Welcome back to 20 moves in 20 days. This is your day two of ballet. And we're going to work on the five basic arm positions today and introduce you to those. So we are going to actually start I'm going to cheat, this one's called on boss, we're actually going to start with a bonus. Because our position here so my arms are down, my elbows are lifted, I have my shoulders engaged. So it's not a limp position where it's just sort of hanging, everything is lifted and engaged.

And then from there, I'm going to lift my arms up, think about hugging a giant beach ball. This is my first position arms, okay? So something to keep in mind right here is my elbows are lifted and supported. As you can see, they're not going to droop and they're not going to come up either. They're just they're lifted. They're in line.

Everything can flow down nicely from the top of your shoulders down off your fingertips. Okay? From there, I'm going to open up this is second position, my shoulders are still engaged, all of my muscles are engaged. Again, this is a place where it's really easy to start drooping your, your elbows as you go along. So we want to be mindful of that keeping those shoulders lifted. And then again, if you imagine a little raindrop tickling off your shoulder all the way off your pinky finger, that's what you want to think about when your arms are in Beckett.

Moving right along, we have third position. This is one arm up and one arm off to the side. When I am thinking about where my arm placement is, for my upper arm, I'm going to think about how in my peripheral vision, if I'm just staring straight ahead, I should be able to just barely see my pinky finger. So I don't want to have it too far for where I can see my whole hand and I don't want to have it too far backward, starts pulling my shoulder back and open. I want to have it, just be In front of me, and then from fourth position, we're going to bring that other arm in. So it's like you have your first and your third kind of combo here.

And then finally we have our fifth position, which is both arms up. Alright, so one more time, we have first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. Now, the other important thing to keep in mind when you're working on your arms is that your hands are actually just as important to the whole shape of your arms as just lifting your elbows and things like that. So what happens with ballet is you do have a specific way that you're going to hold your fingers. So I'm actually going to think about bringing my thumbs in towards my middle finger here, my pointer finger is going to be a little extended and each individual fingers going to be distinct. They all kind of have Their own placement if you can tell from this perspective, too.

Yeah, so each one is distinct. I want to try to avoid holding them stiffly. I don't want to do like the, you know, Elsa, kind of blasting out her fingertips. I don't want to do that. But I also don't want to hold them so limp that there's nothing to that. So I'm thinking, nice, comfortable medium here, holding them nicely.

And then the other thing to think about is I'm not actually touching here. I do have some space in between my thumb and my pointer or I'm sorry, and my middle finger. And the other thing we're trying to avoid is the hamburger look where or mitten look where we are holding on to a hamburger with our hands. Yes. So you want to be careful again that we have all of our fingers really distinct, and that way everything is just as beautiful grace and flow to it. There you go.

You have your arms and your fingers and you're ready to dance.