So the audition was a bit mixed (kept reminding myself that almost nobody else had 100% of any individual phrase, either), but overall a complete blast — especially loved the partnering improv.
Also, I think my legs are going to fall off.
Author Archives: asher
Teaching Adult Beginners: They Grow Up So Fast!
My Sunday class is making amazing strides — their tendus, dégages, and even ronds de jambe looked so great this week.
I also experienced one of those great moments in which I grabbed a student’s leg and demonstrated how rotation and placement could help her A) keep her RdJs smooth and B) balance her arabesque, and then got to see that amazing thing where the light-bulb inside just clicks on.
And then she did it again, completely on her own, without my meddlesome, grabby hands 😀
That was the best part, and really the highlight of the day. Such a cool moment!
I also guided her into a first arabesque (really, I just offered her my hand so she’d extend her arm to the right spot) so she could feel how the working leg and opposite arm connect through the back and counter-balance each-other, and she totally got it.
(Also, her arabesque looked awesome! Her back is really strong and flexible, which really helps — thanks, aerials! Likewise, because she wasn’t fighting to try to get a super-high extension, she was rock-solid.)
Something I’ve learned through my own experiences returning to ballet and teaching:
New dancers don’t just find it hard to locate the center-line of their bodies when the working leg is to the rear.
They also (and perhaps more importantly) often find that working to the center-line seems a little weird, unnatural, and sometimes even scary … until they try it and it clicks!
For me, that light-bulb moment came when I realized that I could keep my turnout more easily and effectively in RdJs if I really got the working leg all the way back to the center-line, and then that the same applied to tendus. This happened more recently than it should have, if I were better at A) listening and B) applying corrections 
Prior to that moment, I guess I kind of felt like I’d lose my turnout that way. Sometimes, ballet can be pretty counter-intuitive.
If you’re engaging all the (right) things, though, drawing the arc of the RdJ or the line of the tendu right freaking back from the tailbone lets you stay turned-out without lifting (or dropping) a hip.
(That, by the way, is the other part that’s hard for people: they feel like they need to lift that hip even when they don’t. Which, if they’re using correct technique and working within the ever-evolving limits of their own bodies, they shouldn’t at this level, or almost ever.)
This is still one of the best ways I know to gauge my own placement: if my working leg is taking too much weight in a tendu to the rear, or I’m hiking a hip in a RdJ en dedans, usually the problem is that I’m not getting my working leg behind myself.
Exception: if my pelvis is jammed — which happens with ridiculous frequency at the moment because Bodies Are Weird™ — I can’t RdJ without lifting the hip on the jammed side (very nearly always the right).
Instead, my working leg is usually kind of camping out in … I don’t know, 2.5-ième position? Working back to the center line by rotating and reaching generally resolves the related problems.
In some ways, and as much as part of me really hates to admit it (in part because I feel weird in third because I use it so rarely), I feel like this is a really good reason to teach adult beginners to work in third position before introducing fifth.
Then, when they come to tendu derrière or RdJ derrière, they have to think about moving the working leg in towards the center line (by rotating the heel forward and adducting, of course, rather than just by unraveling the working hip, letting the knee point to the floor, and shoving the toes over), which creates the opportunity to feel the difference that it makes when that happens.
Working from fifth, new dancers often tend to let their legs turn in when they extend back (see above re: unraveling, etc.).
Likewise, they often finish an RdJ or point a tendu a little to the side when working from fifth with the working foot closed in back — possibly because early on that seems like the only logical way to get your foot out there.
Later, of course, we get better at pulling up through the pelvic floor and lower core (also known as “pulling up through the hips” :D) and placing our weight to keep the working foot free when it’s in back — but early on, really subtle core cues and weight shifts are anything but intuitive.
With a little hands-on guidance, the sensation of bringing the leg back to the center line through (for example) a rond, on the other hand, can become a powerful physical illustration.
