Author Archives: asher
&*@# Detraining
So there is a phenomenon that is called detraining.
It’s what happens when first you train your body—whether through the conscientious application of strength and aerobic workouts or as a byproduct of being the kind of wacko who spends all his time in ballet class—and then find yourself forced to sit on your duff for a while.
In case you’re wondering, the better part of 7 weeks (roughly a month of illness followed by about three weeks on break) will do ya just fine.
So, as of yesterday, my schedule is back in full swing now (well, except for the fact that we’re having a snow day today). Wednesday began with Killer Class (not as killerific as usual, but even a mild Killer Class is still pretty killtastic). Next came two hours of attempting to teach some pretty athletic choreography to some Dance Team kids, then a quick break to stuff a burrito in my face. I got to the aerials studio early, so I spent roughly 30 minutes of dancing because there was music and I couldn’t sit still. Then came Trapeze 3 (during which I admitted to myself and to everyone else that I am hella weak right now), chased with a nice shot of Acro 2 (during which I attempted to both base and fly everything).
Today, perhaps unsurprisingly, significant portions of my body feel rather like they might be full of the kind of fine grit one sees on sandpaper. I suppose I should be grateful that it hasn’t reached the “My Body Is A Bag of Ground Glass” point on the DOMS scale, though (also, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to, so hallelujah to that).
Anyway, this sucks (#FirstWorldProblems, I know), and I’m feeling whiny (because we dancers are super tough until we aren’t), so you get to read about it.
That said, it’s good to be back, so to speak.
~
In other news, Killer Class got a new boy. He’s quite good and actually very nice, so of course I immediately did not think to ask him if he, for example, has a name.
Now he is cursed to be New Boy forever, which could be problematic, because yesterday we automatically turned into Team Ballet Boys and if we continue to be Team Ballet Boys, we should probably know each-others’ names at least.
All told, I have few complaints about yesterday’s Killer Class. It wasn’t a great class for me, but the way in which it wasn’t great was very much the way one expects when one hasn’t been in class in ages and ages and ages. I felt weak, but it wasn’t like I had forgotten how to dance. I just wasn’t strong enough to do things as well as I usually do.
Turns went well, though. We used them both in our adage and, of couse, for terra-a-terre. My doubles not only have not abandoned me, but are much better now that I’m not A) flinging the baby or B) leaving my hips behind(1).
- My new rule for turns and partnering: during turns and lifts, I pretend that my torso is basically a block of wood from the bottom half of the ribs down; that way I don’t bend in places where I shouldn’t. It’s a mental visualization thing that keeps me from detaching at the navel(2).
- I mean, not literally detaching at the navel. That would be, erm, messy.
Now I just need to stop anticipating the spot. I’ve realized that one of my problems, turns-wise, is that I don’t leave my head behind until it needs to turn and then whip it around, I do this crazy thing where I’m somehow starting off that way, but then whipping my head around early so it’s actually ahead (no pun intended :{) of the rest of the turn. WTF, head?
Anyway, terre-a-terre was basically, “Turns, followed by turns, followed by even more turns.” (Though, in fact, it began with B+, step right, developpé avant, developpé avant. There was also a piqué arabesque in there somewhere.) So that was nice.
New Boy and I started out as two thirds of the first group, then ran back around to repeat the first side. No one followed us back around, so we wound up at the back of the line on the second side, and then the class sorted itself into Team Professionals (Dancers & Doctors), Team Tall Girls en Pointe, and Team Ballet Boys.
Also, I remembered both my Garmin Vivofit and my heart rate monitor strap yesterday. The hilarious outcome of this breakthrough in planning was that I noticed, to my great puzzlement, that my heart rate was significantly higher during adagio than during either terre-a-terre or jumps.
Then I realized that ultimately boiled down to one thing:
you guys, it really helps to breathe.
Technique: Hypermobility, Proprioception, and Balances
Third in a series of posts on the details of technique that focuses primarily on steps and aspects of dance that I’m struggling with. Take it with a grain of salt.
I find it helpful to write things out in an effort to get a grip on them. These aren’t so much instructions (though if they work for you, awesome!) as observations.
