Floor Barre: A pathway to progress for adult ballet dancers

Want more stability, strength, and control in your dancing? Start on the floor.

Woman doing a side stretch in split position on wooden floor, wearing purple. Text: Floor Barre—A pathway to stability, strength, and control. — photo by Kevin Taylor

Being a fabulous dancer is not just about technique and tricks. It’s also about musicality, expression, and artistry—but those things are so much easier to focus on when you’ve done the work to build a strong core, posture and alignment, turnout, stability and strength, mobility, and flexibility. There are plenty of ways to achieve these objectives, but have you ever considered Floor Barre as a training tool? It could just be the missing piece in your training.

And before you worry about getting up and down on the floor—don’t! You stay on the floor the whole time, and you can use a cushioned yoga or Pilates mat to make it more comfortable, along with cushions or yoga blocks. More on helpful equipment later.

I’m excited that we’ll be bringing Floor Barre to Dragonfly Dance on the second day of our April Adult Ballet Intensive, which will be Friday 25 April (Anzac Day) 2025.

But this isn’t just for the intensive. Floor Barre is something I regularly bring into my own teaching—especially in warm-ups and conditioning for my jazz and conditioning classes, and occasionally ballet classes. It’s also something I do at home for my own practice. And it makes a huge difference to how I feel when actually moving and dancing.

Why Floor Barre is worthy your time

What I love about Floor Barre is how it helps you build strength, alignment, and control without the usual load on your joints or need to balance. Because you're supported by the floor, you can focus purely on form—free from the distractions of balance, turnout-forcing, or unnecessary tension.

Some of the biggest benefits of Floor Barre include:

Core stability – The kind that actually supports your balance and movement quality
Improved alignment and muscle memory – You start to feel when something is working correctly
Less strain on the joints – Perfect for dancers with tight hips, cranky knees, or lower back tension
Technique refinement – Because everything slows down, you get to clean up the details
Injury prevention – It helps correct the kind of movement habits that can lead to overuse or strain

Plus, it’s a great way to exercise while you’re watching television (if you’re the kind of person who needs a distraction to focus your attention—like I do).

What to expect in Floor Barre session

A Floor Barre session progresses in the same way a ballet barre would—just horizontal. It’s structured, technical, and surprisingly challenging in the best way.

You’ll be working on the floor, either seated, on your back, or on your stomach. Here's a rough breakdown of what to expect:

Foot and ankle mobility – Flexing and pointing (dorsiflexion and plantar flexion)
Turnout work – Isolating outward rotation from the hips without gripping
Battement variations – Like tendu and grand battement, but with a focus on clean pathways
Rond de jambe – Circling motions at different angles (45°, 90°, inward and outward)
Fondu and développé – Strength-building versions that support leg lines and control
Seated port de bras and épaulement – Work the upper body without losing hip alignment
Prone (stomach) exercises – Strengthen the back, glutes, and hamstrings to support arabesque and cambré

One of the big things I’ve noticed when teaching these exercises is how much more awareness dancers gain about where movement is coming from. Once that clicks, things like balances, adage, and turns start to shift too.

Helpful equipment

You don’t need much, but a few props can help:

A yoga or Pilates mat to make you more comfortable
Therabands to offer additional resistance
A yoga strap (or tie, scarf, or towel) to help you reach if you don’t have the range of motion for some exercises
A yoga block or small cushion (great for seated work if you need a bit of lift, or to place under your pelvis in supine movements where you need your legs to be at least 90 degrees from the floor)

Types of Floor Barre methods

There are a few well-known Floor Barre methods out there, some of which are trademarked and quite specific. I don’t specifically use any of these in my Floor Barre sessions, but there are a few that have contributed significantly to this type of conditioning work, such as:

Boris Kniaseff’s Floor Barre Method – Classic, precise, and often used in European training
Zena Rommett Floor-Barre® – Gentle and alignment-focused, with strong emphasis on injury prevention
Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT) – Sometimes grouped with Floor Barre, though it’s more prop-heavy and uses a different approach

Benefits of joining the Floor Barre session on Day 2 of our Adult Ballet Intensive

It’s easy to think you’re in alignment when you’re not—and because the movements are subtle, it’s also easy to rush through them and lose the benefits (or worse, create new habits that aren’t helpful).

During the intensive, the teachers—Nicola Baartse and myself (Jo McDonald)—will be there to guide you through:

Alignment corrections – so you’re actually strengthening the right things
Pacing – to slow things down and avoid rushing, which reduces effectiveness
Breath coordination – so you don't hold your breath, which limits movement quality

These small things add up, and they’re what make Floor Barre a powerful part of your ongoing training.

If you’re attending the intensive, you’ll experience all of this firsthand on Friday 25 April. And if you’re just curious about Floor Barre in general, I hope this post gives you a sense of why it can be so valuable.

This kind of focused, floor-based work builds the kind of strength and awareness that transforms how you dance—not just during intensives, but in every class after.

Let’s build that strong foundation. I’ll see you on the floor.

References

Some of the websites used to help compile this article include:

Hawes, B (2025). Ballet Floor Barre: Everything You Need to Know. Available from https://www.brittanyhaws.com/ballet-floor-barre-everything-you-need-to-know/ [Accessed 16 April 2025)

McGuire Mayes, I (2025). What is Floor Barre: The Importance of Floor Barre in Ballet Training. Published by Ballet with Isabella. Available from https://balletwithisabella.com/posts/what-is-floor-barre-the-importance-of-floor-barre-in-ballet-training/. [Accessed 16 April 2025].