Ballet Beautiful: Transform Your Body and Gain the Strength, Grace and Focus of a Ballet Dancer (9 page)
Authors: Mary Helen Bowers
4.
Are you eating right
? Remember to eat often and to choose healthy foods.
5.
How positive and healthy is your thought process
? (Especially when thinking about yourself!)
When you eat well and work out at least 15 minutes, six days a week, your body will thank you. And you will realize that you can indeed maintain balance.
As you learn to pay attention to how you feel and to root out patterns that are not aligned with your health and fitness goals, you will naturally and easily fall into balance—physically, emotionally, and mentally. Keep in mind that we all eat emotionally—it’s natural to seek comfort in food when we feel bad, uncomfortable, or sad, or have any other feeling that upsets our inner homeostasis. With a heightened awareness of when you’re at risk of emotional eating, you can avoid derailing a day of healthy eating and exercise with one too many bites of a cupcake, triggering uncontrollable cravings by having too many cocktails, or putting yourself in a funk after you couldn’t stop eating an entire pint of Häagen-Dazs instead of switching to a lighter dessert.
Being in balance is the essence of living the Ballet Beautiful mindset. As you become aware of your inner attitudes and shift from a negative attitude to one that is positive
and growth-oriented, you will have an easier time identifying and setting realistic, self-empowering goals. With this clarity, you will naturally tap into your own motivation for achieving your goals, making you feel ever more confident and strong. These building blocks are the foundation for achieving the physical, emotional, and mental balance that secures your baseline. From here the only way is up!
I want every woman to feel the power of grace, strength, and possibility!
S
ome people will tell you that you have to be a professional ballerina to look like one. And others will say that you can’t actually target and transform specific parts of your body . . . that if you want to have leaner hips or a flatter stomach you have to work out your entire body. I couldn’t disagree more.
I believe that every woman has the ability to transform her body. I have seen my Ballet Beautiful method dramatically change the bodies and lives of countless women all over the world, including my own, and I know that it can do the same for you. In this part of the book, you will learn how to tune in to where your ballet muscles are and, more importantly, how you can begin to sculpt and reshape the way your body looks and moves. We are going to break down the basics of the Ballet Beautiful method together as I explain how this program targets and exhausts the key “ballet muscles” through low-impact exercises and stretches designed to give anyone the graceful lines, fluid movement, and beautiful posture of a ballet dancer. This is what makes Ballet Beautiful different from other programs: it’s the secret behind my method and your incredible results.
To keep it simple, I focus on five features of your Ballet Beautiful body:
1.
Flexibility
: Everyone can increase flexibility and become more agile through daily stretching. Each Ballet Beautiful workout begins and ends with a good stretch to keep the muscles long and limber!
2.
Strong center
: A ballerina’s strength, posture, and grace all extend from a strong but narrow center. The Ballet Beautiful exercises target the muscles deep in the abdominals, center, and back that are key to building a dancer’s strong center of balance!
3.
Great butt
: Ballet dancers are known for their tight, toned butts! My exercises tighten, tone, and lift the butt. If you already have a great butt and are concerned about exercising it away, don’t worry—that won’t happen with Ballet Beautiful!
4.
Long, toned legs
: Ballerinas have incredibly powerful legs with long, lean muscles. Ballet Beautiful sculpts and defines the elongated muscles that are key to powerful legs.
5.
Lean, feminine arms and elegant posture
: Ballet dancers have strong yet elegant upper bodies! My Upper Body Series improves posture, strengthens the center, and sculpts a toned yet graceful upper body.
Ballet dancers have a body shape, carriage, and way of moving that is one of a kind. The reason is simple: ballet training targets and uses muscles that are not used in other fitness programs or sports. The body shape, posture, and movement that result from this training are as unique as the training itself. That may sound intimidating, but almost anyone can get used to it. I myself never loved the idea of pointe shoes, but they have become like a second skin to me! So here is the good news: through Ballet Beautiful, you will wake up and engage your “ballet muscles” (everybody has them!) as you build the elegant body shape of a dancer, develop beautiful posture, and increase your flexibility. Together we will use a simple series of targeted, ballet-inspired exercises and stretches that focus on creating this specific form and posture. The aesthetic is graceful and feminine, balanced by power and strength.
Your Ballet Primer: A Quick Look at Ballet Terms
B
allet was born in the courts of France, so most of the positions and movements are still expressed in French. Of course, you don’t need to be able to speak French in order to understand how to do the movements, but as you become accustomed to the Ballet Beautiful workout, it might be helpful to refer to this brief guide. And you may find that sometimes the French terms—their direct translations—will help you visualize a movement.
Alignment
:
The lining up of parts of your body to make a balanced and graceful line.
