Ballet Floor Barre Exercises

Barre exercises are the building blocks of ballet. But there are times when barre work isn't appropriate. For beginners, doing barre at home isn't recommended because without a teacher watching, it's too easy to get out of alignment. A floor barre workout is the perfect solution, because the floor keeps the body in line while you exercise.

Floor barre is also ideal if you're on holiday with no access to a safe support; or you're injured and not able to bear your weight on one or both legs. Or maybe you're a late beginner who's not as strong or supple as a younger person.

There are several "floor-barre" exercise workouts available on DVD, but they're not all equal. Many of them are just a collection of ballet stretches, or a mixture of Pilates and yoga mat work for dancers - which is fine in its place, but it's no substitute for ballet barre work.

My first introduction to ballet floor barre was a book on the "barre par terre" created by Boris Kniaseff. He took the opening exercises of a standard ballet class and adapted them so they could be done on the floor. I loved it, and was very upset when I lost it moving house. I've never been able to find another copy.

So I was delighted to discover there are teachers out there, still teaching floor barre based on Kniaseff's principles. Zena Rommett and Stephane Dalle are two teachers who faithfully reproduce his techniques.

There are four benefits of the floor barre.

One is obvious - you don't need a barre. True, when at home you can hold on to a chair, but it's not always very safe if your core isn't rock-solid - for instance, when doing grand battements.

The second advantage is that lying on the floor, you're not distracted by having to maintain your posture and balance.

That's both good and bad - we all know that by challenging yourself to control several parts of the body at once, you can improve faster. However, if you're so challenged that you can't do the movements correctly, you won't improve at all. The floor barre gives you the opportunity to isolate and perfect each individual movement first, before moving on to standing.

Thirdly, the floor barre is easier to adapt to dancers with injuries, so they can go on working through their recuperation.

The fourth advantage is especially important for beginners - the floor protects you from many of the common mistakes you might make while doing barre work without a teacher.

I would never recommend anyone to attempt to learn ballet at home - unless they use the floor barre method. Ballet turnout is not a natural thing for most people, and few people naturally combine enough strength and flexibility to hold their leg high and straight in a developpe.

Because of that, beginners tend to contort their knees to improve their turnout, or twist their hips to get their leg a bit higher. They're not consciously faking it - they're just eager to make their limbs look like a ballet dancer's. The resulting distortions can be very damaging, and seriously injure knees, hips and backs - especially when they're done while weight-bearing.

Beginners make these mistakes even in a supervised ballet class, with a teacher watching and correcting them - so you can imagine how bad things can get if a beginner tries to learn from a DVD, with no one to point out where they're going wrong!

That's where the floor barre comes to the rescue. It's much safer because:

• You're doing the exercises without putting weight on the legs, so injury is less likely.
  
• The floor is there as a constant safeguard and reminder. You can't stick your bottom out because the floor is in the way, and you'll know immediately if you lift or twist your hip so it loses contact with the floor.
  
• You're not fighting gravity. Standing, you may struggle to get any height in a developpe or a grand battement. Lying down, you'll be able to get the leg much higher without rocking your upper body or twisting your hip.
• You can't use pressure against the floor to force an unnatural turnout.
• You don't have to worry about keeping your balance. Balance is important but it's another skill you have to learn - the floor barre lets you concentrate on one thing at a time.

The floor barre is especially useful for late beginners, who may have more physical limitations than a younger dancer. It's much easier to progress at your own pace if you start with the floor workout.

In summary, the floor barre is a wonderful adjunct to any ballet dancer's practice and an effective substitute when normal barre work isn't possible.

Personally, I haven't done barre work for years - but I've placed my order for Zena's book on her floor barre conditioning program. By dancers' standards, I'm in the "elderly" bracket, so it sounds like it will be perfect for me!

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All text copyright Pointe Shoes Online. Ballet studio photo by Bomba Rosa. Dancer photo by treivilo.