It was very cold last night so it was easy to get up and get to the neighborhood dance studio for combined level 11 am class. Everybody is dancing in the Nutcracker and I hope all the dancers will be safe although some will invariably be injured. I hope, like the Nutcracker, they will mend and become magical again. Christmas is an exciting time but also very stressful, with all the rush of shopping, concerts, parties and matters of the year coming to an end. So, if anybody needs me, I have doctors and nurses in my family...
Vanessa taught class -- she danced in Germany and we did a lot of fouettes in class, such as pique arabesque, chasse back, swing arabesque leg into fouette, coupe, pas de bourre pirouette. That was part of a floor combination. I am leaving the studio now because it will be closed soon. More detail at the gym...oh, and one thing I don't want to forget -- Vanessa thinks part of my hip and back problem is that I'm not extending my leg into movements. She told the class, don't be so much in your box. We were doing pique turns across the floor and she said to move more but then I started jumping into my turns instead of extending my leg out. I can see I will need to really work on my feet, like others have said, because if movements are done incorrect, they will only do damage. Now for my swim...
Swim was wonderful. I love the Lakeview Pool. I saw a regional gym manager and told him so, and that I appreciated that the water was kept warm enough to swim on a cold day. A lot of older people were in the pool today -- I don't usually go so early on Saturday as I am in dance classes, and they all watched me like I had lost my mind, ha, ha, but I am serious about my training!
Likewise at ballet class -- the adults don't quite understand me either. In fact, a girl I once worked with used to tease me and say, I thought ballet was for kids. Well, I guess I'm just a kid at heart. In class, we had a nice barre with lots of tendus and ronde jambes and port de bras. I felt really stretched out and warm for center. Center was hard! Lot of fouettes, as I mentioned before, and a complicated jump combination: temp de cuisse, faille pas de bourre, faille pas de bourre, sissonne back, sissonnes side, sissonne arabesque ouverte pas de bourre to pirouettes, land 4th position, echappes through 4th, rotation, assemble, quatres. Whew! The adagio was nice: grand plie in second position, port de bras inclined to raise leg a la seconde, fouette to arabesque to promenade in arabesque to third arabesque, pas de bourre, chasse grand port de bras, pirouettes en dedans, pas de bourre en tournant to pirouettes dehors to pirouettes tour de finne. Lots of steps to remember, but despite this it was a flowy class and then everyone did a reverence to the teacher and the pianist and the teacher wished us all a Merry Christmas, since the school is now closed until January.
So now I'm home reading my new book about ballet history. I saw some dancers in the school lobby on the way and told them about my new book, a little boring sometimes, but just the thing to read in the cold winter days to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment