels are touching and your toes are turned out. Again, we're drawn up, and we're going to do a tendu to the side. All that means is you're going to take your toes out to the side and point your foot. So you stay drawn up and you tendu. And in. And these move a little bit faster.
We're going to do two more and bring it in. Now we're going to do degages. So that means the foot is going to just come off the floor a little bit. So as you do it, you brush and you point the toe. Brush, brush. We're going front, side, and back. That knee is staying straight. You're squeezing. You're squeezing the inner thigh, the top of the thigh, the booty.
Front, side, and back. Do it again. Front. Keep pushing through the feet. That's very important in ballet. Good. From here, Ronda jambes. So same leg. Now the toe is going to draw along the floor, and it's like you're drawing a capital D. So point, you circle to the side, take it around, and you pass through the heels, graze each other, and you point again. So we're going to go four, moving to the front again, pressing through the foot. Now, from here, we reverse. So we go back and draw that circle.
And bring it in. So we're going to bring it into a fifth. Now, which means your front heel is touching the back of the big toe. So what you're going to do is you're going to bend both knees, let them shoot out to the side here, and you're going to tendu front. So point that toe, Bend and tendu. And bend. And again, you can use the arm or you can just keep it right here in what we call a first position. But you're just taking a little plie and a tap. We're gonna move it around all the way around two more times.
And back and side. One more time. And front and side and back and side. Now we go to a battema. So we're gonna do four to the front. Starting in that fifth position. Arm's gonna go to the side, so you're kicking your leg, controlling it on the way down.
Brushing through the floor. Let's do four more. Four, three, two, one. Good. Now you're gonna take it back behind you. Arm comes in front, and we lift, brushing through the floor, staying pulled up, you should be able to actually test your balance and let go.
Excellent. Now we're going to repeat it all on the other side. So I'm just going to adjust the chair. So let's start with those plies. Here we go again. So we go down and squeeze. These are nice and controlled. There's normally beautiful piano music playing.
Arm is moving ever so slightly, but really staying drawn up. Tall ribs, ribcage closed. Last one and bring it in first position. And we'll go to the tendu. So we go out really drawing up on the supporting leg.
Point that toe. Two more and very nice. So now we'll go to the degage. Take the arm out. We go front and side and back and front. Side and back. Front, side and back.
Front, side and back. Front, side and back.
One more.
And back. Now we're going to go into those ronda jambes. So drawing the letter D with the foot. So we start here, forward, big circle and circle.
And now we're going to reverse it. So we go back, three, two. And bring it back to that fifth. Now we go into our fondue. So you bend and tendu. Bend side, bend, bend back, and bend inside. That counts as one. We got to go again. Front and side.
Everything is graceful. It feels good. You're stretching, you're elongating.
One more time. We go front and side.
And back and side. And now we go to the battement. So I'm gonna go arm up, leg goes high. 2. You're gonna feel this behind the back of the leg. Stretching. 4, 3, 2, and 1. Good. Let's take it back behind us. And.
Three, two. And there it is, you guys. That's your ballet workout. Let's take a little bit of a stretch here. Just turn the toes forward, drop the chin, roll it all the way down. Release your neck.
Bend your knees, and bring it up. We're gonna go back to that first position. Just take a little stretch to the chair or the bar up, and we'll go away from it.
And very nicely done. Thank you for joining me. You guys be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
