technoasis's Full Review: Ballet Class for Beginners
Graceful women with legs like gazelles, easily balancing in impossible positions – that is my image of ballet. For three years I plied, turned and balanced toward this ideal with a remarkably undeveloped sense of grace. After a while, my inherent clumsiness, tomboy tendencies and the cost of lessons persuaded my parents that perhaps another activity was more suited to me. My days on my toes were abruptly cut short at age eight, and ballet classes replaced with basketball games.
I had a slightly longer and more successful basketball career, but I retained my fascination with ballet. I was always a bit jealous of the lithe bodies that could twirl and leap, full of power and emotion, yet land lightly and effortlessly on their toes. Although I have been tempted to try this delicate form of dance again, the thought of squeezing my thighs into a pair of pink tights always managed to strengthen my insecurities and squash my ballerina ambitions.
My older sister actually convinced me to give dance another try. At 37 years old she joined a beginning ballet class for adults. The change in her flexibility, muscle tone and carriage, combined with sibling rivalry, encouraged me to look for a similar class in my area. Even after I found one, it took a while to work up the courage to go.
At that point, bitten by the ballet bug but afraid to go out in public in the pink tights of doom, I discovered "Ballet Class for Beginners". This 40 minute tape provides beginning dance instruction with a focus on posture, placement and vocabulary. It follows the order of a live ballet class: simple plie exercises to warm-up followed by tendus, fondues and other leg exercises, and moving to the center for an adage, port de bras, pirouettes and jumps.
The video is narrated by David Howard, a ballet teacher and former soloist of the Royal Ballet and National Ballet of Canada. He gives a brief introduction to each exercise and prompts the student dancer, Allison Potter, through the movements. He also offers reminders about posture and some hints for proper execution. The student dancer executes the moves beautifully and with textbook precision. The musical selections are well suited to the exercises.
Unfortunately, after the first set, each exercise is only shown for one side so you need to rewind often to work both legs evenly. This makes the workout longer than 40 minutes, but too much of that is wasted time. Also, some of the complicated center work is difficult to follow so don't put the VCR remote away once you leave the barre.
If you are not very flexible or lack leg strength, it may take a while to complete the entire tape. Although it is not aerobic activity, the video provides an excellent workout which will really help tone your lower body and waist. There is no cool down or stretching instruction provided.
Once I felt comfortable completing "Ballet Class for Beginners", I did join an adult ballet class. Although the choreography in the live class is more complicated than that on the tape and the live teacher can provide personalized instruction about technique and posture, I am very pleased that I spent some time with the video first. Without my repeated watchings of "Ballet Class", I would have been completely lost in the vocabulary. The video does a terrific job of reinforcing common terms. Also, I was familiar with most of the basic movements so I could make better use of my live teacher to fine tune my movements.
"Ballet Class for Beginners" cannot take the place of live dance instruction -- there are just too many details and small mistakes that only a live teacher can pinpoint. It does provide a great introduction to this classical form of dance and a challenging workout. I know it has helped me progress more quickly in my ballet studies.
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