How To Do A Grand Plie

Okay, so, Rian and I are going to show you how to do a grand plie. One of the tricky things about grand plie is that you need to coordinate the arms and the legs, and there is quite a lot going on, even though it looks fairly simple. So, Rian is going to start in first position and she's going to do a put-le-bra to second and the first thing that happens is that her arm goes to demi-second as she does a demi-plie.

But even as she is moving, she is lifting up very strongly in her tummy and she's already thinking about getting her knees over her middle toe and she's lifting up firmly through her back, so that her shoulders aren't dropping forward. Okay, so, let's just do that little bit of the grand plie again and we've got demi-plie arm to demi-second. Then, she's got to lift up even stronger as she goes down and her arm goes to pas-bras after the plie.

And then demi-plie, arm first, and then her arm opens and she lifts up, and bring your arm down. Thank you. So now, when you reach the bottom of the grand plie, you want to make sure that you don't just relax at the bottom.

Rian is going to show you what happens when you do relax at the bottom, and it's actually difficult to get up again if you do. So you go demi-plie, grand-plie, and if you relax, can you see it? It's all just gone slumpy and she's also become turned in. And now, I can't imagine how difficult that must be to get up, her face says it all.

So, this time, we're going to try it, we're not going to go to the depth of the grand plie, just as soon when you get to the moment when you get to the depth, you lift up, and this time, I want you to attend to her heels. So, we go demi-plie, grand-plie, and now she's going to push through the heels to stretch and now, she's going to squeeze the inner thighs together to stretch up. And also, of course, squeeze around the back of the thighs as well and finish.

Okay, let's try that one more time, Rian. Prepare. So remember, knees are for middle toe, don't sit in the plie, lifting up, heels pushing down, thighs pushing together and a strong lift in the stomach, shoulders pressed down, beautiful straight line.

That's beautiful, Rian, thank you very much. When you do your grand plié, it's important to really work your turn. So, Rian, let's do it again and this time, let's do it slightly turned in, okay, and just do your demi-plie to grand-plie.

As we go, I want you to really look at her legs turning out even more. So now, she's going to turn her legs out even more as she goes. So this is the idea, you're really trying to push the knees back and then pull the thighs forward, round here to come up.

So, you see, you are off to getting a stretch in the demi-plie here in the achilles and also, you're off to getting a stretch in your inner thighs and in your hips. Of course, strong lift is needed all the time. So there you have it, your grand plie. .