I’ve written a bit before about the often-ridiculous relationship between hypermobility, proprioception, and one’s extremities. In this post, I’ll take a closer look at that relationship—and especially on how it pertains to balances (rather than to balancés).
Remember this shot by Mas? At this angle of articulation, my wrist doesn’t even really feel bent.
To sum things up, proprioception(1) is the vastly under-celebrated sixth sense that tells us, among other things, where in space our body parts are relative to one-another. It depends in part on stretch receptors that hang out in the muscles and joint capsules.
- Wikipedia actually has a pretty good article explaining what proprioception does, why it’s important, and how it works.
Hypermobility, meanwhile, is a catch-all term for conditions in which one’s connective tissues are more elastic than average. In dance, this is both a blessing (see: Woot! Extensions!) and a curse (see: OMG WHERE EVEN IS MY BODY RIGHT NOW?!).
This, of course, makes perfect sense if you think about it. Dance demands both a huge range of motion and highly-developed proprioceptive faculties. Hypermobility enhances range of motion(2), but it reduces proprioception(3).
Moar behind the cut, because this is really long!
OMG This Month in Dance
First of all, um, Happy New Year, errbody. I sorta missed the boat on that one. D and I actually managed to stay up ’til midnight for maybe the second time in our life together(1).
- Possibly the deepest irony in my life right now is that, for all my implacable insomnia, I never seem to manage to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve these days. WTF is that about?
I’m still kind of wrestling with depression, so I’m making the most of the last two days of my reprieve break from the chaos. I’ve been organizing like a madperson, and also sort of crafting things, because … I dunno. Apparently my current response to OMG The World Might End is, like, nesting?
Although I have never before in my life had the urge to cover a coffee can with contact paper, yesterday (in a fit of covering recycled cardboard boxes to hold things like plastic utensils, because I am apparently That Gay Guy after all and realized I would be more satisfied with attractive utensil-holders than with unattractive ones) I did just that. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it turns out that it’s a perfect fit for all the junk(2) that lives on my side of our vanity(3). Also looks pretty nice, actually.
- Said junk includes sunblock (because I am the whitest white boy who ever whited; I am like, nuclear-winter white), Boudreaux’s Butt Paste All-Natural (good for bicycle-induced irritation; also good for that stupid thing where I decide it isn’t important to shave the hollows where my thighs join my pelvis in the morning and then wear an effing dance belt all day … NOT A GOOD IDEA, guys(4)), my deodorant, off-brand Gold Bond powder that I use only occasionally, and … erm, I’m sure there’s somethin else in there? All these things used to be able to fall off of the vanity individually, now they have to either stay put or fall off collectively.
- My drawers (each roughly shoebox-sized) hold socks, underwear, and miscellany (stuffed wolf keychain, old phone because why?, LOLCATs dog book that I forgot to give a friend of mine ages ago, spare glasses, etc); D’s hold a few sweaters rolled up into furry cylinders, a bunch of t-shirts he probably doesn’t even remember, and our communal dress accessories—pocket squares with matching ties, etc. The middle drawer holds who even knows what; the small top drawers are reserved for cufflinks (of which we have many, thanks to my weird obsession with cufflinks), jewelry (of which we have almost none), and G-d alone knows what else. I should really go through my miscellany and would-be-jewelry drawers again. Also the middle drawer. Pretty sure that if I don’t know what’s in it, we don’t need any of that stuff.
- My skin isn’t quite as sensitive as my Dad’s was, but it’s still pretty sensitive, and Ehrlers-Danlos makes it a little fragile. Couple this with the fact that I have almost no body hair except for the annoyingly-assertive stripe down the inner side of each thigh, and I have a recipe for disaster if I don’t shave at all, and even worse disaster if I try to let it go for more than a day or two.
Getting back to class will be good for me (even though it will also kill me, because Jiminy Freaking Cricket, jumping right back into Killer Class is a terrible idea).
This month also begins the mad dash to March 11th. “Work Song” (or possibly another piece that I really want to do, but first I’ll have to discuss the idea with my dancers; it might not be kosher to change horses just now) goes up then.
