Reformer for Dancers

Hi, I'm Diane Diffenderfer and this is Jia. This is Laura. We're going to do a reformer class with the specific needs of the dancer in mind. And I want to say that this could be any dancer, it could be a ballet dancer, it could be a modern dancer, a jazz dancer, a social dancer or those of you that have a dancer within. So, um, a lot of the work is based on traditional [inaudible] work and much of it is also influenced by the many years I spent working with, with Ron Fletcher. We are looking for quality of movement, for breath, for precision, for I want to say elegance in movement. So it's not exercise, it's a movement program and hope you enjoy it. Let's get going. Okay, so ladies, go ahead and we're going to start with our leg and foot work. Go ahead. We're going to take a nice rounded position here. A contraction, rounded spine, hollow belly, shoulders are rounded butt down and the girls are going to take a nice breath in and they're going to exhale and engage low in the belly and roll down Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra, by Vertebra, arms to the carriage.

And I want to say too, we're starting with double leg and foot work and the springs are what you would use for two legs. In this case they're using three reds. All right ladies, let's go ahead and Devlin. Pay The legs to the ceiling and Dev low pay means to develop or extend or to make long. And that's exactly what we want to do. And bend the knees with control and we're going to bring the feet to a prehensile position. And I have to take a moment to talk about prehensile. Um, in many versions we do prehensile with the feet high on the bar with the, the bar kind of pressing into the center of the in step, which feels good. Uh, today we're going to do, and that's great. We do that sometimes. Today we're going to do a prehensile with the toes wrapping or grasping the bar.

So that's what prehensile means to grasp or grab. And normally that's not a term we want to use in dance, we don't want to grasp anything, but in this case we want to grab the toes so we strengthen the toes for our dance work, whether it's point work, point shoes going from demi point to full point or in modern dance, feeling the feet connected to the floor. So that's what that is all about. The legs are in good alignment, the belly button is pulled toward the spine and the pelvis is in a neutral position, not arched, not tucked, but a long, long spine. So let's go ahead and press out and just for this first one, go ahead gals. Let the like we're going to take stock of where we are.

We're going to have the heels going deep. All 10 toes wrapped, the inner thighs connected so the kneecaps face the ceiling. So we're not turned out, we're not turned in, we're parallel. We're using our external rotators. Not to turn out externally, but to feel that wrapping. And that work underneath the thigh.

The hip flexor line is long. Again, I want to say it's a neutral pelvis so there's no tucking. They've been here now long enough. We just do that one time to get started. We take a breath in and you exhale please. [inaudible] using the belly and we're going to go ahead and do 10 and press. And so the breath is our tempo for movement keeps us fluid.

Yeah. Good. So there's that constant awareness of the lungs opening and closing without flaring the ribs. The heels are going down, good Achilles tendon stretch lot going on here and good. And that should be about 10 and your ass lets dev low pay the legs, beautifully flex the feet and we're going to bring the heels to the bar and our next exercise is flexed feet, heels on the bar and go pressing out one and in pressing two. So there's our nice tempo again, the toes are flexed so it's not just the foot but all the toes.

Excellent. So there girls are really gonna feel this along the Tibialis anterior. Good strengthening work for dance, for walking for every day. Resist on your way in, resist on your way out. Resist on your way in and 10 and thank you for counting. I don't know if that cow was at Ted. All right, Dev low.

Pay again to the ceiling. By the way, we're going to perpendicular, not past even though you might be able to perpendicular. So body awareness. Flex the toes, lower the feet, bring the balls of the feet to the bar. So now we're on a nice relevant today. If the dancer has a super high end step, we may ask them to come a little lower for strength purposes. Otherwise he or she could go on a full Relevate as long as they're not sickling or pronating.

Go ahead and pressing out long and [inaudible] and press good. We want to accentuate long pulled up muscles. We're working the muscles, not the joints. Good long extension. Good. Fire up the back of the legs. Good. Seven I think, and in inner thighs are constantly working. Good.

Two more nice gals and one more and let's go out. Again, inhale out, keep the control. Exhale, flex your feet, press back to relevant and plea. Good going out again, we're increasing flex one and up and two, and up. Return in Nice alignment. We'll go to three. So we're increasing each time. One good. And they're really gonna feel it in your ankles. Calves, the whole leg, really?

Three and good. And then four, and then five. So for the dancer, that does point work. This is certainly an integral part of point work. It's not just about the feet and ankles, it's about the whole body. Good. And Five.

