The Adventure Continues: Ballet I - Stylized Running

I walk into Joel Hall Dance Studio to find the desk unmanned. All varieties of Davids are missing from the front desk. I was running a little late because I was hauling around God's largest Honey Crisp apple for MDB. I see Lil Red in the fish bowl and wave. She sees me and waves back. 


As I decide to head straight to class and settle up after, Rich spots me and gets me signed in. I walk into the back studio to find mostly second company and one regular. Insert deep sigh. I'm already wearing my fat pants with the belly cover that's almost to my armpits...


I walk behind the piano and begin pulling away street wear when I hear MDB walk in. She's talking to one lady that hasn't been in class for more than a year. The second company people have taken my favorite spot at the barre and then the 12 year girl from the Joel Hall's student company comes into class with pointe shoes.  Insert my version of hell. 


Side Bar: Maybe we should just hide behind this piano. I bet we could make it through class...
Menty: One Problem: EVERYONE ELSE has seen us come back here...
Side Bar: Oh.....yeah....


I give another deep sigh, gird my loins, slap a smile on my face and stand up. MDB spots me and in her sweet slightly southern voice says, "This is the first time you've been behind the piano." I distract her with the world's largest apple, which makes her smile and I find a spot somewhere in the back. (Who needs diamonds when large produce is more affordable?)


Lil Pointe girl asks if the apple is a pumpkin. I love other people's kids - they don't belong to you and you can always send them back when they stop being cute :)


We all manage to get through the plie and tendu combinations, but then MDB ups the ante on the second tendus. The combination involves a coupe with pas de bouree. We ALL screw this up and now I feel less self conscious. I blame it on the music....MDB agrees - and then makes us do it again. 


The degage combination doesn't kill us. And I'm happy to report that I'm not the only person that gets confused with rond de jambes changing directions!!! Or maybe I was the only person and that was my correction - and thinking of Blondie - I started to say - She's not talking to me!! But of course she was. But then she gave us some golden nugget of information that will help me forever with this. 


We manage not to break our feet in frappes that have petite battements with flexed and pointe foot and go into battements. 


We changed rooms so we have a larger room. MDB gives a petit allegro first and then an adagio.  The adagio was going well until she sped it up. Then I had a mental pause....a literal WHAT WAS I DOING MOMENT! Now I've done that in my house moving from room to room, but never while dancing! I've had a WHAT THE HELL COMES NEXT MOMENT....scary - very very scary. I decide not to worry about it just then because we are jumping. I must report all appendages stayed in their packages!!


MDB decides to give us a traveling combination that includes tombee, pas de bouree, glissade, jete (left and right), followed by tombee, pas de bouree, glissade assemblage (left and right) - Let's leave this at that. 


MDB made us do it again, but paused to tell us that this was just stylized running. So when the last group was almost finished, I literally ran across the floor and clicked my heels together. 


How's that for stylizing running? :)

The Adventure Continues: Ballet I - Skipping INTO Skinny Land - TA DA!!!

The week before I just couldn't make myself go. Tonight, I ran out of my condo when the first doubtful thought crossed my mind. I had already decided I was going to class after work, but as the 2.5 hours tick by before I actually get there - inertia and doubt set in - and then there is more mental anxiety to get moving again.  


Thankfully, I had changed into dance wear when I first got home. I'm sure you can appreciate how uncomfortable ballet class would be in dress slacks, a cowl neck sweater and hoop earrings.....


So I get there early, check in with Rich (and he can have a name because he knows mine and can pronounce it correctly), and watch Miss B's class in the fish bowl. This class is level 10,000 squared and raised to the 13th power. All students have WTF face, but they wouldn't have it any other way :)


I tie up my belly dance pants (and opted not to work out pants), put on my striped knee high tights, and loop my long sleeved tee shirt over my head leaving my arms covered. The studio is chilly. As we (Miss M and I) wait for the other class to end, more newbies round the corner followed by two regulars. 


Class starts with 5 women and 1 man. 
Miss M demonstrates the plies - two demis, one grande, two releves, one stretch in first and second positions. In fourth and fifth, we skip the grande altogether. I watch the newbies struggle. Three newbies = three WTH Faces. It also doesn't help that one of the regulars is wearing pointe shoes - increase intimidation factor by 10. 


Miss M demonstrates the tendus, one tendu, one tendu with fondue - alternate again - then second, arabesque, then three quick tendus, one hold, three quick tendus, one hold. I watch the newbies struggle.
Menty: I wonder if their inner dialogue is as active as ours..
Side Bar:....Nah - I can just see 'what the hell, what the hell, what the hell' circling their foreheads....

Miss M demostrates the degage, rond de jamb, and frappe combinations. And you guessed it - I watched the newbies struggle.


Menty: I remember when that was us.
Side Bar: I remember because it is STILL US!! This is fundamentals....
Menty: Oh yeah :) Opps!!
Side Bar: I'll just take that pat right off our back..




Even as we stretch our legs in fourth and second position on the barres before battements, I see the confusion on their faces.  Battements don't really change the lines creasing their foreheads, pinched lips and wild look in their eyes. 


When we move to the center floor combinations and Miss M begins the adagio, I watch WTH go to WTF fast. The one man in class whose super power was be obnoxious when he didn't understand or get a combination was met with 10 raised female eyebrows and nervous laughter from Miss M.  


After we make it through turns, we did jumps - four jumps in first, two echappes, three changements, one pause, two glissades. No my brain did not catch on fire - or stop and restart thinking. And when the music moved up to tempo, I didn't flustered, faint or hesitate. I jumped (and pointed my feet), got the arms right for echappes, was on time for my changements and nailed my glissades! I wanted to yell TA DA!!!! I didn't because then I would have been obnoxious. 


