Advanced Class: Wear Your Giant Hat
I’ve been busy cleaning and organizing today, but I finally have time to write up a useful note from this morning’s class.
As you may know, I’m not great at detecting where in space my arms are. Today, I apparently kept throwing them behind my head in turns. HD caught it and gave me a visual demo, and—I suppose because I live in Louisville and Big Hats are a thing on Derby Day—I immediately exclaimed, “Oh, so if I just pretend I’m wearing a giant hat—!”
And it was all like:
Tombé, pdb, other tombé, pdb, piqué soutenu, tombé pdb-chasée, 4th, HAT!, really clean single, pdb under to 4th, HAT!, really clean single en dedans…
You guys, the hilarious thing is that IT ACTUALLY WORKED.
I imagined a big, giant, frilly, yellow wide-brimmed ladies’ hat (Why yellow? Who knows?), and of a sudden my arms were like, “Cool, we’ve got this!”
Visualization is a powerful tool … and apparently in my case, the more ridiculous, the better.
Posted on 2017/05/06, in balllet, technical notes and tagged pirouettes, you cab leave your hat on. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
danseur ignoble 
Ridiculous visualisations are usually more memorable! But I usually have to suppress a smile the first couple (hundred) times. 😀
Me too! I just realized that the “giant hat” visualization can be combined with the “vest button” one that JMG gave us, and I’ve almost got an imaginary outfit 😀
Needs some pants though, or else it will be even more ridiculous! 😂
I’ve been thinking about that! BW has a way of constantly reminding me, “Squeeze your butt!”
… Maybe the pants are Elastic booty shorts, or those Spanx things? I understand that those are effective butt-squeezers.
PS: I went to class this morning, but didn’t remember my hat as often as I’d have liked 😛 Today was a struggle.
Yes, preferably sparkly ones so that the squeezing is accompanied by spectacular disco ball effects! 😀
I noticed today that I have been completely neglecting a move in our recital piece. 🤔 Live and learn.
Hahaha, yessssss!
I got a cracker of a correction on Sunday: when you arabesque, think of a line running from your working side heel to the opposite shoulder and out along the arm, then try to shorten it (i.e. overcross all the things). It works!
So well that, discussing it with another student after class, I could hold a first arabesque on rélévé with my bag on my working-side shoulder. Awesome.
The U-boat seems to be engaging with class a bit more; we’re getting more detail where she usually just hammers through the same damn barre all the time. Perhaps getting out from Captain Marmite’s shade a bit?
Ooooooh! That is a realllllllly good explanation for that! When I first started dancing again, the Divine Ms. M gave us a similar one, but it wasn’t as concise. And well done on the arabesque en relevé whilst burdened! That’s impressive!
Good to hear about the U-boat’s. It sounds like you might be right; like she’s starting to feel her own wings a bit. It will be interesting to see how she develop(pé)s!