This video will focus on how to improve your battements and how to strengthen your muscles at the same time. Dance expert, Brittney Schubert, will demonstrate and explain the reasons why this exercise is beneficial to dancers.
This combination will begin with stepping down into a lunge, then brushing through and hitting all the way up into a battement.
This exercise really forces you to maintain your upper body and to have control over your battement. This is great for building strength and allowing dancers to feel what parts of their body need to be engaged. Holding your core is important so that your upper body doesn’t hunch over. Really focus us pressing your shoulders down and keeping your upper body aligned.
Although this exercise helps with your core, it also heavily focuses on your leg muscles, specifically your hamstrings, glutes and quads. All three of these muscles work together to power your leg from a lunge up into a battement.
If the dancer is not flexible enough to kick their leg all the way up, it’s important that he/she keep their leg at a level that is challenging for them while still maintaining the correct technique. This means that their upper body should remain aligned and stacked. This also means that both their legs should be straight as they battement and toes should be fully pointed.
Doing this across the floor exercise correctly not only helps the dancer to improve their technique, but also helps the dancer to build strength in the correct muscles.