5 Ways to Maintain Your Ballet Technique While on School Holidays

Published 9th July 2025

At Melbourne Institute of Dance, we encourage our students to stay connected to their ballet technique during school holidays. Taking a break from the studio doesn't mean your progress has to pause. There are plenty of creative and effective ways to maintain your routine at home. From cross-training to floor barre, staying engaged with ballet ensures you return to class stronger, more focused, and inspired.

Here are five smart and accessible ways to keep your ballet skills sharp during the holidays - no pointe shoes required!

1.  Cross-Training

Maintain your fitness over the holidays with cardio and strength-based activities, such as swimming, cycling, hiking, or bodyweight circuits. These low-impact options help build endurance, improve cardiovascular health, and support muscular balance, which is essential for strong, injury-free dancing. Balanced fitness routines build stamina, support muscle tone, and keep your body ballet-ready even away from the studio. Incorporating variety into your regime helps enhance coordination and prevent burnout, keeping Melbourne dancers strong, flexible, and class-ready.

2. Floor Barre 

During school holidays, ballet students can maintain technique by practising guided floor barre videos two to three times per week. Focus on core ballet fundamentals such as turnout, pelvic alignment, and abdominal engagement. Dedicating just 15 to 20 minutes a day, with a yoga mat, mirror, and classical ballet music, helps reinforce muscle memory, strengthen deep stabilising muscles, and improve body awareness. To stay motivated, dancers can track progress in a journal, use a metronome for timing, or film their sessions to review posture and placement. Floor barre is a low-impact method ideal for injury prevention and joint support, making it a smart, studio-free way to maintain ballet training during school breaks.

3. Imagery Work 

During school holidays, imagery work enables dancers to mentally rehearse their technique. Visualising yourself dancing through class routines, solos, or applying specific corrections activates the brain's motor cortex, reinforcing muscle memory and technical accuracy, even without physical movement. Mental rehearsal of combinations, port de bras, or complex transitions sharpens timing, spatial awareness, and coordination. Just 10 to 15 minutes a day spent imagining your ballet sequences can keep you mentally connected to training, helping you return to class with confidence, focus, and improved performance.

4. Pilates Sessions

Pilates is especially beneficial during school holidays, as it maintains strength and flexibility.  Many mat-based exercises, which can be done at home, focus on core stability and alignment through slow, controlled movements, helping dancers stay conditioned and prevent injury during their break. Studio sessions focus on spinal articulation, and breath control, complementing ballet by reinforcing posture and balance. By keeping your body aligned and strong, Pilates ensures you return to ballet class with improved control, reduced stiffness, and a readiness to move with precision and confidence.

5. Gentle Yoga

Maintain flexibility and mental calm through yoga sequences during the school holidays. Gentle yoga keeps your muscles supple, helps prevent stiffness, and supports overall body awareness - the key to sustaining ballet technique while away from regular classes.

Focus on restorative or yin yoga styles, which emphasise deep stretches and longer holds to release tension and lengthen muscles. These low-impact practices improve joint mobility, enhance circulation, and support flexibility, all of which are vital for ballet dancers to maintain their technique outside the studio. Practising yoga two to three times a week also improves breath control, focus, and mind-body connection. By maintaining flexibility and promoting recovery, yoga helps dancers return to class feeling grounded, aligned, and ready to move.

For ballet students in Melbourne, school holidays don’t have to mean a pause in progress. With a little creativity and consistency, you can maintain your technique, stay inspired, and return to class feeling confident and ready to dance. Whether it’s yoga or pilates in the lounge or visualising your class routine, every effort helps keep your ballet journey on track. 

We can’t wait to welcome you back to class at Melbourne Institute of Dance - refreshed, recharged, and ready to continue your ballet journey.

Or if you’re new to ballet and eager to learn more, register for a free trial ballet class. We’d love to welcome you into our dance community.

Enrol for a trial class today!

Or contact us to learn more: 

melbourneinstituteofdance@gmail.com

+61 436 342 295

www.melbourneinstituteofdance.com

Let your ballet journey begin - one step at a time!