The Ballet Class

A beginners Ballet Class can be a very gentle dance lesson, calm and slow, easy to follow with everything explained in a lot of detail. Or, at the other end of the scale, it can be haphazard, confrontational and downright unpleasant. This is where you learn how to distinguish one Ballet Class from the other and find one that’s right for you.

Introductions
Firstly, your teacher should introduce themselves. It is surprising just how often a teacher forgets to do this.

They may also ask new pupils a little about themselves, particularly ‘Do you have any previous dancing experience?’ or 'Have you done a Ballet class before?'. That gives the teacher a feel for the standard of the class. But this doesn’t always happen and please don’t feel left out if your teacher just breezes into the room and starts teaching – this is quite normal.

Setting Up

A Ballet class will always start at the barre – approximately half of your class will be spent at the barre. These are the horizontal, usually wooden bars that are attached to the walls of the studio.

If there are two or more parallel to one another on the wall, choose the one that is somewhere in between your waist and hip height.

In an adult beginners Ballet class it is fairly common to see newbies who are quite simply terrified. You’ll see this too when you first go (with the help of this guide you won't actually be one of them!). Everybody hangs back. Cringing into the walls. You can see the whites of their eyes from across the studio! Of course you can’t help feeling self conscious. But helping to set up the studio can give you something useful to do rather than hugging the walls...

Studios

You will have perhaps seen pictures of Ballet studios that are beautiful – flooded with natural light, a polished, immaculate sprung wooden floor, shiny mirrors. And yes, there are studios that look like this and are obsessively maintained.

However, don’t get your hopes up too high. And please don’t be disappointed if you turn up for your Ballet Class and it’s held in a dingy studio with linoleum on the floor, peeling paintwork and a small grimy mirror covered in sweaty handprints. This is quite normal and even to be expected.

Oh, and you’ll need to get used to the faint smell of sweaty feet. That goes with the territory too, no matter how fancy the studio looks…

You need to watch where you are in the room.

Try to always face the same way as everybody else, or you might end up trying to see the teacher’s instruction from over your shoulder. Because dance studios are sometimes shoe-horned into awkward spaces, some don’t have an obvious focal point or front. Generally the mirror indicates which way to face. So just watch where you place yourself.

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.  - Mihkail Baryshnikov

It is not uncommon to have the portable barres placed hurriedly and haphazardly around the studio and to easily lose the thread of which way you should be facing as you try to follow the movements of a teacher around the class.

This frequently results in flying legs crashing into one another which is painful, disorienting and can make you feel stupid. So take a little time to make sure you’ve got a good spot.

Occasionally a teacher will simply get this wrong, and instead of organizing the barres and the pupils so that everyone can see them, they end up trying to teach pupils who are having to crane their necks to see. Just make sure you can clearly see the teacher from where you are.

Please be brave. You will learn so much faster and become a much more proficient dancer if you take a place near to the front of the class. That way, you can clearly see the teacher and the teacher can clearly see you

At The BARRE

It's here that 'Propping Up The Bar' takes on a whole new meaning...

All the work you do on the barre will be done on both sides of the body in turn.

For example, if you are standing with the barre on your left hand side, resting your left hand on it, it is your left leg that will support you and you will be doing your exercises with your right leg (your 'working' leg). Once you have completed the exercise, you will turn around so that your right hand rests on the barre and your right leg supports you while you do the exercise with your left leg.

So if you are lined up at the barre and you are head of the queue right in front of the teacher, when the class turns around to do the same movement on the other leg, you’ll be right at the back of the class for a while. This is better than just permanently being in the middle with no clear view.

And as an etiquette tip –the barre represents holding the hand of your partner. So when you have to turn around to face the other side of the studio, you should always turn towards the barre, as though you are politely turning towards your partner.

For more Ballet Barre information and a photo gallery of how to use the Barre, see the Ballet Barre page.

A good teacher should move around the room and feel like they are instructing everyone not just the ones at the front, but this doesn’t always happen. Different teachers have different styles, as you’ll see in the teacher section, and some always simply teach from the front.

Always make sure that you have plenty of room around you while on the barre.

You should be able to lift up your leg straight in front of you and behind you and not touch a wall or anyone else.

The Ballet Class

A good Ballet Class will start by teaching you Ballet Posture and getting familiar with how to position your body in order to execute the steps correctly. You’ll be introduced to the Five Basic Ballet Positions They are very easy to master when explained simply.

So, you've got a lot to take in on your first Ballet Class. Not only do you have feet and arm positions to think about, but you’ll also be given instruction on where your head, shoulders, hips and bottom should be too.

Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!  - Constanze

Scowling with concentration at this point is common! Don’t worry, everybody goes through this and if you give it your best shot, before long you’ll be doing all these things automatically. But you'll soon see why it's so valuable to have a go at these positions before you go to a class, using our gallery.

And, don’t forget that to be in the posture of a ballerina within the first few minutes of being in a Ballet Class for the first time is to achieve something extraordinary. Be proud of yourself and the way you can look with just the correct arm and feet position and a beautiful tilt of the head.

Now, you are going to start your first exercise. The teacher should clearly demonstrate what they expect you to do – and to start with it probably isn’t going to be any more demanding than pointing your foot and relaxing it again.

It is here that you will notice that the exercises and movements are usually referred to by their French names. Panic not! You will get used to this surprisingly quickly.

Ballet Music

The movements will then be done to music. Now music is very much a matter of personal taste. And there is no doubt that some of the most beautiful music ever written is meant to be danced to. But that’s Ballet performances. Some of the music that Ballet Class exercises are set to can be awful. Plodding, heavy piano marches that wouldn’t be out of place at a funeral. Oh dear.

Just allow yourself a little smile and carry on regardless. You might be lucky – there are many Ballet teachers out there who manage to choose beautiful music for their lessons. But you deserve a warning just in case the first thing you hear in your lesson is something that the Munster’s might like. Don’t say you weren't warned.

You’ll probably spend about half of your Ballet class at the barre, although this can vary. You’ll do exercises that increase with difficulty, from the very basic pointing of the foot, to the quite demanding grande battement. The Ballet Barre Exercises section has more detail.

Into The Centre

You’ll then clear away the barres and come into the centre of the room. Here, again, make sure you position yourself where you can clearly see the teacher.

This is the point when the newbies generally stampede for the back of the class. But the chances of getting the moves wrong from the back are way higher than if you stand closer to the teacher, so take a risk and go for a spot in the front.

As said before, different teachers have different styles. You’ll probably all be facing the mirror, and your teacher may teach you by also facing the mirror, so you simply copy exactly what they are demonstrating. However, most Ballet teachers instruct their classes by facing you – this is the more traditional way to teach ballet.

They will then take you through a series of exercises. Some of these may be rather like what you did on the barre, only now you don’t have its support so you will need to be thinking more about your posture and balance.

And you’ll probably do at least one fast, jumping exercise that’ll really get the blood flowing.

Once your session has nearly ended, some teachers may take you through a Cool Down others won’t – it varies. But all should take you through a ‘Reverence’, which is the Ballet class equivalent of the Ballet performance’s curtsey.

The reverence is to be reverent to your teacher - to thank them - and involves a very simple stretching bow. A quick round of applause with your fellow Ballet Class-mates and you’re done.

You made it!

Congratulations, you have just danced your first Ballet class. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

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