Ballet Workout

The Ballet Workout Vol. 2: Strength and Conditioning Discover the joy of movement and the beauty of dance with the second program in this series by Instructor Melissa Lowe. Melissa introduces two new workouts that will help you strengthen your muscles, get rid of cellulite, reshape, condition and tone your body. This workout will ...	Element: Ballet Conditioning Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 12/04/2007	Ballet Class for Beginners David Howard's Ballet Class for Beginners is an excellent learning and teaching tool especially designed by America's foremost ballet master to introduce the beginning dance student to the technique and vocabulary of classical ballet with the emphasis on posture, placement, and m...	New York City Ballet: The Complete Workout, Vol. 1 and 2 A deluxe edition DVD set comprised of the best-selling fitness videos New York City Ballet Workout Volume 1 and 2. The videos are designed to help you develop the strength grace and poise of a dancer. An excellent alternative to fast paced high-energy workout routines this unique...	Ballet 101 - A Beginner's Class, DVD Join a School of Dance with a Little Class! Bring a beginning ballet class right into the privacy of your living room with "Ballet 101, A Beginner's Class". "Ballet 101" is a simple, stress free and informative session that challenges both adults and children who wish to be intr...
New York City Ballet Workout Do you envy ballet dancers their long, lean bodies and graceful, elegant movements? This beautifully produced exercise video was developed by Peter Martins and the New York City Ballet with the New York Sports Club. First you watch the rippling muscles of four gorgeous ballet dan...	The New Ballet Workout: Wellness, Renewal and Vitality The New Ballet Workout presents a 45-minute classical and neoclassical ballet workout consisting of floor work, barre work, and center work. Melissa Lowe, former professional ballet dancer, begins with a warm-up of stretches, controlled abdominal curls, and back-flexibility exerc...	Ballet Boot Camp 2 A challenging and fun sequence of dancers' toning exercises followed by fluid dance patterns. Motivated by the classical orchestral soundtrack, you'll feel like you're an aspiring dancer in a "real" ballet training session. To help you focus, Jessica Sherwood breaks the toning in...	The Video Dictionary of Classical Ballet Now on DVD! The essential video dictionary of all classical ballet movements performed by some of the greatest names in American Ballet. Teachers and students alike find the Video Dictionary of Classical Ballet the most innovative and dynamic tool ever developed for learning and ...	New York City Ballet Workout, Vol. 2 Peter Martins, Ballet Master in Chief of the New York City Ballet, and four graceful dancers--two men, two women--offer a beautifully produced, challenging, 90-minute strength and flexibility workout. The moving warm-up readies your muscles and makes you feel like a dancer. Most ...

Old, Old, Old...and time to be retired
I've done this tape/dvd about 120x from 1999-2006 -- only because there wasn't anything better at the time. It's what you'd call an 'old stand-by'. Nothing outstanding to recommend itself by todays standards in production or intellectual 'snap', but not the worst thing you will ever own as far as a ballet dvd goes. It's stand-out points include: an overcrowded class, ancient hyper-extended stretches, ugly costumes, an akward piano score, uninspiring stressful undertones, and a forced and failed attempt at grace - but all that said, it IS a ballet class! There is no getting away from that. It might be a ballet class from 1981, and you'd probably assume there'd be some redeeming nostalgia about that, but, no, it must have been a bad filming day. Back when I used to first do it, I never liked it but, it was the best there was, and I was bloody grateful and probably would have given it a much more glowing review 8 years ago. Now, tho? It's not worth the money in my opinion. Get Dmitri Roudnev's Ballet Class with Dmitri Roudnev (Demonstration of exercises for music of Best of Ballet Class Vol V) and be truly inspired by a worthy ballet class. (see my unabashed, miles-long, glowing review of Dmitri's DVD.) I've seen a lot, a lot, a lot of good reviews for this tape/dvd, The Ballet Workout. I believe they stem from the same gratitude my only positive feelings about it do, as well. Honestly, back in the day, there was this ballet class to buy - and that's it. And because it covers 'basic ballet' the gratitude for this even existing for home use was, understandably, overwhelming when it was reviewed in the past. But it doesn't hold up any more for that singular reason, and thankfully, others have come along to replace this stiff class that always made me feel like the tention in it would make it blow apart at the seams. Is it the worst ballet dvd you could by? Is it a waste of money? No. It really isn't. You do ballet exercises in it. It's a hard class. If it was the only ballet class left in the world, I'd again, be thrilled to have it. It takes itself very seriously. It's akward, stiff, static, and tense. There's almost zero joy in it. It reminds me of what taking ballet in prison would be like, except that's an insult to anyone studying ballet in prision. Is the Ballet Workout a treasure? Beautiful? Uplifting? Inspiring? No. It's just an old tired, ballet class now, and not wonderfully 'old' in that you can learn marvellous timeless things from it. Just old. Tired. Done. And not what my ballet class dreams are made of.

A good place to start.
I own all three of the Ballet Workout DVD's. This one is my second favorite out of the three, and the best place to start if you've never had ballet before. It's structured like a ballet class (floor work, barre work, and center work). You don't need a barre. I use a chair. I took ballet for 10 years when I was younger, so I knew all of the terms used in this DVD. There is a lot of time spent demonstrating and explaining the terms, so people who don't know ballet should be able to stay caught up. The patterns are very simple and very repetitive, so it doesn't take many repeated viewings to learn them. Some of the stretches require good flexibility (especially the level two workout) so I couldn't do a lot of them all the way at first. The people in the video are professional dancers, so of course they make it look easy. Just do what you can do and don't worry about the people on the TV. You can tell just by watching that this was filmed in the 80's, so it's old. On some of the stretches she tells you to bounce. Don't. People don't bounce anymore. It''s bad because it doesn't let you ease into the strech and can force you to go to far too fast. This is a good video to start with. I don't use mine anymore because I find the patterns repetitive and boring now, but if you don't know what you're doing the repetitiveness is good. My favorite DVD is the second one, but it is faster paced and you need to know what all the ballet terms mean.

Best if you've had ballet
This DVD features two ballet classes. The first says it is for people with little or no ballet experience, but it is more geared toward the person who has a distant memory of ballet classes she took as a little girl. As a 36 year old who never took ballet as a child, I would have benefitted from a little more time devoted to the basic positions. Although I have watched hundreds of ballet classes, I have not participated before, and I found it difficult to maintain the positions during the simple combinations. A little more time devoted to simply coming back to first would have been a help for me. That said, it is a much better video for beginners than the New York City Ballet Workout, which has more complicated combinations and assumes a fair amount of knowledge. The other thing that could improve this video would be to have the teacher show the combination once before having the students follow. The first time watching the video, you're not quite sure what she is going to do next, which makes it hard to follow. Of course, this isn't a problem with repeated viewings. In all, I think it's a good product and especially good for people with a little ballet background. It is a very simple ballet class with easily assimilated combinations, and ballet classes are always a good workout that use every muscle.

Good, solid, ballet exercises
Good ballet exercises. Sound and video quality not great, as it seems like it must have been a so-so quality VHS tape converted to a DVD.

I have danced with Melissa
Melissa and her husband Jory danced with us when we were just a small midwest company. I was the very lucky one to dance with both of them up close and personal and what a thrill it was. I now have my own studio and have sent this video to my adult students that want to work out at home. She and Jory know their stuff and they are the finest/nicest dancers and teachers around. Elizabeth C. Williams Elizabeth Williams School of Dance Williamston, Mich 48895