Terms to know:
1. A demi-plie is half of a plie, or the half movement.
2. A grand plie is a full plie, all the way down, or a full movement.
3. Your achilles tendon is the tendon in the back of your ankle.
You plie in five positions. Plie is found in every dance pas and in all dance movements.
Demi-plie is always introduced first. If you lack plie, your performance will be dry and be devoid of plasticity. The lack
of it can only be corrected to a certain extent. Having a pliant achilles tendon mean that it can easily form an acute angle
with the floor. If your achilles tendon is not pliant you should wait to work on plies.
In demi-plie, your heels should stay on the ground. By keeping your heels down, you
develop the tendons and ligaments of the ankle joint. In grand plie, they should stay on the floor as long as possible but
lift them when you can't go any further. In 2nd position, you should never lift the heels though, because it is easy to squat. When
doing plies you should place your weight evenly on each foot and hold on to the barre at first. In both grand and demi you
should force the knees to go out over your toes, or else it could be dangerous. In 2nd position plies, the butt should never
stick out because it won't develop turnout of the hips and will give incorrect form to the movement.
At the extreme point of a plie, you should immediately straighten up again.You should rise the
same amount of time you took to go down. It is dangerous to do too many plies at a time.
Arms in plies:
At the beginning of the plie- wrists are thrown up and arms are lowered
At the extreme point- hands are down
When rising from the plie- opened through 1st into 2nd gradually as the legs move
These movements exclude 4th position. In this position, when right foot is front, the left
arm is in 1st and right is in 2nd. The arms are left that way for the whole plie. If left foot is front, right arm is in 1st,
left arm is in 1st.
