This exercise is aimed at helping students with their posture, weight distribution and alignment which are all crucial to help develop the foundational skills needed for ballet.

Preparation: Ask the students to sit in the middle of their ball with their feet flat on the floor keeping them hip width apart.

Steps:

1. Tell the students to place their hands on their shoulders while lengthening their spine using the imagery of a puppeteer to create a sense of elongation.

2. Guide them to shift their weight onto the side while keeping their hips facing forward. Then ask them to raise their foot onto demi pointe, lift slightly and fully stretch the foot and roll back through the metatarsals and bring the foot back down.

3. Instruct the students to return to the centre position, and repeat this movement on the alternate side.

4. Once they have found stability move on to the part of the exercise where they lift and extend one leg forward (devant) bend it back before returning it safely to the floor. Make sure they focus on keeping their supporting knee aligned over their toes throughout this movement.

5. Repeat on the extension on the alternate side.

6. Repeat the exercise in full from the beginning.

Important focus: Emphasise throughout this exercise the elongation on the spine, the aligning of the hips correctly and the smooth transferring of weight.