I doubt my student, C, will soon forget what it felt like to “get it” any more than I’ve forgotten.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that she’ll be perfect all the time — but it does mean she’ll be more perfect a lot more of the time, because now she has a memory that connects body and brain through the awesome feeling of an “Ah-hah!” moment.
In other news, the class as a whole is coming on like a house on fire.
Today we worked piqué balances at retiré going across the floor, and so many of them were bang on. It’s really cool to see a group of new dancers experience the thrill of springing on to the supporting leg and being able to just hover there, perfectly balanced, then come down.
We gave them a simple combination: piqué balances at retiré along the diagonal, to the count of:
Brush up – stay – stay – stay – down up – stay – stay – stay – down up – stay – stay – stay
(..etc. The number of piqué balances varied based both on the length of any individual dancer’s legs and how willing she was to really step out beyond herself.)
On the first run, we let them try it on their own. A few really nailed it, but several were shaky because, as is often the case, they felt unsure and tried to bring the supporting leg under themselves instead of launching themselves onto the supporting leg.
(Really, it’s kind of like throwing a BBQ skewer into the lawn — I’m not old enough to have experienced proper lawn darts, so I can’t say that’s exactly spot-on. Either way, that’s the image I should give them: your leg is a lance, and you’re spearing a reclining mammoth … or maybe something flatter, like a giant crocodile.)
What could possibly go wrong? (1)
On the second run, we simply rolled out the very-most-basic partnering, offering them a hand on which to steady themselves. Most of them literally put no weight on the hand in question, but knowing it was there made them feel safe, and the piqued more boldly.
So, lesson of the day for me: hesitant piqué balances might be the result of a little bit of fear. With new dancers, a little hand-holding (or, well, hand-offering) can really help.
(With more experienced dancers, though, yelling works just fine :D)
Anyway, that’s it for now. Sadly, I won’t be checking in with my students next week, as I’ll be off in the desert, doing tendus in the pool (and then building a freaking enormous theme camp at Burning Man).
~
Edit: fixed a thing. I don’t know why I was thinking these piqué balances were at coupé. They were at retiré. We’re planning on teaching these guys piqué turns sometime soon.
Further edit: just so you don’t think my Sunday class is really, really perfect, we still have to remind them about thinking of plié as a continuous movement. Today I explained this as:
Don’t drop and pop — melt and … um … smelt. Yeah, we’ll go with “smelt.”
Thank dog that Aerial A backed me up on that mnemonic 😀
Further, further edit: They have definitely turned into a dance class. Before class today, several them were attempting to figure out pirouettes (and kinda-sorta succeeding: they were upright, weren’t falling over, and were getting around, but they weren’t turned out or spotting).
Kinda warms my heart a little 😀
~
- By Mushy [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Advanced Class: Adagiohhh, Yeah!
I am happy to say that my group pwned adagio and terre-a-terre today.
I then proceeded to just sort of half-bakèdly mark my way through petit allegro because I didn’t want to overdo it.
Recently, CoB asked me what I want to work on. I really wanted to say, “Tours! grand allegro ! Men’s technique!”
… But I think the right answer is:
Petit allegro and arms.
Once my petit allegro sucks a bit less, we’ll get the men’s technique parts sorted.
TapPups! (Or: How Do We Make This Happen In Ballet?!)
Whilst folding laundry and watching a documentary about tap dancing, I learned of the amazing force of nature that is teacher-and-author Vicki G. Riordan and the possibly even-more-amazing force of nature that is her TapPups.
Vicki teaches tap to adults, and only adults (ranging in age from 21 to 86!), at her studio-cum-cultural center in Pennsylvania, which she describes as “Quite possibly the loudest place in America (what do you expect when you fill a room with 500 tap dancers).”
And she doesn’t just teach tap; she intentionally harnesses its power to transform. Her students — everyone from people struggling to cope with the things that suck in day-to-day life to women struggling to recover from abusive relationships — learn to use dance to lift themselves up.
That’s flat-out awesome.