Also this month, D is taking me to the inaugural Louisville Dance Series performance, and I’m taking him to Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet (speaking of LINES, I need to go pick up my tickets). The day after LINES, the team has a competition (I can’t call them “the girls” anymore; we have a boy now … yasssssss!).
This semester promises to be, in a word, cray. Or whatever the 2017 version of Cray is. You know: wack. Insane. Hell-bent for leather.
On the other hand, if I live, I’ll be going to Pilobolus’ summer workshop, which is immensely exciting (it’s also exciting that I can write that off as a business/education expense—professional development/continuing ed, I love you so much). Which reminds me, I need to check in with ABM about which week she wants to go, so I can potentially schedule other intensive things around it.
So January promises to be a bit intense, but worth it. In February, we’re going to see Lexington Ballet’s performance of Romeo and Juliet for my birthday. Huzzah!
Speaking of which: when my Mom was pregnant with me, she ran past her due date, and was given the options to induce with an eye towards delivery on the 10th or with an eye towards delivery on the 14th.
She chose the 10th, a kindness for which I remain, to this day, very grateful. It’s one thing to be born in a month that everyone hates (poor, unloved February: I actually love February in New England, but here it’s a cold, drizzly misery); quite another to be born on the specific day that, it sometimes seems, half the world regards as Obligatory Jewelry-Purchasing Day and the other half regards as Unwarranted Oppression of Single Persons Day.
Anyway, that’s it. This is basically a whole post about nothing, but there you have it.
Not sure how much I’ll be posting in January, because I have no idea how my schedule is going to shake out (especially WRT rehearsal scheduling, which is going to be interesting, since we’re all rehearsing six million different things).
I will try to post at least once a week, though.
Whine and Jeez Party
2016 has been, in many ways, an unrepentant bastard of a year.
Basically all of the defining cultural icons of D’s generation have shuffled off this mortal coil, along with people like the gent who wrote Watership Down and the lady who proved that Dark Matter is a thing(1).
- Someone on the facebarge suggested that this is all evidence that David Bowie has created an alternate universe and is selectively populating it. I’m down with that.
Burning Man was even more contentious than usual (though not in my little circle of super-cool Burners: we try to actually talk rationally about the problems in Burning Man and find ways to solve them, instead of exploding in anger).
Kentucky installed a governor who is the living personification of everything people from Connecticut imagine to be true about people from Kentucky, but don’t generally say because we’re busy reminding ourselves that it’s wrong to think that way(2).
- It’s human nature, so feeling guilty about it is pointless, but it’s still wrong. Guilt accomplishes nothing; action, on the other hand, moves mountains. Just like it’s human nature to punch your little brother in the arm and take his candy, but you learn to overcome that impulse (even though sometimes as an adult you still want to punch people people and take their
candyself-righteous bombast). The process of becoming a good human is often the process of learning to master the desire to be a giant Chrome Dickface(3). It’s a process in which mountains are moved one pebble at a time. - Chrome Dickface, in turn, is a kind of ur-asshat character that Robert and I made up by accident one time when we were chatting on the Internets and Chrome was being a dickface. Chrome Dickface has now come to stand in for basically all forms of ass-hattery in my world.
People got their knickers in a twist over whether transfolk should be allowed to pee in peace. People couldn’t understand what it meant when other people said Black Lives Matter. People did the exact opposite of what Jesus/the Buddha/Muhammad/Ghandi/Mother Theresa/etc would do, and often did it in the name of G-d.
To them I say:
And let’s not even get started on the whole US general election fiasco (4) and Brexit(5).
- Less the results (bad enough) than the general ass-hattery on all sides leading up to Election Day (demoralizing).
- I can’t help seeing seeing these as related cultural phenomena; two expressions of the same simmering discontent, one in each side of the pond: Chrome Asshat Victorious.
This isn’t to say that good things didn’t happen. They certainly did for me (Summer intensives! Triple turns! BW’s class! Marco Island! Commuting manatees!)
But the Zeitgeist, frankly, is probably best characterized as a destructive toddler who occasionally offers a bite of his candy bar to individual people whilst still generally creating wrack and ruin.
As such, I’m thinking about hosting a Whine and Jeez party, maybe after the New Year commences, to see off this dumpster fire of a 2016. The idea is that it will be a place to safely whinge about the Disasters of 2016, say “Jeez, I’m glad that’s over,” and commiserate whilst snacking.
