Technique Tips: Plié All Day!

Hi Ballet Beauties, Our Technique Tips Series continues with our Ballet Beautiful NYC Master Trainers - a series designed to help you master classical ballet technique and improve your form to achieve the best results in every Ballet Beautiful workout! We take you through different must-know foundational steps and movements to help maximize your training and results. Next Up: Making the Most Out of Your Plié with Ballet Beautiful NYC Master Trainer Stephen.  As a young dancer, Stephen often thought that doing pliés were just a warm up and he did not always put forth effort into his movement. As he realized the plié is an important and foundational movement in ballet, he began to practice with preciseness instead of his typical poor alignment. By improving his plié, he improved his ability as a dancer. Stephen shares with us below how you too can Make the Most Out of Your Plié! "At Ballet Beautiful, we do many exercises that help us to engage and train our muscles to make the most of our workouts and it starts with a strong foundation for a plié. Let's get started learning how to achieve a perfect plié!" Plié in ballet means to bend the knees outward. The Ballet Beautiful Glossary is a great start to getting familiar with this foundational ballet movement. Along with bending of the knee, you must engage the proper muscles along with executing good alignment to execute the perfect plié. Ballet dancer's practice pliés in first, second, fourth, and fifth position of the fee as the first exercise of a barre work class. We even plié before and after every turn, jump, or even waltzing! Because it is such a crucial and frequent movement, it's important to make the most out of our pliés.

Incorrect Plié

Correct Plié

To begin, make sure your knees are over your toes when you bend. Its always beneficial to use the natural momentum that you create with the buoyancy of your plié, to help you to remain light on your feet. The movement is what sets you up to relevé and jump. To achieve proper alignment of your knees over your toes, it's important to think about using the tops of your legs to rotate your inner thighs into a turned out position. If this area is not engaged, your knees will have a difficult time bending over your toes and it could cause your knees to roll forward. When the tops of your inner thighs are engaged, the more power and control you will have over your plié.

Knees Over Toes

Knees Rolling Forward

To assist you with making the most out of your pliés, follow along with Mary Helen for 3 Must Have Plié Workouts to Tighten and Tone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQUm6KJfMHE&t=6s By making the most out of your pliés, you will build a solid ballet foundation that will help you gain more movement in your dance! I'd love to see the progress you've made by joining one of my Online Live Group Classes! Have a beautiful workout! -Stephen