Now, I’ll grant that tap — in which both room for joyful abandon and the ability to simply make noise are pretty much obviously inherent — probably seems, at first pass, like a more accessible way to learn that skill. It also probably seems less intimidating; less judgmental(1).
1.
Seriously: how many movies have you seen about eating-disordered tap dancers being drooled upon by scummy ADs?
None? Same here. Also, I’m pretty sure that if you want to understand how Americans conceptualize tap dancers versus ballet dancers, you should just watch Happy Feet and then watch Black Swan.
Actually, just watch a trailer for Black Swan, which will sum it up without making you sit through the whole train wreck, and then watch Happy Feet to make yourself feel better.
~
That said, my own experiences and those of so many dancers that I know either in “meatspace” or online have experienced the same kind of transformation through ballet.
We’ve just, erm, experienced it a little more quietly.
So, knowing that there are bajillions of people out there who were once little girls who dreamed of being ballerinas or little boys who secretly thought ballet was awesome, in addition to bajillions of people elsewhere on the gender spectrum who maybe always wanted to dance but didn’t because they felt uncomfortable about their bodies or what have you, I have to wonder what it would take to make something as a amazing as Vicki’s TapPups happen with adult ballet students.
I think, probably, the safe space of an all-adults, all-the-time program probably makes things easier for nervous newcomers (if not necessarily for parents of school-age kids with their oceans of after-school activities; there’s something to be said for your ballet class being at the same time and place as your kids’ classes).
Basically, I would love to figure out how to light this kind of fire under my studio’s adult program — because, honestly, I freaking love my (primary) studio, and I have learned so freaking much and come so freaking far in the past 2.5 years that it’s not even funny, and I’d rather drive this kind of love through their doors than work to form something that competes with that.
Anyway, I am seriously thinking I might read Ms. Riordan’s book, because this she a lady who clearly knows how not only how to get adults into the studio, but how to keep them there.
I suspect that one of the remarkable elements of her program is that she has formalized the social end of things — the lounge is a comfortable space where her dancers can hang out and chat; once a quarter, they have a tap jam session together; they offer a boot-camp program that takes both technique and fitness seriously(2).
2.
This is one of the reasons that I think serious adult dancers who are able to really should do everything in their power to get themselves to an intensive. The conditioning element alone moves mountains.
Anyway, I find the whole TapPups phenomenon pretty inspiring. Really demonstrates that where there’s a will, there’s a way!
…And now I’m off to watch some of my favorite dancers not die of heatstroke, I hope.
In Which Words Are Eaten, &c.
First, I am very much on the mend, and forced to admit once again that taking a few days off from class is perhaps more expedient than wheezing half-heartedly on, then making one’s self terribly sick and having to take a few weeks off.
Next, the Demiurges of Ballet saw fit to smile upon me in my convalescence and to make all of my new ballet junk arrive yesterday (excepting my grey tights, which arrived a couple of days ago).
Basically, after declaring my undying love for Sansha’s model 3/”Silhouette” shoes to BB (heretofore known as “B,” but there are too too many Bs in my life now!) and lamenting my suspicion that they’re discontinuing them, I figured that it would be well to order a backup pair or two.
My precioussssssssss…
…So I hopped on Sansha’s NY store website and basically bought everything that was on sale and one thing that wasn’t.
My beloved shoes are, indeed, in the last throes of clearance; I ordered one pair in black and one in white (because for like $3,why not?) but the white ones had already sold out, so they refunded me on those. I also bought a pair of stretch-canvas shoes in white (the thing that wasn’t on sale) to go with my very simple costume for my next Suspend performance; they seem like they’ll do nicely. Like the Silhouettes, they don’t bunch up under my arch when I point my foot.
I also bought a couple of shirts from the clearance page. Turns out I’m more like a size 5 in Sansha’s magical number system, but I’m okay with the fact that my shirts are nice and roomy.
Anyway, I also ordered a pair pair of black BalTogs suspender tights (which, it turns out, are convertible, foot-wise) and, finally, a BodyWrappers M007.
This is where the words-eating comes in.
