Knee Bridge

Difficulty: Introductory

Category: Floorwork

Type: With heels / Without Heels

Points of Contact: N/A

Pre-requisite Moves:

• N/A

The Knee Bridge is a beautiful and dramatic floor move that highlights clean lines and helps you slow down the pacing of your choreography. It’s important to keep your muscles engaged with this move, as it will help you extend your lines. This move can be done either with or without heels.

Move Steps

1. Start by sitting on your heels, keeping your toes and ankles pointed.
2. Place your hand flat on the floor, next to your heel platforms (if barefoot, about 5-8 inches behind your heel)
3. From here, lift your hips, then chest towards the ceiling.
4. While lifting your hips and chest, bring your arm around in an exaggerated circle, reaching towards the wall behind you.
5. Keep your elbow loose and look towards the wall behind you.
6. Hold for as long as you’d like, then reverse the motion to exit.

Safety Tips

• This move involves a lot of dynamic movement, so you be sure to warm up the quads, back, and shoulders before practicing! This will also help exaggerate your lines as you engage and hold these muscles, benefiting the extension of your arm and bend of your back.

Common Mistakes

• Pushing Hips Forward, but Not Getting Nice Lines: If you feel like you’re pushing your hips forward, but you’re not getting the nice rounded lines that this move showcases, there could be two causes. First, your quads (the muscles at the front of your thigh) may not be warmed up enough. If there is discomfort here, flexibility work for the legs may be beneficial. Second, you want to squeeze your booty as tightly as possible to help push the hips to the front.
• I Feel Off Balance: Keep the toes pointed (which requires you to tighten the whole leg) and press your feet into the floor as you lift your hips up. This will stabilize your body as you move, and you will feel much more balanced.
• Arm Looks Stiff: If your arm looks stiff, you may be locking the elbow in place as you bring it up. Soften your elbow, soften the wrist and fingers as you come up. Move each part of your arm purposefully and let the lines curve around bent joints, rather than trying to make everything rigid and straight.
• Exit Looks Rushed: If the exit looks rushed, then chances are, you need to slow it down. Exiting the move takes just as much attention to pacing as entering it. Slow down your movements, take your time. Don’t fight against the momentum you’ve already built up (even at a slow pace.) For example, bringing the arm around the body – rather than reversing the arm and bringing it down the way it came up – goes with the momentum you’ve already built up, making the movement look much more fluid.