Balletone

The first section of Balletone is a 26 minute beginner ballet center barre warm up. It can be made intermediate with careful attention to form, maintenance of the port de bras arms, and by following Jennifer, in the back, doing the more advanced modifications - mostly legs in dégagé (disengaged from the floor).

The second "bonus" section of Balletone is floor work - pilates-style ab work and some tres elegant floor work including pilates-style side leg kicks and a series of donkey kicks, hydrants, or poodles, depending on your fitness era. I wore sneakers and very light weights for the floor leg work.

Balletone (pronounced "bale-it-tone" according to Ms. Hoegstadt) is very enjoyable. I would have liked something a little more advanced but bottom line, if you're doing centerbarre work correctly, its never easy. its hard to gracefully hold your center while lifting your legs off the floor (dégagé) with your arms gracefully lifted in port de bras.

Some odd notes - Jody Hoegstedt has a noticeable Great Lakes rust belt accent that isn't typically associated with "elle danser".

Ms. Hoegstedt is inconsistent about using actual ballet terms, for instance, she will *not* say "first position", but later uses battement, dégagé and fondu , which she unhappily associates with moving through honey.

It annoys me that the floor work section of the DVD is referred to as a "bonus track" - she'd be charging $25 for a 25 minute dvd (the VHS is currently $20 at Collage.com) without it - so where's the bonus? Its produced by Lynn Shelton of Shape Magazine, and that might explain a bit of the Weider-esqe marketing sensibility.

but I'm nitpiking. Ms. Hoegstedt does pretty well. The set is mostly white with some gause draperies, the music is that muscle-mix track on, i think, Cathe's CTX and some of the "Final Cuts". Easier and more advanced modifications are shown, the time moves quickly, the attitude is pretty straight forward (she doesn't condescend).

An advanced version of this workout would be very welcome.

Instructor Comments:
She's very good, straightforward and likable. Her verbalizations about melding "ballet" with "fitness" feels a little forced, but what the hey. Compared to the affectation of Richard Giorla (CardioBarre), Jody Hoegstadt is a breath of fresh air.

Jane C

I did this workout for the first time this morning- I only did the standing portion. She has 2 background exercisers - the one on the left does the advanced version and the one on the right keeps it the same or modified easier than the instructor.

she calls it barre work but there's no barre- it's all balance! I even followed the advanced person some which was mostly the foot leaving the floor instead of tapping the floor. the other modifier would do the moves without the plie for instance. I think this is doable for a beginner -I'm still about 50 lbs overweight and have been exercising since April on a regular basis. I do like ballet and graceful type workouts (like Ellen and classical stretch and bollywood bemoved...)there was really nothing 'exciting'about this workout. I found her pleasant enough but not as personable as Ellen Barrett. also while her moves were similar to some Ellen uses she doesn't really move around much - maybe a step behind like a lunge or she puts the legs wider and shifts side to side. the set is also a pastel blue fairly bland set and the music just so so. I liked her accent :-). I'm mixed on this one - I think I like Ellen Barrett's stuff better but this one was also nice and graceful and as the other reviewer said I think paying more attention to the form can up the intensity - I tried to pay attention but balancing is hard! I do enjoy balancing so that's why I went ahead and did some of the 'advanced' moves. I want to do this one again and see how I feel - I have the other 3 by balletone and I think they're more advanced. I can always go deeper on the plies in this one and concentrate on the leg lifts to tone more I think and it's good when Ifeel like doing something similar to Ellen but without all the side to side stuff! :-)

Instructor Comments:
accent that I enjoyed- uses a lot of ballet terms scattered throughout - I liked her overall. she shows the moves slowly then up to tempo and I had no trouble following what she was saying.

Susanna