Claire is away on a secret mission (to know, to will, to dare, to not blab your favourite teachers’ ambitions all over the place!) elsewhere this week, so Brian (AKA Professional Dance Guy) taught class tonight, and it was a blast.

He gives a very good class — athletic but not exhausting, challenging but well within reach.  

I mostly didn’t hose up his barre; I promenaded without any dramanade; I did some pretty-ish turns (and some turrible ones); I didn’t forget any combinations going across the floor (though I did count wrong a couple of times; how hard is it to count to 16?  Seriously!).

Many of today’s improvements were the direct result of the sole me-specific correction of the day.   Brian was walking around correcting people who were getting slouchy at the barre, and suddenly he walked up to me, grabbed me by the waist,  and pronounced “Not you, too!”

It was definitely more a command than a comment: but up til that moment I thought I was pulled up.  (To be fair, I started out pretty well, but then apparently I got sloppy without noticing it.)

Oddly enough, it turns out that feeling pulled up isn’t the same thing as being pulled up.   And, strangely enough, being really pulled up makes you dance more gracefully… and makes your turns better, and makes your dramanades turn back into promenades.

This was especially important because we did our promenades en dehors, which is harder than doing them en dedans (though we were doing them at passé, which is easier than doing the Swan-Lake-arabesque-extended-cut promenades no matter which way you turn).

Apparently I feed off physical corrections: every few minutes I would feel Brian’s hands on my waist again, like a mental-physical reminder: Are you pulled up?   Oh, yeah?   Really?

My calf got a bit sore by the end of class, so my final petite allegro combination looked a little lame (literally), but other than that I felt pretty good about myself today.  I’m starting to make progress again.

I’m also doing all my physical therapy exercises like a good boy and trying to eat enough food even though my appetite has kind of died again.  I am not worrying about it now, though: it seems to do this from time to time, and I am still not at a point where it would be dangerous to shed some weight.  

If I get there, then I’ll worry.  Otherwise, I’ll just try to remember to eat enough even when I’m not feeling hungry.   This is part of why I still track my diet religiously.

Okay, so that’s it for tonight.  It’s nice to finish class feeling excited about making progress again!