Last night turned into another 2-hours-of-sleep fiasco because Reasons.

Denis got up and drove me to class so I wouldn’t kill myself or anyone else on the way. I left my legwarmers in my car, and started class feeling disgruntled because A) sleep dep and B) changes in routine are not exactly what we thrive on in ballet, and part of my routine is legwarmers.

However, it was one our rare classes with JP, and I love the way he teachers. By the time we got through the first tendu, I had forgotten that I was supposed to be having a bad day.

As a result, barre went beautifully. I realized that my prioprioception needs updating: at one point I glanced at myself in what I thought was an arabesque at roughly, I don’t know, 70 degrees and discovered that it was above 90. Which was partly, “WTF*” and partly “Such arabesque. Very Geometry. Wow.”

1. So, like, “Where’s the Femur?” :V …Okay, I’ll stop. No, wait, that’s a lie. I won’t stop. Ever.

I lost my braings a little during the grand battement combination, but that was simply a function of thinking there were supposed to be MOAR ATTITUDE SWINGS. They just felt so good, which is nice, because for reasons I still don’t comprehend, I have wrestled with cloche en attitude for the past, like, two years.

Adagio was faaaabulouuuuus. When did I become, like, an Adagio Specialist? (In addition to being a jumper.) Even the adagio turn was A) nice and B) properly adagio. There was a renverse that just kept automatically being beautiful.

Waltz and terre-a-terre turns got a little wild. I started attacking my turns(2) like I was trying to kill them, even as JP reminded us(3) NOT TO DO THAT.

2. I kind of feel like, in ballet, there are over-attackers and under-attackers. I am definitely an over-attacker. Most of the people I know in class seem to be under-attackers. It would be interesting to study if attack in ballet class correlates with, I don’t know, impulsiveness or trait conscientiousness or something like that outside of class.
3. Which is to say: reminded me. You know the general correction that’s really an individual correction? That’s pretty much how JP does class. He rarely issues individual corrections directly; instead, he issues a general correction while somehow managing to make eye contact with everyone who really needs that specific individual correction.

And then it was time for petit allegro. And, um, yeah.

You know how brisee means “broken?”

Yeah, um, well… So mine were really good, for values of good equal to literal. For values of, like, actual ballet, though, they were horrible.

I think I did one actual brisee today We did that combination twice in each direction, should’ve been a total of eight brisees.

Grand allegro went a bit better. I lost the end of the combination on the first pass, but filled it in for the most part by the end (I kept forgetting the tombe-coupe-jete/cabriole that was supposed to change the direction — specifically, the tombe part). Apparently my jumps were high and looked good. I didn’t think they were particularly high, but it’s really hard to watch yourself doing entrelaces. Unless, like, you video them.

So I made it to the end of class and didn’t die, but my brisees were like zombie brisees. Oh, well.

That’s it for now. Overall, a good class, and I still feel like I’m moving forward. Especially barre-wise.

~

We had a minor extended-family emergency tonight,  but it turns out everything is okay. Anyway, notes are finally up.