Arabesque
[a-ra-BESK]:
A classic ballet position with one leg stretched long behind the dancer on the floor or in the air and the back knee straight. The supporting leg can be straight or bent into a demi-plié. The positions of the arms and hips determine whether the dancer is in first, second, third, or fourth arabesque.
Assemblé
[a-sahm-BLAY]:
Assembled or joined together. A step in which the working foot slides along the ground, brushing up into the air to bring both feet and legs together.
Attitude
[a-tee-TEWD]:
A position in which one leg is raised with the knee bent at a right angle and higher than the foot. The supporting leg can be straight, on pointe, or on demipointe, and the leg lifted in attitude can be to the front (as in attitude front), side, or back.
Battement
[bat-MAHN]:
The beating of the working leg.
Coupé
[koo-PAY]:
In this movement, from the French “to cut,” one foot is lifted off the floor and “cuts” either in front of or behind the other. The toes of the working foot lift and point by the ankle of the supporting leg.
Extension
[eks-tahn-SYAWN]:
Extension of the limbs in the air; the ability to lift and hold the legs in the air.
Fondu,
or
fondue
[fawn-DEW]:
Sinking down. A term used to describe the bending and stretching of the standing knee.
Passé
[pa-say]:
A movement in which the working leg lifts and passes along the supporting leg by the knee.
Pirouette
[peer-WET]:
A turn on one leg.
Plié
[plee-AY]:
Bent, bending. A plié is a bend of the knees. A full bending of the knees is a
grand plie
and a
demi-plié
is a half-bending of the knees. The bending movement should be gradual and smooth, as should the rising movement. In a demi-plié the heels do not lift from the ground.
Pointe
shoes
:The satin shoes that allow ballerinas to dance on their toes.
Port de bras
[pawr duh brah]:
Carriage of the arms. The graceful movement or passage of the arms from one position to another.
Relevé
[ruhl-VAY]:
Raised. A raising of the body on the ball of the foot or on demi-pointe.
Rond de jambe
[rawn duh zhahmb]:
“Round” of the leg. A circular movement of the leg, on the ground or in the air.
Rond de jambe en l’air
[rawn duh zhahmb ahn lehr]:
A raised circular movement of the leg in the air.
Supporting leg
:
The supporting or standing leg is the one that holds the most weight in any movement or position.
Tendu
[tan-doo]:
Tight or stretched. Tendu is a common abbreviation for
battement tendu,
when the working leg is extended—to either the front, side, or back—along the floor until only the tip of the toe remains touching the floor. A tendu can also be used in preparation for more complex steps, such as pirouettes or leaps.
Turnout
:
The degree to which a dancer opens or turns out her feet and legs from the hip joints in any one position.
Working leg
:
The leg that is executing a given movement while the weight of the body is on the supporting leg.
Ballet Positions
In ballet there are five basic positions for the feet and arms. Almost every basic movement in ballet begins and ends in one of these positions.
Positions of the Ballet Feet
•
First position
:
The toes are turned out and the heels touch each other.
•
Second position
:
The heels are separated about hip width apart and the feet remain in turnout.
•
Third position
:
One foot is in front of the other, with the back of the front heel touching the middle of the back foot.
•
Fourth position
:
One foot is in front of the other, with the front heel positioned about one step from the back foot, but angled toward the middle, as in third position.
•
Fifth position
:
Both feet come together, with the toes of each foot meeting the heels of the other.
•
Sixth position
:
Both feet are together, touching at the heels and the toes.
Note
: Sixth position is an add on with both feet in parallel that I sometimes use in my standing blasts.
Positions of the Ballet Arms
•
First position
:
Arms are extended to the front in a circle, with the hands in line with the waist.
•
Second position
:
Arms are open wide to the sides, with the elbows slightly round and lifted.
•
Third position
:
One arm rounds in front (as in first position), and the other arm extends out to the side (as in second position).
•
Fourth position
:
One arm rounds in front, and the other extends above the head—again, rounded at the elbow, fingers relaxed.
•
Fifth position
:
Both arms are lifted up over the head and rounded into a circle (similar to first position).
When doing an arabesque, the position of the feet changes based on the placement of the arms and hips. See our guide on the following page!
Basic Arabesque Positions
•
First arabesque
:
Beginning in an arabesque position (one leg stretched out long behind you on the floor, the supporting leg straight), extend the same arm as the working leg out to second position. Extend the other arm (same arm as the standing leg) to the front with the hand at shoulder height.
•
Second arabesque
:
Begin in an arabesque position. Extend the working side arm across the body and out to the front and the standing side arm to second position.
•
Third arabesque
:
Begin in an arabesque position. Extend both arms forward with the elbows straight. The working arm should be at shoulder height, as in first arabesque, and slightly lower than the standing arm, with about 16 inches between the hands.