I’m still on the fence about it, because I’m afraid to host parties because I don’t think anyone will come. Deep within, I’m still the wildly unpopular kid who cannot believe that anyone actually likes him.
But I rather like the idea, anyway.
So that’s my idea for sending off 2016.
The Badger Cabinet Problem, Episode 01: Possible Solutions?
D installed new cabinets in our kitchen some while before I arrived in his life.
He bought them as a lot, rather than having them custom-built, because he’s the frugal kind of person who does that kind of thing and makes it work (I love that about him).
Anyway, I think our cabinets were originally intended for a more typically-sized and -laid out kitchen. This led to one significant problem: a deep, inaccessible well in a corner where two cabinets should connect, but don’t.
Well, there’s your problem. (Also, full disclosure: the weird, sugary pink lemonade mix belongs to D, but I am the one who drinks the nasty instant coffee.)
I’ve dealt with the problem, thus far, by shoving things I rarely use into that deep, dark well.
This is all (ahem) well and good until I actually do need to use them. Then, it’s a giant pain in the neck to pull everything out of the near end of the cabinet so I can fish around in the far end, hoping against hope that nothing with big, sharp teeth is hiding in there(1).
- Okay, it’s fairly unlikely that there are, say, badgers living in my cabinets, but there’s still something I instinctively dislike about shoving my arms into dark hidey-holes.
Yarrr. Here be badgers.
On the other hand, if anyone needs a secure place to stash the One Ring for a few decades, my Badger Cabinet is probably a good choice.
Anyway, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with a better way to manage the Badger Cabinet, and I think I’ve finally figured something out thanks to a really expensive sliding spice rack.
Denis would almost certainly murder me if I spent nearly $80 on a sliding spice rack right now, or even $45 on the single-tier version that holds “large containers,” but he almost certainly(2) won’t murder me if I buy some appropriately-sized plastic or metal bins and some of those stick-on felt slidey feet, as long as I don’t spend too much money.
- I say almost certainly because D doesn’t understand my desire to organize things into easily-removable units. He has no problem with removing 15,000,000 individual small items in order to access one large item, probably because HE NEVER PUTS ANYTHING AWAY, EVER(3). /me stomps off in a huff
- Seriously, this is true. You should see his work bench
But he makes up for it by his many other excellent qualities, like knowing how to do plumbing and already owning a Fancy Stand Mixer so I didn’t have to buy one ^.-
One set of bins could go up front, so rather than removing a bazillion individual bottles of miscellaneous oils, tins of baking powder, bags of baking soda (I have discovered that you can buy baking soda, which I use both for cooking and cleaning, in 2-pound bags), I’ll just have to remove a few bins.
The slidey feet will make it easier to get the the bins in the back out.
Et violà—no more sticking my poor, naked arms into potentially badger-infested dark holes.
I will have to measure our fancy stand mixer to confirm this, but it might even be possible to move the Fancy Stand Mixer (which currently lives atop the fridge, where I can’t reach it for fear of dropping it on my own head; that thing is heavy) to the cabinet, where I could potentially wrestle it free without risking cranial injury. Then I could actually use said Fancy Stand Mixer.
That or else I could move the Fancy Stand Mixer to the spot on the countertop where the SodaStream and several cookbooks currently live, then move those guys into the cabinet above or onto the top of the fridge.
I could even move all the random junk that lives in the large cabinet under the flatware drawer up into the Badger Cabinet and then use it to store things like the bread machine (also currently inaccessible due to its precarious perch atop the fridge) and possibly some of my loaf pans, cupcake molds, and so forth.
There’s also a Badger Cabinet on my stove. Right now, it holds all the muffin tins, loaf pans, and so forth, but they’re not very well organized. (Okay, really, they’re barely organized at all.) I have some plans to improve that situation; the challenge is finding the right parts. I’m thinking a combination of slim tension rods and some kind of heat-resistant shelf could work.
So there we have it. A possible solution for the Problem of the Badger Cabinet. I’ll check back in once I try implementing one of my possible solutions.