So you really can't stand on a point shoe unless you have a strong underside of the leg. Good. How are we feeling? This? I think so. Good. And we go to five and a nice lady. Shake your legs out a little bit. Yeah, that kind of tingles and burns. All right, let's go on and transition. So thus far we've been in parallel. Let's have you devil pay the legs to the ceiling. Now they can see their own alignment with their own vision, where they're going to turn out. Let's go back to parallel. Good.

Turn out again. Exhale. Parallel again. Turnout in parallel. One more. Flex your feet and lower your heels. And now we find that we're in first position. Good. So again, I want to emphasize that the pelvis is in a a a a neutral position. Very tempting to Tuck here to work turnout, which is completely not good to do.

All right. Press out in the first position. Inner thighs pulled up and please and prs and good. So we're trying to focus on equality of turnout. Pelvis neutral. Excellent. Knees in line with the turnout of the feet.

Ron Fletcher always used to ask me every time I talk to him. How's your play? A this was play for him. It is play. Excellent. Good. Keep the pelvis neutral. Fire up underside, the legs. Good. And is that 10 and good? Now keeping a space hold on the thighs. Go ahead and Dev low, pay to second. Good. And I just want to make a point of something.

The girls could go wider. I don't want them to, I'd like them to control it a little bit less than your full range. Flex your feet and with great control, bring your heels to the corners. We want to make sure we don't overturn the foot, which is just really the wrong thing to do if you're weightbearing and standing up. A lot of dancers want to turn from their feet. We want to turn out from our hips. All right. Again, feel the belly connected to the spine and press oud one and yeah. Nice. I also want to make a mention of the long neck, the elegant posture so that while we're lying down, we're still feeling tall and stretched and lifted.

So there's a lot of space between the ribs and the hips, right? So you're going to take this to your standing posture when you're in the dance studio or anywhere. Good. And I've lost count. Okay, thank you. Ladies. Let's bring your legs to tabletop. Bring your feet down on the ledge. Bring your arms to the ceiling.

Inhaling and roll up using your abdominal muscles. We're going to go to single leg work, so we'll reduce the spring. So now they're both on two reds, the two outside reds. Take your contraction forward, hollow the belly. Easy. Neck and shoulders. Breathe in and roll down Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra, by Vertebra and arms are relaxed.

Neck is long, throat is open. Let's place the right foot on the relevant and the left leg at table top and I want to mention that this is a working leg too. It's not just kinda hanging out. It's part of the program. It's part of the awareness of the body. The pushing foot is underneath the sitz bone. Great. Let's go ahead and press all the way out.

Pulling up nicely on the quad to protect them. The knee and plea again, five times just to get started. Feeling hip, thigh, knee, Shin, foot, metatarsal alignment. Really important. Good. Now extending the leg long. We go to Dev. Low Pay, Dev low. Pay Up. Flex both feet point both feet on Vela.

Pay through, make it seamless. Fluid movement parallel. The girls can see their legs themselves, that they're parallel. Yeah, you're turning out a little bit. Yeah. Boy, you can turn out later and devil pay. Strong Center Square hips, so we're not going to cheat ourselves and talk one more dev low. Pay Full flex that standing leg is working and we'll go to ground of Optima and up kick kick and through five times.

So they really need a strong center on this one. So the back doesn't arch while that leg is flying good. And we'll do five of those and then good. Excellent. Kind of like dancing on your back. Good other sides, same thing. Tabletop and centered on the metatarsal and go out stretching one.

And so I'm not just saying straighten their knee, I'm saying stretch a long gate reach. Make it streamlined. Feel like your leg starts all the way up here. The length comes all the way up in the hip flexor. Good Dev, low pay, long good, good point. And through pelvis anchored good.

Then you can take your leg as high as you can, as long as you're not tucking, cheating yourself. And this will transfer into devil copay. Standing up that there's no tuck. Nice, good, easy neck and shoulders go. Okay, up and now good. Let's go to ground bottom. All that fine it up and boom and through. And just like in dance class, the devil pay comes before the Gronbach Ma. This is a more dynamic movement, so we want to keep that standing leg firmly on the relevance and not drop it.

Good. Last time, kick, kick and morass. Is that five? Okay, good. Hug your knees for a second. Good. So that's a little bit of a, I have to say. A little bit of a workout. All right, good. Good tempo. Um, let's turn out to first position on the foot bar. We're going to do a little dance related, a little bit more balletic related work here.

