Hi, my name is Chell Garcia-Trias and I'm a modern dance instructor in Austin, Texas. I'm going to be showing you how to do releves in second position the way we would do them in Modern Dance. So first, I'm going to take my legs to a little wider than hips width apart. So my hips are here right, and if I look straight down, my feet would probably, my heels would probably go right here. But I'm going to open them up another inch or two. So my feet are about two or three feet apart, depending on how wide your hips are. And then, I am going to imagine that I am pulling my legs together and I'm squeezing something between my legs like a watermelon. While I'm doing that I'm going to reach up and a little bit forward with the crown of my head and I'm going to reach down with my tail bone. So, I also need to engage my stomach muscles, so that all those things are happening at once. I'm squeezing the melon, I'm reaching up with my head, up with my head, down with my tail bone, in with my stomach and down. I'm going to releve again, releve and down. Releve and down. If you want you can plie between each one, plie. Releve, plie; releve, plie, releve. It's important to keep your alignments so that you don't have a lot of mobility going on in your upper body and the action is really happening in your lower body. Your upper body is engaged, but it's not moving. And so, that is a great way to warm up your legs and your hips by doing releves in second position in Modern Dance.
