Today, for the first time in my life, Mr D called me up to demonstrate a combination in company class. I managed not to hose it up, even! (Thank goodness.) But that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, I meant to post more notes last week, but got distracted, so here are some from the 10th and from the 14th:

It’s not like this concept is new, but…

My turns in 2nd can be … Erm. A little wild? My spot, for some reason, likes to wander when I’m doing these.

I’ll spot front, then off to the left corner, then back (BACK! As in, I somehow spot THE BACK WALL 😶), then who even knows where, then nowhere, then front again.

Turns in 2nd give you all the chances to spot the wrong things.

I think, honestly, it’s that I’m nervous about turns in second, and I’m usually busy concentrating on keeping my free leg engaged in a position that A] is a valid second and B] is possible to hold while turning.

(Clause B], btw, is the drawback to having crazy flexible hips. They don’t lock neatly into place; instead, you have to work your butt off to hold them steady.)

Anyway, the drawing on the bottom reiterates a point I’ve been working on FOREVER.

When it comes to turns, your body is one piece. If the linkage between hips and shoulders is anything but solid, you’ll have to work harder, and your outcome won’t be what it could be.

The shoulder and hip have to travel together … And that means the rest of each side does, too.

“Soft and quick … as if you’re punching someone … but gently” 🤔

Okay, so “Soft and quick” was actually a correction for petit allegro … I think.

It definitely wasn’t for the Grand pirouette, which is what we were doing when I observed that Mr D’s demonstration of using the standing side of the body was, in short, kind of like the way you throw a solid punch.

I mean, he actually literally did an air-punch with that arm. (It looked hella metal, tbh.)

The power in a solid punch doesn’t just come from the arm. It’s the whole side of the body in one chain. The hip is heavily involved.

In Muay Thai, we learned to bring the hip as part of the strike. I say “strike” because the idea was critical to powering kicks as well: it’s a little different for striking with the leg (which is to say, the shin and the top of the foot) than with the fist, but the end result is the same: the entire side is engaged and acts as one unit.

I suspect that many of us don’t think about that with turns: or, rather, we don’t think about the standing side.

We should. It really significantly improves the quality of our turns, even if we don’t immediately see an increase in quantity.

If we’re already thinking about the free-side hip and shoulder coming around, thinking about the standing side as well should help us initiate the diagonal, contralateral activation pattern in the core that keeps body and soul … or, well, shoulder and hip … together.

Though you may have already guessed that I added it as an afterthought, the “…but gently” is also important. Since we’re not trying to knock anyone out in a ballet—or, not literally, anyway—there is such a thing as too much force.

Too much force can knock you off your leg or simply make it hard to stop turning at the right moment (and while facing the correct direction … just refusing to turn your neck again because you have to move on to the next step doesn’t actually kill your turn’s momentum very effectively).

Likewise, you need a kind of sustained explosion. You can’t just go, “BOOM!” and let the body take care of things.

Instead, you need something more like one of those really long rolls of distant thunder: maybe not L O U D, but strong the whole time. Steady.

Like, as Mr D said today (assuming I even heard this right) drinking a McDonald’s shake.

That’s probably a whole separate post, though.

In case you’re wondering about the bracketed note at the top (“[Listen with the ears … Keep the eyes tracking]”), it’s specific to a thing I noticed during a waltz combination. Mr D was giving me some corrections, and I totally fell apart.

This led to a lovely flash of insight in which I realized that when I’m trying to listen to something while dancing, I turn (or try not to turn!) my head in ways that wreak havoc upon my aplomb and last waste to my spot (and with it, my turns).

D’oh!

I have trouble processing language anyway, so I tend to stiffen up when I’m trying to listen to spoken words. I also kind of back-burner my vision when I’m listening to speech—it just takes a lot of clock cycles, so to speak. (Anyone who’s ever tried to speak to me when the TV is on or when I’m engaged in a visual task will know exactly what I mean.)

I’ve known both these things for most of my life, and yet I never realized how very specifically they apply to ballet classes until yesterday.

One last thing: in case you think my handwriting is usually as nice as it seems in my notes at the top of the second image, check out the bottom.

The notes at the top were written at a very leisurely speed. The ones at the bottom were my rather frantic attempt to record some of Oberon’s stage business.

Sadly, they’re actually fairly legible compared to my everyday handwriting … Basically, if I have to write quickly (which is to say, at a normal note-taking rate), it’s not going to be legible.

Ah, well. You can’t have everything, and if I’m forced to choose between legible handwriting and better turns, I’ll take the turns.