So we've established first from earlier. Now we're going to have your standing foot is, you're right, we're going to move that right foot more towards the center of the bar and put the left foot in a coupé front. So when the dancer extends their standing leg, they're standing foot is right under there. So they're on the leg so to speak. All right, go ahead and press out and bring this left leg to passe and Fondu the hips are square. It's very tempting to tip off the standing leg.

Nice. The turnout is equidistant. Beautiful inner thigh is showing to the ceiling. Is that ive going on Dev low pay stretch, ifth Fondu and Ben. That's a beautiful movement through the posse to the front. We think of crossing the legs in ifth and fondue and have low pay up reached to me. Good and fondue. Your hips are square Dev low, pay cross ifth and that good.

All right, other side, the standing foot is underneath the middle. Don't do our starts, just start there. Then when you extend your foot will be fully relevant. Alright, and begin again. Devil, low pay to passe. Sorry to pause. Say and fondue. So standing leg is critical that it is turned out.

The temptation is to twist off of it. So sh Lara's really got a user seat muscle under there. Her external rotator, good. Keeping the pelvis stable and good going on. Dev Lopei reached to ifth fondue. Good reach through the ceiling. Long legs, good reach out the window.

There's a window over there. Fondue again. So we always want to work with beautiful length instead of short movements. Length. It doesn't matter how tall you are, it's how you move and go do ne more and right in the center, front his front. Good and fondue. Did we feel that? Okay, good. All right, let's bring the legs, feet to the ledge please, and we'll use our abdominals once again, always to roll up. Inhale, exhale, po up and put your middle red spring back on. And we're wrapping up our leg and foot work now with our running in place.

So you'll take your again, nice skin traction, hollow the belly air in, and exhale. Roll Down Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra, by Vertebra. Good. Shoulders down. Beautiful. Long neck, open throat, devil. Pay The legs to the ceiling and come to the foot bar for running in place. Good. All right.

I want to take a moment and say that it's important to do running in place. Well, it's important to do everything well, but that there's a wonderful lift through the feet and ankles and it's not punchy into the knee or into the Achilles. So quality here is critical. All right ladies, go ahead and press out all the way. Inhaling, growing taller. Exhale. Let's feel the connection. Remember, it's all abdominal work. Tight seat without tucking. Fire up the back of the legs and begin the breath is your tempo.

wo and ne and wo and not too fast. Sometimes we go faster. Today we're going to do this even tempo and wo and change and wo, ne and wo and change and wo. The ankles pass on the up, up, down, up, down, up, down, down and good. Your knees are tracking in a straight parallel line. Good.

Last set and ne and wo and good and irrelevant. Phil. The inner thigh connection. Flex the feet. I'll give them a little stretch. Relevate back up and flex. Good. Stay flax. Does that feel good?

Take a breath and come back. We're really where we started. Good. All right gals. Let's swing your legs to the side. Good and thank you. All right, good. So our legs are kind of cooked. We've done some parallel work, single leg work, turned out work and we're going to work now straight into our hundreds. Okay, good. Let's go ahead and put the springs to what you would like for the hundreds.

They're using a red and a blue. Depends what reformer you're using and take the foot bar down. Good. Good. Alright, lovely. We're going to do a traditional hundreds, uh, sequence here. So our traditional in ive out ive, making sure that we're taking those ive pulses to fill up right. Breathing in front, breathing side, breathing back.

So it's not just the rips. Okay, gals, go ahead. Feed to the latch. Take a nice contraction again. Lovely. Take your breath. Breathe into your back here. Especially when you're rounded. Exhale, Roll Vertebra by Vertebra, by Vertebra, not like you. Need any help here? All right. And then take your straps and let's move your, your body's a little bit away from the shoulder blocks so you don't end up getting scrunched up against them. We're going to start a tabletop. Good. Bring the arms to perpendicular.

Find that shoulder blades down. Scapular muscles engaged, long neck. Let's do a press irst with the arms. Inhale. Exhale. Press the arms down, feeling that great length through the fingertips. Inhale up. Exhale, press down. Pull the ribs in, belly down. Good. Once more into position legs long exhale, go for her were [inaudible] and the ne, wo, hree, our, ive, exhale, hree, our, ive, wo, [inaudible], hree nice clothes.

