Thursday at the Dance Studio

I am back in the swing of things today -- and swing I did. I seemed to chop through barre at a very vigorous pace -- sometimes a day of rest is good, because you tend to just get into a boring routine. How to keep your dancing alive, I thought...

There were two men in class today, two good dancers, instead of just the girls. It gives the class a good edge, I think, and I like to play off of their strength. There I was, down to my deep pink leotard and pink tights, doing promenades and developpes and, yes, even pretty good pirouettes. Today, I felt pretty in pink, ha, ha...details later, because I must get to the gym...

I had a great Pilates class at the gym and then I lay in the sauna for about 15 minutes before going out into the cold night, which felt warmer after the sauna. The Pilates teacher walked in and asked if anyone was new to Pilates and no one answered and so she said, "Oh, so you're all pros." Everyone laughed, but not for long, as we did the grueling Pilates exercises, like stretch your legs up to the ceiling and then slowly lower -- about 12 times -- the teacher said, you only have 2 more, when things got rough. We also did leg lifts while in the bridge pose and hovered our leg a few inches off the ground -- ouch -- but I could feel my torso get straighter and tighter.

We did big leg circles, developpes, and bringing both legs off the floor while lying sideways -- painful! These things always catch you right in the mid-abs and make you feel like someone is tearing you apart, but they are so effective in getting to the nits in the back. When I walked over to the sauna, I saw a girl with tan lines and a really toned body, rare at the gym, where everyone is struggling to stay in shape. This girl was in top shape and I asked her what did she do and she told me she knew a swim coach -- that will be tomorrow, I hope...swimming...

But as for class, it was F-U-N. For adagio we did step side, working leg in front attitude, swing leg to arabesque, promenade, faille, detourne, pirouettes pas de bourre to inside pirouettes, chainnes to step pose. For jumps we did echappe chug jete in attitude, glissade jete, glissade assemble, with epaulment. Then we ended center with balance, balance, step developpe ecarte ronde jambe glissade assemble, chasse pas de bourre grand jete...or something like that. It was so much fun, I can't remember, really, and that is one way to know that you are having fun, when you can't remember what you did.

The barre was fast and cardio, with lots of tendus and degages, which I like, because it gets your legs moving. While at the studio, the Russian pianist Nadia and I stopped to see a girl practicing variations for the upcoming YAGP competitions this weekend. She was beautiful, wearing a white tutu with bodice, practicing a Paquita variation with double attitude and triple pirouette turns. Then she switched to a burgundy tutu and I remarked to another girl that her torso and arms were beautiful and the girl said, yes, but she needs stronger legs. I thought, yes, she needed to turn out her legs and really arch her feet...but she sparkled, nonetheless.