Miscellany
1. I Dream Of Turning
Last night, I dreamt very vividly about successfully attempting quadruple turns. I should probably note, though, that the class in question took place in something like a a church fellowship hall, we had to clear up folding tables and chairs first, and I accidentally stole some girl’s water.
But still, I hope the turns part will be like the dreams in which I sorted out Albrecht’s variation.
~
2. Things I Don’t Like About My House
- Low ceilings. 8-foot ceilings are sub-optimal for dancers, chandeliers, heat distribution in punishing Southern summers, and ceiling fans.
- Lack of cross-ventilation. This house was built after WW II, and the floor plan seems to assume central air conditioning. It does not have central aircon, however, and thus is a boiling misery even on days when a little proper cross-ventilation could solve the problem.
- Too much clutter. I find it hard to clean around clutter. D won’t get rid of his stuff, so instead I’m getting rid of mine bit by bit.
- Too many small rooms. There’s no reason a house this size should have a separate dining room at the expense of counter- and cabinet-space in the kitchen (which it too small even for a rolling island). If I make one major change to this house, it will be to knock out a couple completely-extraneous walls (they don’t even have have electrical outlets, let alone ductwork or structural importance) to join the kitchen and dining room. This will allow for a much better kitchen while still preserving a reasonable dining area.
- The location. Our neighborhood is not walkable at all by most people’s standards. By mine, it is unpleasant to walk in. This is one thing about the house that I can’t change.
- Edit: Oh, yeah—left out the thing that inspired this post in the first place. I really profoundly dislike the fact that the front door opens right into the living room. Full disclosure: I grew up in a pretty big house with an actual foyer. This is the only place I’ve lived that had an entry directly into the living room. It feels weird and exposed. Maybe that could be changed along with the kitchen, if we stick around long enough. On the other hand, it’s probably not worth it.
3. Things I Do Like About My House
- It’s a house. At the end of the day, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
- The kitchen, though tiny and not terribly efficient, is rather private. I actually used to hate that; I would find myself washing up after dinner and bitterly resenting the fact that D was relaxing in the living room, watching TV. Then I thought the problem through and realized that I could listen to documentaries or podcasts while working. Now my kitchen is really a haven for me; a place where I can both be alone (which, as an introvert, I desperately need) and get things done (which makes me happy).
- The port de bras mirror in the bathroom. There’s a huge mirror, probably 5 feet wide by four feet high, that takes up an entire wall (from the edge of the linen cabinet to the side wall of the house). This mirror is where I practice port de bras. This and video are why my arms look less stupid than they used to.
- The colors. D is not afraid of color, and as such we do not live in a sea of beige. Truth be told, this was also a factor in his making it past the Just Friends stage. The fear of color says a great deal about a person. I’d rather live with someone who decorates boldly and badly than with a timid soul who is afraid to decorate at all. Fortunately, D does it boldly and well.
- The world’s most efficient furnace. Seriously, the thing is dedicated and does its job insanely well. Our electric bill can be rather high in the summer, but it’s balanced by the ridiculously low gas bill in the winter.
- The mid-century main floor bathroom. For a long time, I thought I wanted to completely redo the main floor bath. The downstairs bath (technically a 3/4 bath, as it has a stand-up shower of the variety in which one whacks one’s elbows whilst shampooing one’s hair) is beautiful and modern, and I thought I wanted the main-floor bath to be beautiful and modern as well. However, as it stands, it has rather a charming mid-century modern feel that could be fully realized by replacing a few broken floor tiles, removing a seriously hideous set of shower doors, and repainting the walls. I haven’t decided whether to replace the shower doors with something period-appropriate or something more up-to-date, but unobtrusive.
- The window above the kitchen sink. US homes built before the 1970s almost always feature a window right above the kitchen sink. For some reason, newer homes often lack this feature. Few things say, “Homemakers don’t matter,” quite as effectively as staring at a blank, depressing wall whilst doing the washing-up. Fortunately, my house does not suffer from this.
So that’s today’s unusually-pedestrian post.
Work Song: Shift on the Fly
Turns out I won’t be able to use GM after all. I think I’m going to reset for three dancers, even though it means shaking up the dynamics of the piece.