Those ribs as you exhale for shoulders are down, reaching long ive. Good. The shoulder blades are just at the tip. Just off the bed. wo, hree, our, ive, even. Yeah. Out, out, out, out, out ight. We take the legs where we can, uh, level wise, ine. Good. Close to hree, our, ive look. Good. Last set out, out, out, out. Uh, take air and bend on the exhale. I know they like when we slow down at the end. All right. Put your feet to the ledge and hold your shoulder blocks.

And we're just gonna take a little break. A little intermission. We're going to inhale, let the legs sway to the right just to stretch the back a little bit. And then as usual, we'll use your belly to come to center. Exhale. The other way, you could do this a few more times if you wanted to, just to get a little bit of rotation in the spine and come back. Good. You're feeling warm. So purpose of the hundreds, the original purpose that I learned is that they are to warm us up so that percussive breathing, that deep breathing, that thorough intake of oxygen, and that complete exhalation gets our, our oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange really going.

It gets feeds our cells with new oxygen in our blood, gets us warm, invigorated. It's all good. All right, let's go to a version of coordination. Um, there's many that I know that I like. This ne for our dance population, it involves a parallel and then rotation and then turning out and doing some beats. So you're going to do a our or ix and an ight. So let's go ahead here. Where it table top. The arms are at a slight, uh, also at a inety degree angle at a slight pole. So while I'm talking here, these girls are working hard to hold that alignment navel to spine. They're going to get air, they're going to exhale into their beautiful long position. They're going to turn out open slightly, right leg on top, our beats, hree for Ben to table top and lie down. Get Air. Exhale, reach, ribs in, belly down.

Turnout, left leg leading. ne, wo, hree, our, parallel, beautiful and lie back at a or make sure you get air. Exhale, belly down. Turn out. We go to ix. ne, wo, hree, our, ive, ix, lots of breath control required. Exhale, reach, ribs close. Turn out, left leg on top. ne, wo, hree, our, ive, ix. Ben and I, we're going to ight and exhale. Extend. Get your air in ight oh ne wo, hree, our, ive, ix, even, ight place tabletop, and go forward last time. Nice. Turn out. The pelvis is stable though. hree, our, ive, ix, even, ight band.

Ah, whew. That's a good ne. Do you feel air raided? You should. All right, let's put the down. All right ladies. Good coordination. You should fill your bellies fired up. All right, we're going to go into a stomach massage series with some kind of goodies in between, so we need to get the grippers what? You're at the end of your reformers and we'll put our foot bars up and go to wo red springs for stomach massage, and we're going to do a, I'll call it a classic stomach massage. This was ne of the hardest things that I ever had to learn to do because I didn't really understand about that contraction, but it's a beautiful, beautiful feeling to get that inner abdominal massage that Joe [inaudible] talked about. Okay, so you're on your gripper and you're going to place your feet to the bar. If you're really long legged or have some hip issues, you need to sit back further. That's okay. But ideally we sit pretty darn close, which is a challenge. All right? We're going to take a moment here.

The feeder in irst. As you can see, they're not too turned out, so let your legs drop open for a minute. We don't want to do that, so bring them up a little bit. Pulling with the hand and pushing with the feet. I'm going to feel. I want Laura to feel like she's as tall as she can be. And then as she inhales, she's going to grow taller. Stay tall, exhale and pull your bellies in. Good. Do it again. Inhale, it's just for this moment of length and exhale. Great. Lots of space between ribs and hips. We want to keep that.

Take another breath. Now start to exhale, contract the belly, release the bar and round without getting scrunchy in. Short the arms draped to this side and press out. ne flex to Roz up and please say ight times. We have our armpits over the hips. There's a curve of the spine that I like to think of as like a big parenthesis shape. We want to make sure the neck isn't dropped too low, otherwise it looks like a broken neck.

We're sitting up out of the low back. Beautiful Ribs in. Good. So use your exhale to massage your belly a little deeper. How many good and up you can talk and breed. ight. ne more hollow. Good.

And come in. Take the bar and sit tall again. Good. Now go ahead and Devlin. Pay The legs to econd, open the legs to econd. And we are actually straddling the reformer. I learned this from Ron Fletcher and he told a wonderful story. I'll tell it really quickly that, uh, Joe [inaudible] never allowed anyone to straddle the reformer.