I have have always maintained that I hate narrow elastics. It turns out that I apparently really don’t anymore.
The M007’s waistband, at 2″, isn’t terribly narrow, but it’s definitely narrower than anything else I’ve got.
Width Comparison, L-R: BW M006, Capezio, WM, BW M007
That said, it’s remarkably comfortable.
Rise-wise, it’s comparable to the WearMoi belt, which is interesting, since the M006 is so, well, tall.
Obviously, as I haven’t had a chance to wear it to class yet, I can’t really comment on its performance — but I imagine that it will do well.
In other news, I really quite like these suspendery tights, and I wouldn’t mind owning a pair of shorts of similar construction. They would be a good solution for trapeze class, in which it really helps to have garments that won’t roll up and expose your tender skin to the ropes (especially for for me; I’m allergic to the adhesive on the tape that we use to wrap them).
That’s it for now. Back to quasi-normal life tomorrow.
Wednesday Class: You Give Me (Mild) Fever
I seem to have caught a wee cold. I have a low-grade fever and a bit of the respiratory Blargh (didn’t realize this til after class).
Nothing serious thus far, so I will rest, watch, and eat hummus. Mmmmmmh, hummus.
On one hand, this is great — I’m normally sick a lot, this is quite mild, and it’s been months since I’ve actually been ill. So, in terms of averages, my staying-well game is improving. Sadly, one of the contributing factors has been riding the bike less (thus coddling my respiratory system, which apparently just can’t handle the outdoors). It is what it is.
On the other hand, I felt puny and weak in class this morning, and like if I kept one part of my body together, some other part went awry. Poor Ms. B kept coming by to fix one thing and having to watch as I unraveled in some other way. Fortunately, she knows me and my capabilities as a dancer, so the occasional blarghy day isn’t the end of the world.
Even my grand battement was less than grand today.
I did other things passably, including turns. By the time we got to medium allegro, though, my body was saying screw a bunch of this and my brisées were well and truly brisée (which, by by the way, means broken).
As such, I think I’m going to bow out of classes tonight and take a little more rest. Tomorrow we don’t have CoB’s class, so I think tomorrow will be another extra rest day. Friday, I’ll see where things stand.
Back to Modern Mondays next week. I’m going to have to think about how to arrange the rest of my week this semester.
The Restiest Rest Day
I am having an extremely rest-y rest day, and enjoying the hell out of it.
That is all ❤
Some Days It’s Hard
Recently I got a really exceptionally nice compliment from Ms. B — not on my musicality or my technique, but on my work ethic.
That meant a lot to me. In fact, it meant more than I really know how to express, because until recently I’ve really doubted my own work ethic.
I’ve always been one of those people who’s great at hyper-focusing on topics of interest (okay, okay, obsessions): thus, when I was around 12 or 13, and completely obsessed with dogs, I basically memorized the AKC breed standard. No, seriously, like the whole thing, all 127 or however-many fully-recognized breeds there were at that particular moment in AKC history(1), including the sub-types within breeds.
(1)In case you’re wondering, I don’t remember them all anywhere near as well now — or, well, they’re apparently still in there somewhere, because every now and then one or more will just pop out (usually at the worst possible moment to be nerdsplaining on and on about the finer points of pedigree dog conformation -_-), but my recall of them is rusty (heh heh … obedience training pun, anyone?).
Ditto standards for various horse breeds and equestrian disciplines; I’d been busily internalizing those since I learned to read.
I guess that’s better than being completely unable to focus on anything that relates to the real world in any way, but it has its limits. I haven’t been great at taking that drive and putting it to work in places where it’s actually, like, useful. Or finishing things in general.
In short, I’m great at buckling down and working hard when I’m into it, but maybe not always so much when I’m not.
And that’s why Ms. B’s words meant so much to me — because as much as I love dancing, as much as I love ballet, it is work, and there are times that it feels like work.
Those are the days that I remind myself that I have Goals and Dreams, etc., and I get out of bed anyway, and I go to class anyway, and I work hard anyway, even if the last thing I feel like doing is another effing rond-de-jambe, and didn’t we already do fondu?
