Most lessons seems to run at the practical and manageable lengths of about 25, 35, 45 and 50 minutes. After finding even the ‘Beginner Ballet Barre’ too complex, I realise Isabella has already recommended the ‘Absolute Beginner Ballet Lessons – 8 Week Plan’ and thankfully switch to that. It comes in nice, bite-sized 10-15-minute chunks, with five sessions per week.

My only gripe is that in your account dashboard, you’re unable to see the courses or classes you’ve done, which makes it difficult to pick up where you left off or save a video.

For beginner level

For those just starting out, Isabella highly recommends:

1. The ‘Absolute Beginner Ballet’ course
2. The ‘Amazing Feet’ course

‘As beginners, it’s critical to get the detailed foundations and basics correct,’ she says. Most classes rush and skip these key lessons early on.

For intermediate to advanced levels

For more seasoned practitioners, ‘we have a host of ballet classes with specific focuses such as building strength or pirouettes,’ notes Isabella.

1. If conditioning is what you’re after, try ’14-Day Mat Madness Challenge’. You don’t have to be a dancer and it’s designed for all levels. Just 20 minutes a day is extremely effective conditioning for the whole body.
2. The hip manifestation stretch. This can be modified for all levels, and it’s a cross between stretching and mindfulness.

2. It’s generally doable at home

For the ‘Absolute Beginner’ course, I largely used the back of a chair of as a barre, and in the gym I set up free-standing squat racks with a barbell as makeshift equipment. You should therfore be able to do this at home using a table or similar surface. However, for the Turnout and Beats Conditioning, while the equipment is still minimal, you need a Pilates ring and small ball, which makes it a bit more inconvenient.

3. Of course, it’s very technical

Ballet is nothing if not highly precise, requiring exceptional control and attention to physical detail. It’s almost laughable for me to find a complete beginner’s course complicated, but even with just the basic movements, Isabella’s emphasis on specific placement, tension and alignment show just how exacting and disciplined the skill is.

There was a whole lesson on posture, including how far to stand from the barre: ‘arms directly by your sides, close, connected to the body, the wrists are down, elbows in, and fingers are draped over the top’. Plus instructions on all aspects of positioning, right down to your weight being ‘over the first three toes, especially the first and second toe’ when you get into tendus (stretching the leg while keeping the toe pointed) and demi pointe (a position where you have all the weight on the balls of your feet), highlighting just how strict each movement has to be.

Even doing something as simple as extending your leg in the tendu involves a granular level of detail: ‘Lead with the heel, almost as if you’re pushing a marble until your heel naturally comes off. The leg is in front of your centre.’ When coming back, ’emphasise leading with the toes and not releasing too early with the heel.’

4. Balance in the body is very important

Isabella emphasises that ballet is about balance – ‘not just physically balancing but balance in the body’ and making sure both sides are even. Is one glute switched on more than the other? Which leg are you working more? She invites you to notice which is your weaker side.

I definitely notice that my left leg has a tendency to collapse when acting as the supporting leg in tendu demi pointes. To help engage the weaker glute, Isabella tells me to think about reaching down with the heel to help ‘find length in the sitting bones’.

But more surprisingly, watching footage back of my port de bras (‘carriage of the arms’) also reveals the imbalance in my torso in that I seem to lean more to the right and my left arm lags lower.

5. Turnout will be challenging, at least initially

Turnout is one of the most fundamental positions in ballet and refers to outward rotation of the hips and legs, until the feet point in opposite directions and ideally form a 180-degree angle – standing upright like this is called first position. It’s basic, but it’s tough to keep your body there unless you’ve been conditioned to do so over the years.

‘Turnout is a very complex feeling,’ Isabella explains. It starts predominantly in the hips, but ‘there’s turnout in the thighs, knees, calves and in the feet.’ Rather than ‘stepping and shoving the turnout, not really feeling the muscles’, you want to go for a ‘whole-body spiral’.

As someone with quite turned-out hips and thighs (femurs) but turned-in shins (tibias) and off-kilter feet that hit the ground little toe first, this is very difficult for me. Isabella reassures that you may only get to a certain range of motion at the beginning but it may improve over time. While I’m not sure about how much further I can spread out, I become more accustomed to the feeling.

6. Your glutes are constantly switched on…

I quickly learn that, as Isabella notes above and says in the course, ‘In ballet, the base of the glutes have to be switched on 24/7. There’s no moment when we’re relaxed.’ We’re squeezing the glutes all the time, because that creates that solid root of a tree’ that ‘supports your upper body with a firm base’, she says. In particular, we have to train the outer glutes (gluteus medius and minimus) which play a crucial role in turnout, but aren’t used that much in everyday life as our feet are in parallel.

When doing tendus, even just the ‘simple’ action of moving my foot forward requires me to engage my glutes so that my knees don’t bend – you almost want to imagine that ‘you don’t have knees’ with this movement, says Isabella – and so that I stay upright, maintaining tall posture. Even still, I have to grip my chair barre pretty forcefully. Front tendu is therefore also significantly harder than tendu side because my glutes have to work to keep my hips square and my other foot turned out, which incidentally also works my balance.