But ne day Clara was where Claire Potties was working with Ron and she wanted him to find a econd position. So they went into this position to work on alignment and, and, and Ron didn't want to do it. And Clara said, what's the matter? And, and Ron Fletcher said to Clara, well, Joe told us never to straddle straddle. And so Clara said to Ron, Joe's not here. Go ahead and straddle. So it's kind of a wonderful story. Okay. Having said that, let's put the hands on this inside of the knees and just feel that turnout as you pulse. The back is tall, the ribs are in.

We're working on turnout from the hips, good and last set, and a nice take the arms up and to the bar. Good. Breathe in and hinge forward our times or vertical. And the gals hinge, keeping their sitz bones anchored to the carriage, not arching, not slouching, good and good. Come up and open the arms to the side, and I'd like you to have instead of a ballet econd position and a feeling of incredible reach through the fingertips, you're going to go to irrelevant. I turn the palms up and down and up and down.

Working your turnout all the time and up and good at a head. Turn to the right and center and left and center. Feeling your arms work and center and good and hole. Nice. Now lifting again off your waist. Exhale, rotate, right. Come to center. Exhale, left the arms.

Stand a nice ahundred eighty degree line center and watch the ribs and right nice center and laugh the exhales on the rotation center. Go ahead, right again, take the shoulder block in the bar and give yourself a little stretch watching the whole time that the knees are in line with the feet. Come back to center. Inhale, rotate to your left, close the ribs. Certainly take air as you need to. Good, and come back to center. All right, we're going to go to the stomach massage to bras. So go to a lighter spring. We're going to work probably on a red and a blue or red and a yellow.

Depends what you have in your studio and your feet. Come back up to the foot bar. All right? Yes. Good. Nice. Alright, so definitely a lighter spring so that this isn't too heavy on the back. You're going to take a nice breath again and simply contract forward. Hollow belly. Easy touch. Press out holding the bar, flex the feet. Relevate they sit tall. Arms high.

ifth plea. AA, go back out. Grow Taller. Porter Bra can track the belly and come home. Press out ne. Flex to Relevate. hree good play. our. Sit up out of your waist. ive and ix.

wo more times ne. There's a lot of stretch here, too relevant. Watch the ribs then. Nice. Grow Taller through your spine. And ne more time, press ne. And if you can't reach them, well they can reach the bar. But if you can't, you just touch your legs where you can reach [inaudible] grow tall or tall or taller. And use the belly to come. Even go to parallel and just give yourself a nice stretch.

I want to point out that if your hyper extended Jia is, but she's controlling it very well. You don't want to let the knees sink down into this position because that's just not good on the back of the knee. All right gals, come back to turn out. Come on in and good. We're going to open ne more time. We're on Duchamp and a econd position. Good. Alright. Take your arms. Hands to the shoulders. Good. So they're not dropped.

They're lifted your Tony in the arm. You're going to breathe in then to your right little side bending center and to the left and center to the right. Anchored opposite side and center and to the left. Beautiful. Come Center and open. Good. Now we'll do some nice dance Porta Baraza up and open again.

Up an open. Good. Find your nice high ifth and open ne more time and you're going to hold it. So you're framing your beautiful head. Good. Breathe in. And now to the right. This one's a little harder. Good Center. And You keep the head in the middle of the frame. Good.

Center and over. Keep lifted out of that side. Good. And Center and good. Alright, come center. Take the bar again. And last thing here, you're going to take breath, hinge forward and come to standing. Good. All right. Make the body into a nice vertical position. Watch the ribs and do little plea, Mia and plea a and just breathe easy and pally and then slowly sit down.

This is a killer for those external rotators. Swing your leg around. Finally come to parallel and let's have you stand up. Alright, good gals. Alright. Okay ladies, let's go ahead and move to some, give your legs a little bit of a rast and we'll go, go to some upper body work so we can put the grippers back at the end of the reformer. And I'm going to go ahead, we'll put the um, flip bars down. Let's have you do that. And then we're going to go to some arm work. We're choosing a blue spring, a little bit lighter.

You could do it on a heavier spring, but because we're going to segue into some other work, we want to keep it on the light side. So, um, yeah, that's perfectly fine. So let's sit carefully cross-legged and take your straps and we're going to do the wonderful a hug a tree. I love this for dancers to feel where their econd position should be. You know, not dropping the elbow, not lifting the shoulder. All right, so go ahead and take your position. Lovely. And we feel that back broad, those shoulders down, the head held high. We inhale as we pull, exhale, open ight times. We fill our backs with air.

