Hey there! Here’s another little installment on using bootybarre to improve your dancers technique. Sliders is the newest bootybarre “toy” introduced to my students, and they absolutely love it. Even though they find it extremely challenging, they also are finding it to be a ton of fun!
What’s wonderful about sliders is how you can’t “cheat”. You must use the proper muscles, are the exercises are impossible, the Flexibility and Fluidity segment is a great example. Facing diagonally to the barre, with the outside leg on the slider, the outside leg slides back into a lunge, with the supporting knee staying over the ankle, not going forward, and then you must engage inner thigh and hamstring to get up. If not, they’re not getting up! So much of ballet is performed properly by using the muscles in the posterior chain. We have to avoid over use of the quadriceps, so the use of the sliders is fantastic. The Pure Booty Hamstring Slides is a crowd favorite, my students claim they can feel their hamstring engage now, and the height of their legs has improved, as they are using the proper muscles to lift their legs.
Strong dancers need a strong core, and using the sliders forces those abs to work….or your on the floor! Pike is a fantastic example, as the hands are on the floor, each foot on each slider in a plank, and then drawing in the abdominals to lift the hips high in the air, and slowly lowering into plank, remember to keep it slow, so that momentum isn’t doing the work. For more core work, that will raise the heart rate, the cardio intervals are the answer.
Sliders have improved the overall balance and stamina of my dancers, but also are making them incredibly strong. I can’t wait to see what comes next for them, and for bootybarre’s ever evolving continuing education!
Logan Hutt
Bootybarre Master Trainer