I originally conceived it as a piece for like 8 male dancers (8 female or neutrois or whatever would work, too), then reset for two men and two women. The basic idea was to avoid traditional male-female partnering, because there’s too much cultural freight attached to it. I guess I hadn’t yet stepped away from the idea of working in even numbers, though 😛
Using two girls and one boy will make it more challenging to shake off that baggage—but, on the other hand, as an artist, I can use that.
All this is good. It’s forcing me to get out of my own head and take risks I might not otherwise have taken. I’m not always great at rolling with the changes, but, honestly that’s part of working in dance.
I’m also trying hard not to cling to my own ideas about how audiences are likely to understand things. If anything, though, I can use those expectations; if I reset the opening to work within them, then use the part to step out of them, that would work, too.
I need to remember that part of art is going where you’re led, even when you don’t want to.
Truth be told, it’s a little funny that I’ve gotten so hung up in this. The long ballet I’m working on, Simon Crane, is arranged in such a way that both the principal roles (Simon Crane and The Naturalist) could conceivably be played by dancers of whatever gender you’ve got on hand.
On the other hand, Simon Crane is a love story (albeit a strange and complicated one, but is there any other kind in ballet?) whereas “Work Song” is basically the antithesis of that: it’s not about any kind of romantic entanglement, period.
I’ll work with AM and AS on communicating the intent of the piece as clearly as I can. In the long run, one of the best (and most dangerous) things about art is that as soon as you put it out into the world, you no longer get to control what it means.
The audience that watches this piece, ultimately, will take away whatever meaning they see, and that’s okay.
I’m beginning to realize that that’s one of the hardest things for me, as an artist. Once I create a thing and it’s out in the world, I can no longer control what happens to it. That feels scary, but I’m glad that I’ve figured out that’s what I’m feeling.
Honestly, though, more than anything I’m immensely excited about being given this chance to show my work to the world both as a choreographer and as a dancer.
Also, the fewer people in the cast, the easier scheduling becomes 😀
So there’s that.
Work Song: Adjustments
So, I’m writing this at 3 AM, but scheduling it for Actual Morning.
We’ve had a late casting change for Work Song. My other boy wound up with a bounty of work projects, and he’s swamped. I’m fine with that; in the gig economy that feeds so many artists, you have to strike while the iron is hot. I love his work, so I’m excited about seeing more of it down the line, even though it means losing him for this piece.
Last night I asked GM, a fellow aerialist, if he’d like to try jumping in. His formal training in dance is pretty minimal, but he’s a very good mover. I think he’ll be able to roll with it. AM, AS, and I will be able to coach him on technique.
Interestingly, bringing in a less-experienced dancer has helped me to streamline my choreography a bit. I had about five different ideas for the third phrase, and only one of them is something I’d feel confident handing to someone with limited dance vocabulary.
It’s good to work with limitations. They make decision-making easier and help to shape the finished work. Just as the stone tells the sculptor what figure lies within, sometimes the dancers shape the vision of the choreographer.
We should be able to start rehearsing next week or the first week of January.
Ultimately, this piece is only about 3.5 minutes long. The rehearsal process will be less about learning the choreography, which shouldn’t be too hard, and more about making it really sing. There’s a lot of partnering in this piece, though it’s largely not of the classical-ballet bent. GM takes acro with me, so I suspect he can handle it. Timing and musicality are the open questions, one everyone learns the choreography.
I guess, really, this is my first professional project as a choreographer-director. I’m learning on the fly how to cast dancers, schedule rehearsals, teach choreography to four busy performers with very different backgrounds, make costuming decisions, and so on and so forth.
Having done it once, I feel like doing it again won’t be so difficult. The biggest ongoing challenge will be finding rehearsal spaces on a budget of $Zip.ZilchNada. The nice part in this case is that rehearsal space is built in. I teach with AS, and this performance is part of the Instructors’ Showcase, so we will be rehearsing at the studio.
Finding dancers isn’t incredibly difficult. I’ve managed to connect with a decent handful of adult ballet students who want to perform, including a fairly advanced core group. My aerials family is made up mostly of very game performers, a few of whom have reasonable dance training.