Good. So many times dancers just have limbs that are flying around and they're not feeling their backs. We do a Piro at, you want to pull those arms in tightly. Good, good. And of course the abdominals are always working. The spine is beautifully lifted. The shoulder blades are down. Nice girls. Good.

And it should be ight and we'll open. Good. All right. Relax for a moment and put your thumbs in your loops rather than your hands. All right. We're doing a little, some people call this, I think shaving. It depends on where you studied and it doesn't really fine. Um, we're going to do what I call a Porta Bra carriage of the arms. So you're starting here, shoulders are down, you're reaching out.

Hold your center, hold your back. Especially now hold your center, hold your back, press side and fold in. So you reach forward on ne press beside your body to hold your back. Hold your belly hree press side and fold in. our, wo more through your in like an arabesque height. And I see, here's the hard part. You're gonna feel like you're gonna lose it here. Good.

You Piro out with your arms up. We often tend to arch backs. We want to fix that here. Hold on last time. Try to come all the way. Press wide and great. We're going to go to front rowing, so extend your legs. We'll do wo times pointed feet, wo times flexed feet.

Let's have the hands right down near the Mat. Again, tall spine. We'll have you all bow the head. Inhale. Now use the belly as you slide the hands forward. Now from there we're going to start to inhale and ripple through the spine. Come on up, Puerto Bras side and Dan.

Good and head down ne. Exhale, wo. Inhale, lengthen. hree, come up and press. Exhale for wo more. Only flex your feet, bow the head, pull the belly in. It's a rounded back and flatten from the bottom, bottom, bottom through the neck line. Good. And around and down. Nice. Last time, bow the head. Scoop the ballet. So we never want to just flop forward, ripple through long neck. Your neck is part of your spine.

Come up and press great. Okay, let's put the straps back on the Poles and we're going to come into our stomach pole. These sets, these stretch series. Okay, so let's have you stand up and go to a red and a blue foot bar up. People that are a little bit more petite, shorter may want to have a higher bar, which is completely fine. All right, so let's go ahead and uh, standing up the side. We're going to go hand and foot to mount and hand in a foot and we're going on a relevant [inaudible]. I want to make a note that it's not a super high forced arch.

The dancer or the student can see that their foot is not sickled or pronated. This is Ron called this the v or the high stomach pole, a straightened back if possible. Long neck in line with the spine. Shoulders down, belly pulled in and you press back on the inhalation. Exhale, lift the hips and back and a pool. So the tailbone and the sits bones are reaching to the ceiling and the body stays pretty still and pool. Good.

The knees are pulled up so you're not sinking into the knee joint. wo more and ne more and good and flat feet. Same thing and pressing ne and wo. So if you are hyper extended, make sure you don't sink into the knee. Very nice.

If you want to lift your toes up for more, lift those toes up. You're really going to get a lot of stretch in the calf behind the knee. wo more. Good. ne more and good. Let's nicely put the hands to the mat. Good that Ma nicely meant.

Don't drop then the knees and roll up just to come to vertical for a moment. Good ladies and stand tall. Let's lift our shoulders up and down and up and down. wo more. Up and down. ne more. Up and down. Bow the head roll forward.

You're going to go ahead and take the bar so you can walk your hands forward or as need be. Good. And let's go to a small relevant, again against the shoulder blocks. Take the right leg forward into a lunge for some parallel splits. Alright, so let's have you all come to your balance point. Your arms are in the middle. This isn't for everybody. If you don't want to let go, you don't have to. But if you can, beautiful.

Take the bar, bring your hips to the ceiling and we're going to try to get a square as we can. This is hard to get square here. All right. And press back carefully and use the belly to return again. Press out and return. So I'm cuing her to keep her hips square, which she may not go as far, but she's correct last time.

Oh, slowly. Bend the front knee and we get this wonderful hip flexor stretch here. Good. Put that foot back. Change sides. Left leg forward. Good knee in line with the foot. Of course. Arms to the middle. Find your balance.

Make sure that back knee is in control. Yeah, take the bar, point the hips to the ceiling as square as possible and go pressing out and ear pressing out. And Ian, go ahead and wo more and in last time and we have oh slowly, carefully bend the front leg. So here's that nice stretch on the hip. Flex or alright, put the feet back. Come to flat. [inaudible] again. ne more time. Let's have you all round your back. Soften the knees and roll up.

