Feeling a little calmer today, so class notes, huzzah!

We turned into men’s class today.

T., N., and I made up the roster, so Margie gave us extra time (she extended the class to 1 hour 15 mins, same duration as the beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes) to concentrate on turns and jumps.

Margie noticed that I was doing my grand battement without a hand on the barre and suggested that T. and N. try it (didn’t see how they did, because I promptly got all distracted and had to concetrate). During petit allegro, he also gave me my own combination variant with beats (changement, changement, echappe, royale): first time I’ve done beats (except for some lame-tastic cabrioles) since I blew up my tendon, so that was cool. (PS: great explanation of the basic Bag O’ Small Jumps here.)

T. is coming along. He really opened up and asked lots of good questions today — one of the nice perks of being an extra-small class. He’s definitely a cerebral dancer; he thinks about how to do things. It’s interesting to watch him learn. It will be very interesting to see where he is in a year. Right now, his turnout is quite good for a brand-new dancer, but his feet haven’t quite got the memo yet about staying pointed. That will come. He also has natural musical sense, which is good.

N. is just back from a tough period with some health stuff, so it was good to see him back in action.

I’m coming along, too: every week I seem to make strides in terms of musicality and expression. Sometimes I even don’t make faces when doing jumps with beats 😉

For whatever reason, my pirouettes en dedans from 5th were very nice to the right, but weird to the left. My arms just could not even. They were like, “Oh, we do these exactly like to the right,” and I was like, “No, the opposite,” and they were like, “You mean like this?” :::form up for a turn to the right:::

-.-

Arms. Seriously. We have been over this.

But they weren’t squidly. Just backwards. They were just as backwards going across the floor doing grand jetés.

I rode all the way home on the Karakoram. You guys, riding a mountain bike with a rock-hard racing saddle with no pressure relief cutout in a dance belt SUCKS after about 20 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I really quite love the Karakoram … but I’ll be really happy when the Tricross comes home from the shop (reminds me; I need to check our messages).

Today’s ride started out at a moderate speed and slowed down from there. By the time I made it home, I’d pulled down an average of about 10 MPH. There were some long stops, though, because it’s Oaks Day, which means traffic is insane — it took me about 30 minutes to slow-roll through a section near Churchill Downs that normal takes 5 – 10. Most of that time was spent inching my way towards intersections. I don’t mind, though, since that was happening because drivers were letting pedestrians have the right of way.

I really can’t complain. I got to dance and ride the bike in the sun on this, the first day of May. I also ate a ridiculous lunch at Burger King, just because I could (in case you’re wondering, their spicy chicken sandwich is not as good, or as spicy, as Wendy’s). Later I will make chili, or pasta, or something, and ice cream cones, and perhaps we’ll go for a walk.

I’ll be handing in my final, final paper tonight. My really last Undergrad Thing. Then I will officially be Done with my time as an undergrad, and ready to move on to even bigger, even better things (once we sort out our Giant Tangled Mess to a reasonable degree).