Rainy Monday

I finished ballet class with Birute at Lou Conte Dance Studio and, well, compared to being criticized by Dolores Lipinski at the smaller studio in my neighborhood, taking a class with professionals in a big facility is not too good for me, being the purist I am. Still, it was fun.

Then I went to the gym and took the Pilates and yoga classes. Needless to say, I am slightly beat up now. Pilates was all about obliques today, lots of side stretches, planks, and magic circle squeezes. Even though it's tough, Pilates class relaxes me because I get to lie on the floor and really feel my alignment and use my muscles properly. Then yoga with Noah was nice because I got to stretch and my cobras looked really good because of all the swan moves and roll ups in Pilates. Noah came and adjusted my back during downward facing dog, squaring my hips and pushing against my lower back. So this is what it should feel like. When someone adjusts me, I always try to remember how it feels so I can retain the movement in my memory. It was challenging to do the balancing poses, too, and then binding the arms and bending down while bound.

Back to dance, initially my center turns were good because I concentrated on alignment but then my jumps were kind of sloppy because, for one thing, the teacher said I was not using the space around me in grand allegro: balance, balance, releve attitude turn glissade grand jete; pique tour jete, cabriole back, run around to other side. Petite allegro was quatres beats with echappe releves, glissade jete, ballonne pas de bourre pas de chat, brise pas de bourres with assembles. The barre was very therapeutic with endless developpes and tendus in different directions and I tried to do everything accurately in order to train my brain to dance with more precision, my new goal...