Good. Just to get yourselves back to standing up straight. Yes. Good. All right, thank you. We're going to go on to Poncha Arabesque. Alright, Jia, you're going to do it on relevant hyperextended knees requires a little bit more control in the quad and VML. You're going to do it on flat cause you can. All right, so go ahead again, bow the head, roll down and then take the your bar and then g you can go to a little bit of a relevant, being mindful of your foot. Feet, foot, both of them. All right, which leg are we going up? irst left leg up. All right, so let's take the left leg and we're going to do, I run under Zam.

Feels great on the hip, especially if I push and point that foot good and go back. Inhale and exhale. Good. The shoulders are square like you're facing the bar in downs, class, hip. This hip is open. Good. That's for lift the leg up and around and down. Good. Others saw, Hey Rhonda, John, give me your leg.

I'll give it back later. Good. Turned out and go on. And Ian, so again, g is on a little bit of irrelevant. She's got a really pull up that standing leg and not sink into her knee. ourth time. Good. Retire, oops. And come around and down. And finally we're done with that. Again, hands to the carriage. [inaudible] oh, oh up. Good ladies. How are we doing? Great. Alright, let's step off.

Good. Okay, we are winding down here. Let's go ahead and get the standing platforms. Uh, bring them up. If you don't have ne you can certainly with ne more challenging, but use the ledge at the end of your reformer. So we'll put the foot bars down and the girls are going to use ne red spring and yes. Okay. Do what you need. If you need to adjust, you have a versatile a gear. You may want, need to move it.

Just do what you're used to at your home studio to uh, secure the foot bar securely. I love these foot platforms. We didn't have them when I was a child. No, when I was doing philosophies years ago. All right, let's have you all stand up on the carriage please. And then we're going to bring the right foot to the foot plate. I said Bar, I'm at plate and we're doing a ton. Do an arabesque.

So let's pull up beautifully on the standing leg. Turn out the back leg. So we need a little more turnout here. So your hip will open and your knee cap will face side rather than down. Bring your left arm forward. So you're in econd era Basque. So we have a nice lift through the body and the lift is on the standing leg.

And Go ahead gals, press back and pull up into the standing side. So if a dancer were doing a Tom do back and then she or he, we're going to close into ifth position. It's the same workings of the inner thighs. They keep the standing leg rotated and a lot of work here on the glute muscles to rotate that like do ne more and yeah, be mindful of your balance. Let's come in and hold, get your weight all the way over your standing leg and lift.

Arabesque doesn't need to be high, but yes, good. Feel your balance. Put it back down and let's stand to the other side and come to the foot plate and change. Just be careful, good and other side. So if you have great ahundred eighty degree turn out, that's fine. I wouldn't go all the way to ahundred eighty I'd pull it in a little bit so you're a little bit more secure. Good. So inner thigh facing front. Great. A secondary Basque. Good. Turn out the open, open the back, hit hip to Mech and Arabesque and go pressing back.

It's not so much about going back as it is about pressing down and out and feeling that working of the inner thigh to close nice gals and as always pull up through the abdominals. You have a nice lift on this standing, standing and into the standing leg. Good. ne more and let's hold there. Lift the leg to Arab basket up on the standing side. Standing side, standing side like behind you. Thank you. And calm down. All right, now let's go ahead and a Jia. You're going to face that way. Laura, are you going to face the front and we're going to go to a econd position and you're still there? We're doing ne side. So Jia, we'll just do this side, Laura.

We'll do this side. It pretty much works the whole body, so you only need to do ne time. ne side. All right. This is a nice open econd position. Again, if you're super turned out, that's great. Don't go all the way to ahundred and eighty degrees cause it's a little bit precarious. The girls are going to have their arms in middle ifth or irst possessed. Depends on what ballet school you're from. Alright. Alegra can't.

The famous Balanchine Ballerina taught me this exercise for turnout and it's terrific ground. [inaudible] knees over the feet and move the carriage out and Ian and out keeping that knee over the foot out and in. This is an advanced exercise, a lot of focus, other leg out and even good thighs. Stay Open. It's all about that external rotation. No talking, no arching and whole both legs out.

I'm here if you need me. Good. A deeper plea. I would be terrific. Yes, your thighs will be burning after this plea, I. N. And last time. Good. Stand up with control. Arms down. Go to parallel, and then bring yourselves back.

Let's have you step back and let's come around to where we started our class to finish. All right. We'll just take a couple of port of bras to finish. Arms up and open and around. Good. And again, lift up. Good and open. And around. wo more times up. Good head held high. Shoulders down, and ne more and open and good. Thank you.