Modern Dance Warm-Ups: Upside Down Leg Swings

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Chell Garcia-Trias and I'm a modern dance instructor in Austin, Texas. I'm going to show you a warm up in modern dance where we're going to be swinging the legs and then coming up off the floor upside down so it sounds like a lot but it is actually pretty simple. What I'm going to do is I'm going to lean back on my upper body and then I'm going to drop my legs open and I'm going to do these leg swings where my leg comes around my other leg and down and up, around and down and up. But I'm going to add something to that, I'm going to come down, around and up and back. And when I come around with this leg, I'm going to plant this foot in the ground and then I'm going to push up with this heel and I'm going to put my hand on the ground and I'm going to twist around myself. So I'm putting my hands on the ground, pushing up through my heel and I'm coming back down and then I'm going to do the leg swing the other way. I'm going to come around again with that leg. Here goes my right leg. It plants in the ground, my hands come down, I push up with my leg and I come down again so if I did it a little quicker I'd come around and down, swing my leg around, swing my other leg around, plant my foot, up and down. I really want to drop my head and look at the back wall when I'm doing this so that my head is even with the rest of my body and I really want to push through my hands and I really need to push through that heel. So it's a great warm up for getting your whole body moving in modern dance while doing these leg swings that involve coming up off the floor upside down."