Not One Fear Inducing, Hive Creating, Depends Worthy Moment

Originally posted on April 16th

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Joel Hall was fairly quiet on Thursday night. David wasn't at the front desk keeping up his usual string of background chatter with some lucky personage blessed with his attention. And while there is usually a line of us hankering for his partially divided attention - someone else is in his seat tonight. 

I registered and saw Ashley Olsen (of the Olsen twins) on the list already. I'm hoping class will still go because her name is the only name on there. I round the corner and Miss M and Ashley are sitting on the bench; Ashley engaged in a book, Miss M watching Will G's class through their routine. 

The Jazz class lets out and we have grown to a class of four. Will is wrapping up with two students. Miss M and the ladies are putting their things down and Will says: We have to go - I got PUT OUT last time. And I snap my fingers like Damn Right! We both laugh and I give him a hug. I tell him MDB wants to hire my services. And we both laugh again. 

We line up and get down to ballet business: plies - two demis, a releve, a port de bra in first, second, fourth and fifth. Tendus move along briskly -emphasis on the 'out' first and then on the 'in' - we add the arm business because we are doing alright. Next, degages with a balance with arms in high fifth to end- I wobble - my toes are still warming up.  Rond de jambes are turning into my favorite move  - I envision creating the letter D in the sand using my toes - until I have to lift my leg off the ground - then I envision a ham hock dangling in the air as if by magic :). We frappe the floor into submission - ok, I do. It's my understanding that you are SUPPOSE to STRIKE the floor (not hammer it), but sometimes I'm the only one making noise - which makes me freakin' self-conscious - but whatever. We stretch before moving into the battement business. I still HATE battements. I'm ok with front and back (still not the greatest, but I can FEEL my ANXIETY rising when I have to battement in second position. Side Bar, Menty and Physie are all holding their breath and hoping I can heave my leg into the right position in the air. We (ok, me) thank ethereal when it's over. 

We make it onto the center floor combinations and have a short adagio - with whip cream no less. Ok, no whip. Then we all move into balances (bow -len-says - not balance like balance beam). Miss M has a thing for them - but her balances don't have the same follow through as MDBs. It's a little more waltzy. We do some jumping with some beat business. And mostly we all are just happy we don't break our toes.

The traveling combinations don't involve not ONE FEAR INDUCING, HIVE CREATING, DEPENDS WORTHY moments and while I didn't nail each one of these, I was pretty satisfied with my class.