Video transcript
Primary dance warm-ups with Rebecca Devine - 01. Floor - instructions

[intro music]

REBECCA DEVINE: Hi, my name is Rebecca Devine. Today, we will be teaching fundamental movement sequences to prepare the student body for technical training in any dance style. We will now be taking you through the floor warm-up. Starting in parallel position, rotate the legs up and slightly bend them. This is called the elongated frog position. We will roll down for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, roll up for 4 counts and then prepare the arms.

Rolling down, 2, 3, 4, and hold, 2, 3, 4, rolling up, 2, 3, 4, preparing the arms. So in this position, focusing on your alignment, you want to be pulling in your core stabilising muscles, pulling the tummy in tight, lifting up through the spine and having the shoulder blades pulling down, engaging the back muscles. And when your arms go out, think of having a big beach ball and then pull them out still around but pulling out wide. Shoulders relaxing down, engaging the back muscles.

And we're going to curve and keep the shoulders away from the ears. Drop the chin down and coming up. And then we repeat that 4 times. Moving into the side lateral tilts, we will go over for 4 counts, forward for 4 counts, and then rolling up for 4 counts and preparing the arms again. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Preparing the arms and to the other side and down and rolling up, 3, 4, preparing the arms.

And when you're thinking about the side lateral tilts, it's very important to keep your alignment and imagine that you are sliding through 2 sheets of glass without dropping the shoulder, forward without tilting back too much, pulling up, reaching with the arm, keeping the shoulder away from the ear, curving forward. Relax the chin down so your neck is released and rolling up. And we're going to repeat all of that sequence in parallel position, and then we're going to rotate out to second position and repeat the same sequence.

We're just now thinking about our rotating muscles, tilting our pelvis down, lifting up through our alignment and having our arms reaching out with the knees, always rotating back and facing up rather than rolling forward. So it is the same sequence in the second position, and we finish closing. We hope this introduction to fundamental movement training inspires you in developing your dance programs in your school.

[music playing]