I might have to learn how to do fundraising stuff. The internets should make that easier.
I’m pretty excited about all of this. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the cat-herding involved in scheduling rehearsals 😛
That might not be as bad as it could be, though, because we’re all attached to the aerials studio, and we all spend a lot of time there.
More to come. It’s weird how far 2016 (the Year of the Dumpster Fire) has taken me as a dancer. No matter what I’ve said, one year ago I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d be staging a piece (for four dancers!) with so much confidence.
Gives me something to look forward to in 2017 (which, hilariously, is the Year of the Cock).
Technique: Don’t Fling The Baby
The second in a series of posts on the details of technique that focuses primarily on steps I’m struggling with. Take it with a grain of salt.
I find it helpful to write things out in an effort to get a grip on them. These aren’t so much instructions (though if they work for you, awesome!) as observations.
Hi. My name is Asher, and I’m a baby-flinger.
Wait, wait, wait! I don’t mean it like that.
I have never literally flung a baby. Hell, I’ve (still) never even held a baby. Those things are terrifying. I reserve my child-handling efforts for those at least one year of age, and by then, they’re toddlers already.
What I mean is that I do crazy stuff with my arms when I’m doing turns. Sometimes, anyway.
And this isn’t your standard crazy stuff, like the traditional “winding up for the fast-ball pitch” method or the beginners’ special “just not even having any idea what to do with the arms in the first place” method. I’ve (mostly) overcome the fast-ball method and I don’t think I ever suffered from the “not having any idea” method(1).
- At least not with turns; with everything else, on the other hand…
No, this is something else. Something, erm, special.
So here’s the thing:
When you do turns, your supporting-side arm opens in preparation, then closes as you initiate the turn.
Your shoulders and hips stay together.
Your working-side arm does not then lead the supporting-side arm in a breakaway that basically resembles attempting to rock-a-bye baby right into space.
Me? I’m a baby-flinger.
Apparently, just as I get excited about piqué turns and sometimes wind up doing them as if they were some kind of insane piqué-jeté en tournant, I get excited about pirouettes and try to launch babies into orbit.
Clearly, they don’t need my help(2).
- Vintage Chinese Space Program poster, via Ricardo Goulart, via Tumblr, via shameless internet thievery. You’re welcome.
My supporting-side arm closes to meet the working-side arm, and then they both continue merrily along on a trajectory that throws the whole thing off kilter(3).
- The fact that I have ever managed a triple turn is particularly astounding in light of this revelation.
Obviously, this is a problem—and it’s one I never noticed before JP subbed for advanced class (because Nutcracker) and called me out on it.
Oddly enough, when I control it, turns are so much easier.
Now, if I was a Real Grown-Up™, I might just remember that my arms should stay with my body and not go sailing off on their own mission.
But I’m not. So instead, when it’s time for turns, I tell myself:
Don’t fling the baby!
It’s probably worth noting that I do a lot more of this when I’m turning from fourth or second. Why? Because those are POWER TURNS!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone1one
And apparently I am maddened by power. But with great power comes great responsibility—specifically, the more powerful the turn, the more responsible you are for NOT FLINGING THE BABY, for goodness’ sake.
If you’re having trouble with turns and you’ve already checked and found that you’re:
- not winding up for a fast-ball pitch
- not letting your shoulders twist away from your hips, and
- not just completely uncertain how to do turns in the first place,
consider asking yourself, “Am I flinging the baby?”
Parents everywhere will thank you.
Or maybe they won’t, as previously noted:babies—those things are terrifying(4).
- Though this doesn’t mean I don’t want one of my very own sometimes. I have noticed that they’ve grown less terrifying in recent years, culminating in the birth of O, the Actually-Adorable Poster Baby, to one of the Aerials Goddesses who owns my studio.
I forgot to note that, on Saturday, I finally got the thing where you tour lent/promenade just by scooting the heel.
Seriously, I thought I had this, but evidently I didn’t. When you’re doing it right, you really don’t have to bounce up onto semi-demi point.
On the other hand, you do have to engage the living daylights out of your turnouts and keep everything square.
Obviously, this is a topic for another post, but I thought I’d write myself (and you) a note about it so I don’t forget.
