Ballet and Karate = Balete? Graceful Karate Moves!

Posted by: John W. Zimmer
Under: karate
17 Mar 2009

 

I saw this on the news not to long ago and decided to find out more about it. I have kind of a closet interest in ballet because at one time I wanted to be a dancer. I thought that karate and ballet might be the perfect combination but as probably happens so many times – I had to chose one over the other (I could only afford to take karate lessons, not both).

 

Practitioners of ballet have to be in superb condition to make all of the moves look easy. That is kind of like fighting because one should not telegraph a move by grunting during a the initial execution of a kick. Now as much as I like good form during kicks and punches, I am more concerned with the application, meaning does the kick actually connect. Watch this video for the overview of Balete (TM) the new fitness craze in LA.

 

 

 

Whitney Shannon and Mindy Kelly have put together a good workout with Balete! I think it will appeal to women more so than Billy Blanks Tae Bo. There are a fair amount of basic karate moves that coupled with ballet, make for an impressive workout.

 

I heard them mentioning a belt system and was wondering the reason? I looked for more information about Balete but only found information about the two creators. I guess it is possible there will be a self-defense section taught as some level. If that is the case then starting ones own system of martial art that is focused on fitness probably does make sense.

 



Mindy Kelly appears to be a kata champion without too much research. I found a video of her (Mindy) doing some break dancing, karate, and what appeared to be gymnastics and all I can say is WOW! Here is one lady that is in impressive shape and extremely flexible.

 

 

Do you see what I mean? Mindy is obviously a martial artist at the top of her game and I wish her and Whitney all of the luck with Balate. Now I would like to close with the short more traditional ballet video so you can see how it is a truly graceful dance.

 

 

Didn’t you just love watching how beautiful the human form can be? I will admit that I am not a big artsy guy but that is more becuase I am financially challenged. I am hoping to make enough money to afford a home with a Japanese garden dojo where I can work on my kata when I retire.

 

I hope you enjoyed my prespective of Balete today and I hope you will consider subscribing to my RSS Feed.

 

 


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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 10:22 pm and is filed under karate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Ballet and Karate = Balete? Graceful Karate Moves!”

  1. Bob "Broke Dick" Patterson Says:
    March 18th, 2009 at 3:02 am

    Interesting post. My taekwondo school had studio space in a university ballet studio. Basically they were nice enough to let us use their crappiest studio. Every semester we’d have two or three ballet students give it a try.

    They excelled in flexibility and memorization of steps but sucked at execution. They hated full contact and had a lot of trouble with the idea of punching or kicking “through” a solid target.

    In the 3+ years I was there we only had one make it to brown belt before she quit. The others never lasted beyond basic.

    -B

  2. John W. Zimmer Says:
    March 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Hey Bob,

    So much for mixing the Ying and Yang :)

    I would have thought the ballet skills might have created some amazing katas! Yes that aggression is probably counter institutive to ballet.

    Thanks for sharing your experience Bob