How to Balance While Doing Ballet

Before you can do advanced ballet moves, you must find your center.

When studying ballet, one of the first things you'll learn is how to balance. When you look at world-class ballet dancers during their performances, they are, at any given moment, totally balanced. Finding your center, that is, the position in which you can rest in complete balance, is key. Your center can be difficult to locate, and it requires practice, but everyone has one.

Things You'll Need

• Full-length mirror
• Hard, flat surface

Instructions

Find Your Center

1. Stand sideways in front of a mirror. Your feet should be parallel to one another. Doing this in front of a mirror will allow you to see your whole body and see what you're doing right and wrong.

2. Engage your thigh muscles and straighten your knees, but don't push back into your knee joints. Don't force your knees farther back than they go.

3. Lift your abdominal muscles upward and pull them back toward your spine. To visualize this, imagine that you're placing your ribcage over your hips. Your neck should be an extension of your spine, your shoulders should be relaxed and your shins should be lifted slightly.

4. Curve your arms in front of your thighs as if you're holding a large round disk that is resting on your thighs. Bring your weight forward so that it rests on the balls of your feet. When you do this, you should be able to lift the heels of your feet off of the ground slightly. You may feel like you're going to fall: it's OK to fall a few times as long as you keep practicing.

Adjust Your Posture

1. Once you've found your center, adjust your posture to promote balance. Begin by lifting one leg behind you.

2. With one leg lifted behind you, counter that weight by moving your upper body slightly forward.

3. Move your leg to your side. Compensate by moving your upper body slightly to the other side.

4. Move your leg to the front. Compensate by angling your torso slightly backward. By progressing through these exercises, eventually your body will naturally compensate for weight adjustments, forcing you to balance.

References

• Dummies: Finding the Correct Ballet Stance
• Real Dancers: Ballet Performances--The Best Ways to Improve Your Balance and Perfect Your Pose