Technique: Notes On Tombe-Coupe-Jete
I’m launching a series of post on the details of technique. It’ll probably consist primarily of steps I’m struggling with, so take it with a grain of salt.
I find it helpful to write things out in an effort to get a grip on them. These aren’t so much instructions (though if they work for you, awesome!) as observations.
Tombé-coupé-jeté is a subset of coupé-jeté en tournant (if you do jazz, you might know this as a “calypso,” if I understood my classmate correctly).
As its name implies, it’s a compound step. The elements are:
- a tombé into a
- turn at coupé
- that lends its rotation to a jeté
Some form or another of coupé-jeté en tournant shows up in men’s technique a lot—QV Le Corsaire’s famous (and famously-hard) Slave variation, the Pas de Trois from Swan Lake, a whole bunch of stuff in Nutcracker, etc, etc.
Coupé-jeté pass starts at ~1:20 This guy knows what he’s about.
Also, I like the way he moves.
The tombé version is the one I’m concerned with here.
I’ve been wrestling with making my tombé-coupé-jeté consistent on both sides so I can use it in choreography without having to think about it (because thinking is basically death to my ballet technique; it makes my brain overheat and crash).
The basic mechanics, traveling right, go like this:
- Tombé onto the right leg.
- Bring the left leg to coupé while executing a turn en dedans.
- Your arms help to provide momentum for the turn.
- Don’t leave your body behind!
- Transfer weight onto the left foot. Your left leg will be in a demi-plié.
- Simultaneously, grand battement the right leg just as you would for a plain old vanilla jeté.
- Spring off the left leg.
JP’s notes:
- For men’s technique: tombé to second (you get a bigger jump, and men’s technique is basically be distilled into How To Get A Bigger Jump).
- I realized today that I kept tombé-ing to something like 2.5ième. Bleh.
- It works a lot better if you actually really do tombé to an actual 2nd.
- The turn happens in the coupé.
- NOT in the tombé.
- NOT in the jeté*.
- *The remaining momentum from the turn will cause the jeté to rotate slightly, but if you think of the turn as being in the jeté, you’ll inevitably add a rond-de-jambe, and everything will go right to Hell in a hand-basket.
So, basically, this is “how not to pirouette,” but, eh. You get the point.
- I tend to start unfurling my working leg at the wrong point in this turn. DO NOT DO THIS. It throws everything else off, and also results in a wobbly flight path.
- The right leg sweeps STRAIGHT OUT, as in grand battement, avant or to 2nd (I’m not actually sure if one is correct and the other incorrect; I didn’t think to ask JP).
- The working leg does not rond.
- I repeat, the working leg DOES NOT ROND.
- I find that it helps to think “Grand battement!” rather than “Don’t rond!”
So let’s think about how this all works on the right.
- The tombé loads the right leg, providing impetus for the turn just as the plié does at the beginning of a pirouette.
- The arms come together to add to the momentum of the turn as the left leg snaps to coupé.
- The body has to stay connected—the shoulders and hips must travel together—in order to execute this movement well. This is true for all turns, but especially true for coupé-jeté en tournant.
- The coupé builds momentum that will allow the jeté to sail along a curvilinear pathway.
- At the end of the turn, the weight is transferred to the left leg in demi-plié. The right leg sweeps straight out to initiate the jeté.
- The jump lands on the right leg. It’s possible to move right into another coupé-jeté en tournant or into another step entirely.
Here’s what I tend to do wrong when doing tombé-coupé-jeté en tournant.
- I tombé into some weird 2.5iéme kind of position instead of a clean 2nd.
- I fail to keep my hips and shoulders together.
- I try to come out of the turn at coupé to soon.
- I sometimes snap the leg up as one would in saut de chat instead of sweeping it straight up.
- I rond the leading leg in the jump to compensate for exiting the turn too early.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I did do about a million slow-motion coupé-jetés on my living room carpet while trying to work all of this out.
Anyway, now I know what I’m doing wrong, so I should have a better time getting it all sorted.
In the meantime, here’s a really good video that demonstrates coupé-jeté en tournant. I should probably note that I’ve only watched it with the sound off, so I have no idea what it sounds like 😛
danseur ignoble 