7. … As is your core

Similarly, when trying jeté – a ballet leap; in French, ‘jeter’ means ‘to throw’ – to keep it a ‘sharp, strong, dynamic’ movement, I had to engage my core and glutes so I stayed still, tall and neutral, and didn’t collapse into the supporting leg.

When doing cambré (arched) back, both my core was also working to allow me to bend back correctly – ‘You need to imagine you’re going over a beach ball’ is Isabella’s visual cue – rather than just hinging from the lower back. Core engagement was especially important given my upper and mid back are quite rigid and immobile. Trying to come up ‘vertebra by vertebra’ also meant I had to keep ‘scooping my core’ to ensure my midsection remained as still as possible and so I didn’t fall backwards.

8. You can bring posture tips into daily life

A common by-product of a desk-bound lifestyle is poor posture, and years of sitting hunched over mean – probably like a lot of people – that my neck and upper back are really cramped, while the mid and top part of my lower back don’t engage. Taking Isabella’s pointers on standing straight mean I’m extra conscious of holding my body in proper alignment.

Isabella likes to think of posture in two parts. On the bottom half, ‘find the length of the tailbone and scoop up in the lower abdominals. You can feel your glutes and abs working just to hold your pelvis underneath you.’

On the top half, your upper body has sit ‘up and over’, as if – as I understand it –you’re stacking your rib cage slightly staggered over your pelvis. There’s a sensation of thinking about ‘going diagonally forwards’, she says, and ‘you’re sort of the balls of your feet’.

Meanwhile, the rib cage has to draw down while you also keep your shoulders back in line with your body, aiming for your lats ‘to draw down on a diagonal’. While that’s a bit hard to do, generally this level of precision has definitely made me more conscious of my positioning for the duration of the two weeks.

9. It requires so much concentration

The focus on the new terminology and small, precise movements was unexpectedly demanding, even at a beginner level, and even if to the outside eye, it doesn’t look like I was doing much.

In the jeté, thinking about the degree of my leg – initially 45 degrees when starting to learn the movement, but 25 degrees when you get more advanced – trying to get the strong hold with ‘lots of swishing’, while trying not to let my other turned-out leg slip in and keep it staying level in the hips, reaching down evenly with the sitting bones, was as much a workout for my brain as my body.

Similarly, in a demi plié, there were lots of cues to keep track of (to a newbie like me): keeping your back super straight, not leaning forward or curving the spine, making sure you stay completely in line, while at the same time working the turnout and presenting the heels and calves.

10. It’s a super tough workout

One of the videos Isabella recommends, ‘Turnout and Beats Conditioning’, is killer! More of a conventional workout with high-volume, bodyweight reps at a peppy tempo, it made my lower abs ache so much I couldn’t make it through any of the three sequences without taking a break and clutching my stomach – and that’s only slightly hyperbolic.

Lying on my back with legs raised, I entered into an intense seven-minute sequence of moves including criss-crossing my ankles, pulsing them towards each other in a loose fourth, rotating a Pilates ball between my calves, and extending my legs out towards the side. At about a minute in, the lowest part of my rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis are seizing up. There was also no way I could keep my legs as straight as Isabella and her assistants.

Using the Pilates ring as resistance to pulse my legs against while in a side plank, facing up balancing on my elbows, or on my front were unexpectedly excruciating for my lower abs. If anything, the barre section was the most manageable, though it was still tough keeping my feet in demi pointe. That said, I enjoyed being able to target muscles I usually have trouble engaging during my regular workouts.

I feel equally ungainly when doing a Beginner Ballet sequence (prior to doing the ‘Absolute Beginner’ course). It quickly emerges that I have no rhythm and I’m un-coordinated, awkward and clumsy – hardly forming the ‘beautiful long line’ that Isabella reminds us is a ballet pre-requisite.

11. It’s very calming

‘Front, flex, point, close, front, close, plie stretch’ came Isabella’s even intonation during the Beginner Ballet sequence. Despite finding even these starter moves incredibly challenging, the classical music, the focus on being elegant, precise and graceful, and the gentle pace were all a change from the more explosive and aggressive power I was used to in functional-fitness classes. Repeating a sequence a few times introduced a tranquil, meditative quality that was a nice medium between a flat-out MetCon where my lungs and muscles felt like they were fighting for their lives, and being completely stationary while bed rotting.

Ballet with Isabella is a thorough and well-rounded platform that offers every level of dancer in-depth and detailed tutorials on all manner of positions, techniques and postures – it’s great! Its solid foundational beginners course provides an intricate breakdown of the basics and gives a satisfying degree of knowledge of classical ballet while still being accessible. Meanwhile, the energetic workouts are a real challenge. After two weeks, I’ve only scratched the surface.

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