And it’s touching to know that teachers whose knowledge and guidance and opinion I value so highly see that.
So, anyway, today was one of those days that it was hard. Like, seriously: I whacked my ankle on something last night fumbling my way to bed, and it promptly developed a little puffy spot, so when I woke up part of me — okay, a whole lot of me — vaguely hoped it would be really sore so I would have an excuse to take an unsanctioned rest day.
Basically me this morning. (Thanks, Cheezburger.com)
It wasn’t, so I got up and I went to class.
And I say this because I think so often those of us in the weird, weird waters somewhere between legit amateur and semi-professional dance probably all feel like that on occasion, but also probably don’t feel like we can admit it.
Like, once you cross that threshold beyond which you’re legitimately a professional (or even a legit semi-professional) dancer — in short, once it’s a job — I think it’s probably easier to acknowledge that sometimes it feels like a job.
Complaining about our jobs is, after all, an essential part of the American Way (and probably also part of the Way in a lot of other places). No matter how great your job is, there are going to be times that you’d rather be doing something else (like sleeping).
When you’re only sort of beginning to entertain the hope that something you really, really love might also turn out to be something you could do even as a kinda-sorta job, it’s much harder to admit that there are days you just don’t freaking well feel like it.
But, here’s the thing: just like courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the choice to forge on even in the face of fear, discipline isn’t the absence of days you feel a bit (okay, a lot) less motivated — it’s the ability to keep sight of that long-term motivation on the far horizon, so even when your immediate motivation flags, the long-term motivation drags you forward.
By the scruff of your neck.
Kicking and screaming the whole way, if necessary, because your long-term motivator isn’t going to take that kind of attitude from you, mister, and don’t make it turn this car around.
So, that was this morning for me. I hit snooze three times, stared at the ceiling in the vain hope of an injury both mild enough to be temporary and serious enough to warrant a day off, realized one wasn’t forthcoming, then poured myself into some clothing, chugged some caffeinated liquid and a protein bar, and hauled my butt to class.
And, sure, I was a little tired and a little sore and it took me a little longer than usual to get my body and brain out of first gear, but by the time we’d made it through the first round of rond de jambes I was glad I was there, if only because I was receiving useful corrections.
By the time we got to terre-a-terre, I had really basically forgotten that I was supposed to be having an unmotivated morning, and that less than two hours earlier I’d been lying in bed rooting for a mild injury.
Dancing is its own reward. Every second I spend in the studio is a gift; especially so because I have phenomenal instructors who take the time to really work on me.
Sometimes, though, getting to that reward is tougher than it is at other times. Some days it’s hard.
So, basically, I guess what I’m saying is this: there are going to be days that you just don’t freaking well feel like it, and you’re going to go ahead and go to class anyway, or go to rehearsal, or go perform.
Instead of beating yourself up for the not feeling like it part, celebrate the immense effort that it takes on those days to get up and do it anyway. Those are the days that you have already won just by showing up.
Aaaaaand, now I totally sound like some kind of After School Special, so I’m going to shut up before I make myself queasy 🙂
Audition-Day Hijinks!
In an effort to keep myself from sitting at home and obsessing about today’s audition, I decided to haul my hiney out of bed and go to acro class.
And this goofiness happened 😀
It started out as graceful half-highs with port de bras, then turned into the Creation of Adam, then turned into two guys going PULL MY FINGER!!!
Top, L-R: Jesse, Me
Bottom, L-R: Starr, Denis
Totally worth it. Hanging out with my acro peeps always puts me in a great frame of mind.
Now I only have an hour to obsess before I can go check in and warm up. Maybe I should take myself out for lunch…
Advanced Class: Don’t Leave Your Body Behind
Today’s class was pretty good.
EF taught, which meant long and complicated combinations at barre, some of which were VERY fast.
