Saturday at Ballet School

"It's not your back, it's how you think," the teacher said when I stuck my hips back in plie.  She then illustrated how I looked to her and it looked ugly.  She was bent over her waistline, like someone with a disease...she poked me several times and said, "ah," when I felt the correction.  She is a hard teacher but I would rather have a class with her and get better than just mess around.  I heard her talking to a girl's mother about how the advanced dancers call themselves advanced but she remarked that they don't realize what a hard business it [dancing] is and if they don't shape up, they will be sorry.  She also corrected my legs, saying to pull up my thighs and then I will have a hope of having my legs straight, including my knees.  After manipulating me like this, I could see that it felt more like I was moving from my ab area and my legs started up a lot higher, like from the tops of my hips, instead of just at my leotard line; it was like my glutes were then part of my leg.  Needless to say, I actually looked prettier in center and could actually stand up.  Of course, it didn't improve the execution of my steps, but I just looked a lot nicer and my movements had a sort of, well, eloquence.

Now I am waiting for pointe and will try to remember all my corrections...almost time for pointe, listening to my teacher leading a character rehearsal -- "someone turned the wrong way, you can't do that...

So after class I asked my pointe teacher, Miss Patti, if my plies were okay and she said "not too bad."  She told me to stop thinking so much about turning out sideways and instead, think of going up and down.  She showed me her back and said, just tuck your tailbone down. We did the usual barre exercises and then some freestyle exercises along the barre and by that time my toes were ready to rest.  In order to get pain-free, this type of thing needs to be done on a regular basis.  I told the teacher my birthday is tomorrow and said I should probably get some new pointe shoes for myself.  My old ones are now antiques...