Frappe

When I first started studying ballet, I was told to do frappe by striking the floor with the ball of my foot. One teacher said to imagine you are stomping on the face of someone you don't like.

This is wrong on so many levels.

Anyway, I did what I was told, and it hurt. So I tried to do it less violently. Then I thought, why am I doing this violently, at all? What am I actually trying to accomplish with this exercise?

I have the feeling that many teachers do not ask this question about the various ballet exercises. Frappe is one of them, as many teachers still teach it in this old, violent manner. What is frappe for? It is an isolation exercise, to work the quads and the hamstrings and, if you do flex/point, the calf muscles.Where in all that is the necessity of slamming one's foot into the floor? What does that accomplish? It momentarily stops the motion of your leg, it shakes your body, it shocks your ankle, knee, hip and back, AND, if you continually slam the ball of your foot into the floor, I'm gonna bet on the floor, 'cause the floor will win: You WILL break your foot.

I have seen it happen.

There is no reason to do frappe in this old way. If you lightly graze the floor with your toes, you can do frappes forever, and you will never injure yourself because of how you contact the floor. If you are in pointe shoes, and you do it the old way, it will sound like a gunshot. WHY?! No reason.

Further thoughts on frappe: If your entire body shakes as you SNAP your knee straight, you are doing it wrong. You have to do the movement as sharply and quickly as possible for 99% of the range of motion, then STRETCH the final 1%. You must NEVER snap any joint, ever! In addition, frappes are not even. It's not in-out-in-out; it's and-OUT, and-OUT, accent OUT. Last, but not least, when you are doing frappe to the front, don't forget to bring the knee back and maintain turnout; don't do the first one, and then leave your knee there, doing all remaining frappes turned in.

I have probably pissed off a lot of teachers who still believe in teaching frappe the old, violent way. I ask them all this: what's the point? You are making your students risk bruising the ball of their foot, getting stone bruises and worse.

How is that going to help? If you say, it will toughen them up, there are far, far better and safer ways.

See you in class.