Thursday

So here I am at home, wanting to sag in front of the TV but after Wednesday's class, I find myself lifting out of my hips and sucking in my stomach.  Wow!  I must get some sleep, though, because there will be Thursday yoga and then a swim in the heated pool, hooray!

So now I am awake and must rush to yoga because the teacher is strict.  My dance teacher will be performing today in the Nutcracker and my heart and spirit will be with him as I work out.  I have seen him dance and plan to see his show next week and he is wonderful...

Barely arrived for yoga -- missed both buses.  Well, it was great to get into the triangle and reverse triangle poses, not to mention extended leg tree pose, cobra, and shoulder stand.  The teacher showed the tricky shoulder stand flipping over into cobra with a flick of the head and I asked him if this was wise for people with limited neck flexibility and he said he cracked his neck learning this and you need to first have the stability in shoulder and neck area.  Like anything else, don't try it until you are ready, he said.

Watching the gym TV, ABC News was broadcasting a bit of news about the Joffrey Ballet and how every year a disabled child was chosen to be in the party scene, something which Gerald Arpino created when he was impressed with a disabled child auditioning for the show.  Ashley Wheater said that the child is chosen on his/her ability to understand the role.  There were scenes of the party scene, too, with all the Joffrey dancers.  After missing my buses, it was nice to be here at the right time to see this -- what a treat!


Got my swim in just before the children came.  Swimming always makes me happy.  I like the freedom of moving in the water...grapevine step, pique arabesque balance, emboites to pirouettes en dedans.  Pas de basques with arms, releve arabesque turn balance, chainnes, tombe pas de bourre pirouette en dehors.  Changements, glissade assembles.  Emboites, chainnes, emboites, tombe coupe jete.


Grand allegro:  balances back, tour jete, step fouette balance en tournant, chainnes.  I stood at barre next to a neurologist and we discussed nerve patterns -- it was the adult class with lots of professional people who like ballet.  I think they like the structure of it.  There was one professional dancer in class but some of the others danced better than he did.  The barre was very structured and good, with just about everything:  plies, passe balances, attitude to arabesque, frappes, developpes, and after class I stayed and watched the advanced pointe class.


The pointe teacher was very thorough in teaching technique, saying things like, move your body around in a turn, don't leave your arm back, keep it in second position; dance on the points of your feet, not off the point, push up to turn, don't turn in your back leg when turning; push with the back leg to turn, all of which are easy to say but so hard to do.  The teacher laughed as her students did glissades on pointe, saying they seem so easy but are so hard to do.


It was snowing briefly this afternoon and it gets dark so suddenly now.  It's hard to believe that Christmas is a week from Saturday.  Hopefully I can keep dancing through the holidays and have a happy new year, despite the economy and trying to get by.  I think, though, as the cycles of nature continue, so does life and we all need to live as best we can and not let our worries get the best of us. After all, worrying never solved anything.  So, tomorrow I will dance again.