On Friday night, I went out with the of my bike peeps on what the bike world calls an s24o (edit: that’s short for “sub-24 hour overnight”).

We loaded up or bikes with camping stuff, met up at Great Food Brewing Company at Dundee Loop, then rode across town (back towards my house!) and out to Jefferson Memorial Forest.   There, we made camp and enjoyed beer, camaraderie, and various rehydrated foods (I had a spicy shrimp Bowl Noodle!).

Eventually, we tottered off to our several temporary beds, wherein we shivered for various amounts of time and got more or less sleep.   I actually warmed up fairly fast and slept pretty well,  thanks in part to my Klymit Static inflatable pad, which is super-comfy and harder to roll off of than most.   I didn’t sleep long enough, though.

On Saturday morning, we all made hot drinks (mostly coffee; I did tea), packed up, and rolled back out. I peeled off early to get home in time for ballet class.

Denis and I had an opera in the plans, so we just did Essentials.  Since we’ve just started a new ballet year, class was very basic — which meant it was a great opportunity to really focus on technique.

We were also in Studio 4, which has a wood floor (more slippery than Marley!) and one very tall portable barre (my most favoritest barre ever).

Barre was simple, which was good, because I was bushwhacked from riding bikes and not sleeping very much.   There was definitely a point at which I got the “You can point better than that” tap on my toe and discovered that, in fact, I kind of couldn’t.   The flesh was willing…ish, but the mind was cooked.  My brain just couldn’t even (I should note that I was pointing those toes …  just, you know, not quite as much as usual) .

I did find that, even though I was tired, my core was much steadier during grand battement than it was before I started doing the Plank Challenge.  My extensions during grand battement were also higher, even though I only had a full split on the left on Saturday.

I guess my core strength is improving!

Going across the floor, we just worked on chassé avant.  Margie provided us with a helpful mental image: when your feet meet mid-chassé, you should basically be in a mid-air sous-sous (like you would during soubresaut).

For some reason, I’d never really thought of that before, but it does two cool things!

First, it makes your chassé prettier.

Second, it adds to your momentum, so you travel farther on each chassé.  (Sadly, Studio 4 is tiny, so traveling farther wasn’t necessarily a great idea!)

We also worked on very basic port des bras, so I focused on making mine prettier (that is, neither squidly nor hieroglyphic).

So that’s it for now.  Moar class on Wednesday!