We moved into the waltz step (with and without turn) and then ended with the a sissone going across the floor. I call it hopscotch when it's only in one direction - two feet jump, landing on one. It's more complicated then that, but I can call it whatever I want - as long as I do it right - TA DA!!!!!

The Adventure Continues: Ballet I - Skipping Skinny Land

I did not go to ballet on Monday. Finding after 12 total hours in my Honda Civic with my friend and student, Athanasia, we were both painfully stiff on Sunday afternoon. My stiffness continued even after I walked for three hours straight (flat out refusing to get back in a car or sit down for more than 30 minutes at a time) and stretching for more than an hour.


The idea of jumping, bending or battement-ing frankly made me consider checking into hell for a brief visit. So the warm place aside, I went by the grocery store to pick up some odds and ends, stopped by Joel Hall Studio to drop off an apple for MDB, and drove myself as quickly as possible back to the home front where I soaked for a hour-ish.


But while the jumping, bending and battement-ing definitely deterred me, the idea of looking at myself in the mirror was the biggest deterrent. I have put on some fall 'padding' and being surrounded by mirco-mini-women with long, lean lines, pointe shoes, greater ability and higher battements are about as close to hell as I really want to get.


Even now, as I sit typing this, I should be at least 1 minute into Ballet Fundamentals, but I can't go. I can't make myself find my 'less fat' pants, double down sports bra, fitted top and walk into Joel Hall.


I could tell you exactly what would happen tonight - I would register with Not David version 5.0, greet Miss M at the back benches while changing my shoes, chat with one of the regulars or a newbie, walk into class and line up at the barre not facing the mirror, and make it through barre with a bit of confusion, at least three combination screw ups and some commentary by Side Bar and Menty.


The floor combinations would be some daunting combination of strength, grace and balance - mixed with some jumping, turning and arm work - followed by some traveling combinations that I will completely flub up going to the right and fix going to the left.


I know all this, but I can't go to class because I don't want to look in the damn mirror. And I don't want to look because looking won't change it. So if I don't look, maybe it won't be so bad. But then I'm standing in 'skinny' land....and that makes it even worse.


So I'm skipping skinny land tonight and Monday...I will keep you posted about Thursday.

The Adventure Continues: Ballet I - Relocated

When I arrived home after work, I really just wanted to put my head on my pillow and pretend I had a fabulous life.

But instead I throw half the contents of my closet on the floor looking for my workout pants that make me feel "less" fat. I know it appears for all intensive purposes like I am completely comfortable in my skin - you would be mistaken. I never feel more acutely out of place then when I'm surrounded by my knobby kneed, long limbed, slender like ballet beginners (or intermediates, etc). 

It only makes since that I'm a belly dancer. There aren't any super skinny belly dancers headlining belly dance companies - they at minimal look like real women. I'm not intimidated by well trained size 2 belly dancer - she's not the standard or a requirement. In ballet - that's all there is. And if you don't have the right body type.....you are OUT!! Thanks for passing Go - but you don't collect $200. 

So I pull on my 'less' fat workout pants, put on my sports bra, drop on my Tribal Fest 2009 top and pack my courage and my ass in my Honda Civic. As I enter Joel Hall Dance Studio for the umpteenth time this year, I'm registered once again by a 'Not David', but I'm not surprised or even slightly annoyed. 

I decide to get my 'act' together so I can be ready for class...and in strolls MDB with a steak taco in hand - as I hand her a healthy apple :).  (She's about 90 pounds soaking wet, by the way.) We hug and I instantly feel better. 

We walk into class and I find the Young One is in class tonight as well as two second company members and one woman with lots of hair. Before we get started MDB tells us how she slowly dislocated her floater rib and her chiropractor relocated it.

Side Bar: Relocated to where? Her lower abs? I got some fat I'd like to 'relocate'.

Menty: I think as in - they put it back. 

Side Bar: Back in the socket and relocate are the same thing?

Menty: Google it...

After we move through the usual plie combination that only I remember all the way through (take that Young One), we move into tendus. Halfway through the tendu combination, three preteen girls show up late to class. They jump into the combinations as MDB explains the new time structure - short for i.e. don't show up late to my class again. 

After we totally flub the rond de jamb and frappe combinations, MDB has mercy on us and lets us do mostly normal battements - one set flat, the next with plies, the last two sets on releve. 

We move to another room so we can do center floor work which is when the preteens decide it's chat time. MDB begins to give us the adagio...and they keep talking. After MDB finishes the combination, I turn to the girls and ask them if they are staying - they ignore me. SO I SAY IT LOUDER - ARE YOU STAYING IN CLASS? Everyone is looking at them now. 

Preteen girls: Ummmm....yeah. 

Side Bar: Ok. Well, I can't hear the combination with YOU TALKING.

Preteen girls: blink, blink, blink....

MDB: Girls, if you are going to talk, you are going to have to go outside. 

Preteen girls: blink, blink, blink....

Menty: Maybe they're two standard deviations below the mean....

Side Bar: That was a really nice way of calling them retarded

Menty: That's the actual definition....and if the shoe fits....

We finish the center floor work combinations with lots of jumping, arm waving, and su-suing involved. It was definitely a two sports bra kinda day. In the absence of necessary support, the twins were forced to jiggle at every jump. Thankfully, I remain without black eyes. 

We move to the traveling floor combinations, which involve more jumping, turning, skipping, hopping and arm waving. It's all graceful and beautiful on the talented, but for the rest of us - it's a lot of WTF faces and turning in the wrong direction. 

Maybe I should have my brain relocated...