After we had all sort of traded a moue of despair after flailing our way through something that I’ll call a degagé combination (with the understanding that it was SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT), he pointed out to us that we shouldn’t feel disheartened and give up mid-combo if we’re not fast enough yet.
Even if we flail through and don’t quite make it, even if the combination is so freaking fast that 75% of the advanced class can’t actually get their feet either to point fully or to relax fully, by trying, we’re developing the strength and the speed that will eventually allow us to execute these insanely-fast combinations correctly.
Us at barre today(1, by PhantomMoon, via Pinterest).
I was awfully glad to hear that, because that’s exactly what I keep telling myself: even if you’re just flailing away like a wind-sock, keep going, because it is through flailing that we reach transcendence.
Or something like that.
Even if you’re just flailing away like a wind-sock, keep going, because it is through flailing that we reach transcendence.
Or something like that.
(I felt like that could use some fancy formatting.)
This is how EF teachers, and one of the reasons that I lurve his classes(2). As I have probably mentioned before, he teaches to the most advanced dancer in the room (in this case: a home-town boy on a brief vacation from American freaking Ballet Theater, apparently) and allows everyone else to rise to that level.
Curiously, it generally works.
Anyway, adagio went well, once I stopped being a spaz and forgetting to actually use the muscles that make my supporting leg, like, support me (yeah, totally fumbled in a tour lent today … but I jumped right back into it and fixed it on the second side).
Turns and terre-a-terre also went well: we got music from Swan Lake today, and my insides went SQUEEE! because I ❤ Swan Lake so hard. My outside, on the other hand, went, “I’m not sure I have this! I’m still not sure I have this! Oh, wait — I’ve got this!”
Basically, I was having some trouble remembering where this one failli went, and also trouble remembering that my new dancing policy is supposed to be:
Look like you know what you’re doing.
…Even when you don’t.
Which, this week, has been frequently.
Anyway. Petit allegro was a moderate disaster, but only because for some reason on the first pass my brain couldn’t contain the combination, and on the second pass my body kept executing the incorrect version.
It began:
assemblé
jeté
assemblé
jeté
and then made with the glissades, but I somehow thought it began with glissade – jeté and thus kept doing it backwards and getting horribly lost.
EF tried to sort me, but my legs refused to comply until the very. last. repeat. Thus, I wound up working it alone, as everyone packed up.
EF called me over and gave me a note on my brush-jumps (the ones like jeté, assemblé, and so forth). I’ve been leaving my body behind, which has been forcing me to make extra weight-changes in petit allegro and putting me behind the count.
Evidently, my jumps aren’t actually slow anymore (EF said they’re actually quicker than a lot of my classmates’); it’s the extra weight-changes doing me in at this point.
So in addition to continuing to work on solidifying my supporting leg, this week I’ll be concentrating on bringing my body with me when I jump (something I need to think about in general, really; I do this on grand jeté and saut de chat as well).
Anyway, he spent several minutes working with me in on this, and (of course) I thanked him profusely. He takes a lot of time with me: fixing my arm at barre (which needs doing with alarming frequency; it’s better than it was, but it still likes to drift too far back and lose its shape and so forth), tweaking my jumps and turns, and so forth. I really appreciate that, as a great deal of the ground I’ve gained has been the direct result of these fine-point corrections from my instructors.
It’s also nice to know that I’m not invisible in a gigantic advanced class — there were a billion of us today (even adagio required two groups).
After, I went to juggling class, in which I managed a new-record-for-me 27 cascades, then worked my choreography a bit in Open Fly. I think I’ve solved the last of the timing problems (added a sissone to arabesque; not 100% sure it works with the music).
And now I’m at home, writing this, contemplating lunch, and preparing to undertake a cleaning binge as a way to keep myself from just obsessing about tomorrow’s audition.
Notes, References, and Asides
Sadly, I can’t find a proper source for this; if it’s from etsy, I want one!OMG I FOUND IT!- Sadly, after next Saturday, we won’t have him again for a while, because the regular season and so forth take off again next week, and he has So Many Responsibilities.
danseur ignoble 