- Hi, my sweet friends.
Today we're gonna be working on our split leaps.
So I'm gonna be showing you,
along with my special buddy,
who is going to enter the frame in three, two, one.
- Pow, special buddy.
- Pow.
We're gonna be working on some stretches
for your split leaps,
and mechanics of it,
some exercises to get you there.
So if you're just learning them,
this is the video for you.
If you already know how to do them
but wanna make them even better,
this is also the video for you.
Fan!
(chuckles) We'll see you guys soon.
All right, babes, we're gonna start out with our stretches
so we can get moving and grooving.
- Don't wanna pull a hammy.
- So for your split leaps, dancers,
you wanna make sure that you are hitting three
beautiful points in your body,
Numero uno, your hamstrings.
Number two, your hips.
And number three, your low back.
Okay, so this cute little sequence of stretches
is gonna hit all three of those points.
So you're gonna start facing the front,
arms go out to a T,
we're gonna drop all the way down
into a nice hamstring stretch,
and we're gonna hold it here for one minute.
Maybe do a little baby plie, if you want.
Nothing like silent stretches.
- [Matt] I know, this is great.
I love this song. - Me too.
Gonna go over here,
then over here,
then back here.
Okay, let's turn.
And into your lunge for your hip flexors.
You can drop a little knew, if you like.
- Oh, gosh.
Apparently, that's sore.
That's good to know.
- We should just have silent subtitles.
- That gives Brayden too much power.
- Right?
- He can put whatever he wants.
- ASMR stretching.
And other side.
Groans is ASMR.
Help.
- Dear sweet God.
Guess how old we are.
Very is the answer.
- Okay, let's sit.
All right, bring in those leg together in a nice--
Bring in those leg together.
Bring in those legs together in a nice parallel.
We're gonna reach up
and you're gonna fold over into a pike.
- [Matt] Make sure you breathe.
- Breathe, definitely.
And if you kind of drop your head a little bit more,
you'll start to feel it in your back.
Do you feel that or is it just me?
- [Matt] No, I do, I definitely do.
- Sass.
From here, let's come up to a flex
and go flat back.
Oh, hello body.
- Good morning.
- Keeps you youthful.
- Let's point again and fold over
and now we're getting into our low back,
just a little bit.
Any tips for the people in this one, Matt,
to get that low back stretch? - To get that low back,
use your hands, whether they're on your ankles,
or on your feet,
give yourself a little bit of a pull with those arms,
just to kind of help lengthen those vertebrae
in the spine a little bit.
- So you pull towards your body?
- Mm-hmm.
So you're pulling your body a little bit further down
toward your feet.
Nothing crazy though.
- Go ahead from here, dancers,
you're gonna come up into the little mermaid,
we're gonna do a child's pose
facing the stage left.
And all the way over.
This is for your low back.
Matt, do you feel this here?
- I do.
I most definitely do.
- Dancers, if you're kind of like me,
I don't feel child's pose as much for a stretch,
so I like to reach to the different sides
and then send my hips back.
So make each stretch count for you,
however your body is kind of built.
And back to center.
Let's tuck our toes into downward dog,
walk our hands back to our feet,
plie, and roll it up.
- Oh, there we go.
- All right, dancers,
so a little progression exercise
would be a chasse step battement.
So you're gonna start with both feet turned out
and a tendu to the front
which is exactly how you would prep
for your true split leap.
Arms come to the fifth en avant
or a little round position in front of your body.
You're gonna do a chasse,
so a step together.
Chasse.
From there, you step on your left foot,
this is for your right leap, by the way.
Your arms are gonna come up to a straight V
and you're gonna battement that right leg.
And lift.
Beautiful.
Arms come back to the fifth en avant,
and you're in your tendu again.
Chasse.
And step, battement.
Now you'll notice,
we have different strengths, different ranges of motion.
- I have no leg flexibility, y'all.
- I'm not even like, oh, my leg is high.
I have really tight low back,
and you're gonna see in the leaps.
It's really important to see movements
on different bodies,
so that you can tell how we...
What's the word I'm looking for?
- How we differ.
It's all biologically individual.
- Biologically individual.
BI, baby.
- Boom.
Bam.
- I just did this and didn't flex,
so it's just like I'm just an arm.
(Matt exclaims)
All right, so in real time for these leaps we go--
Or sorry, for these battements.
Five, six, seven, and chasse, step, battement,
and chasse, step, battement,
and chasse, step, we're out of the frame.
Or are we still in there?
- [Cameraman] Matt's in there.
- I'm in there, I'm good.
- I'm just chopped liver.
Welcome to reality of behind the scene vlog shoots.
Seriously, it's so important for you guys to see this,
nobody puts this kind of stuff out for the world to see.
It's like, my back is hurting,
so you gotta do a little massage situation.
- Smile through it, y'all.
- What are you doing over here?
- I'm like a bear.
I'm just going all up in the bar.
It's like a roller.
Oh, this lower back stuff, it's good.
- Dancer problems, right?
All right, before we go into our actual split leap,
you wanna make sure you have three concepts down,
the first thing is to make sure
you're actually warm, dancers.
Some of us are like, why isn't my leap high?
And you're not warmed up.
So those three key spots,
your hammies, your hip flexors, and your low back.
Number two is finishing every moment.
So for that chasse step battement,
you wanna make sure you're doing chasse,
you're doing a clean step and a plie,
and then you're kicking that leg up
into your high extension.
You don't wanna blend everything together.
And number three is your momentum.
Which we're about to work on
when we truly do our leaps.
Momentum and speed.
If you do your leap prep really slow,
you're gonna feel very heavy,
and it's gonna be hard to lift up off the floor.
Got it?
Good.
- Nailed it.
- Okay, dancers, chasse, step, leap.
Same arms as the progression.
Here, here, and lift.
Same prep as the progression.
Chasse,
step, but this time you're going up into your full leap.
Let's try it.
Great, we're coming for you.
Here we go.
Remember momentum, Matty.
- Got it.
- Momentum, Matty.
- It's like a Harry Potter spell.
- Like a super hero.
Okay, that works, too.
- I like super hero way better, let's go with that.
- And five, six, seven, and,
chasse, and leap, woo!
- Whoa, there's enough room.
- All right, dancers, when you're up in the air,
make sure those legs are straight,
those toes are pointed, shoulders are down,
and chins are lifted up.
Guys, I'm so excited.
All right, back story, Matt and I used to do partner lifts
all the time in our college dance classes.
- Oh yeah, good times.
- No one ever asked us to.
- There were always involuntary.
- It was one of those memes
where it's like, no one, not a single soul,
and then it's just me and Matt
going across the floor.
This is more of like a ballet prep,
but it's still the same split leap,
so this is really just for fun.
- This one's for us.
- It's more for us, it's not about you, okay?
Here we go.
You ready, B?
Five, six, seven.
(squeals) It's literally so fun.
(Matt laughs)
You made it to the end, my loves.
- We jumped.
We came, we saw, we jumped, babies.
Listen up, your split leaps take practice,
but I think they take just as much flexibility
as they do strength.
Right, Matty?
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
- Matty's our PT boy over here
So he knows more than moi.
But really, you need mobility
in order to get those lines up,
get those legs up nice and high.
But you also need strength
in order to be able to jump off the floor.
- To leave the ground.
- Yeah, so if you're struggling with jumping high,
pop over to my, how to jump higher vlog
and do some of our strengthening exercises.
They're not as fun,
but you need those in order to get up off the floor.
So happy dancing.
- Be good out there.
- Triple turn?
- Do it.
- One, two, three.
Yeah. - There we go.
(upbeat music)