Author Archives: asher
The Way From Here To There
I should be doing my homework, but instead I’m being distracted by the internet. I went to bed last night with a sore-ish knee, slept badly, woke up early with a knee that had progressed from sore-ish to sore, so I’m sleep deprived and grumpy and being marginally lazy to see if the knee will sort itself out(1).
Something I read a few clicks back reminded me of a thought that’s been percolating in here for a while.
We hear a lot about people talking themselves out of their dreams by saying, “I’m not good enough,” or “I could never be x,” or being unwilling or unable to just visualize themselves as being whatever it is they hope to be(2).
We don’t hear as much about a problem that I suspect is just as common, if not more so — being able to visualize the top of the mountain, so to speak, but having no idea how to get there.
Right now, there are things in my life I can see myself doing and being great at. I just don’t really know how to get there. My worries aren’t about the destination — I have absolutely no doubt that I’d be awesome at being the things I want to be — it’s more about the journey.
Like, seriously, where did I put my map? And, um, is that a canyon between Here and There?
What could possibly go wrong?
Original image via Wikimedia Commons, here.
This question bugs me much more than I like to admit. Like, I have this goal: become a dance/movement therapist. I feel confident that I’d be good at it. But I have only the vaguest notion about how I’m going to get there. Like, Columbia College looks awesome, and I really want to go there, but there’s a huge canyon between Here and There, and its name is OMG HOW DO I PAY FOR THIS?!
And I am pretty confident that I can make good dances that will be worth watching, and I can totally envision the Philip Glass Project coming together at Burning Man next year. I just have only faintest, foggiest idea how I’m going to make it happen.
Come to think of it, it might make more sense to imagine all this as a bunch of blank spots in the map labeled “here be dragons.”
I have enough Zen under my belt to know that it’s silly to worry about all that; that worry doesn’t solve anything and that we can’t control anything anyway.
Yet, still, I look out at the horizon, and I see this misty zone full of what might be chasms, what might be dragons; I look at my map, and I see this unknown, this void, which is more or less labeled “KAY DEFINITELY DRAGONS HERE.” And sometimes it freezes me in my tracks and/or makes me want to flee in terror.
…FOUR IS RIGHT OUT.
A billion internets if you get that reference without Googling(3).
So, anyway. I guess the whole point is that, at the moment, the only way forward is, well, forward. With occasional divertissements, of course, to cope with dragons and such. And possible detours, and Alternate Routes(4). And maybe even a different destination in the long run, because who knows where I’ll be five, ten years from now? I know what I want, but what I want and what will be might not turn out to be the same thing. It’s possible I could discover some other Personal Mecca where I will bloom spiritually and otherwise.
I also know I’ve battled dragons before — some of which were big and terrifying and stuff, and some of which turned out to be Not-At-All-Smaug-Like Dragons who invite you in for tea and cakes (and don’t intend to serve you in the cakes).
And, more importantly, I’ve come through, and I’ve learned things.
Yet, I’m still convinced that any dragon I encounter is going to be a Problematic Dragon, and that I Will Not Make It.
So I can’t say I’ve got it down, yet. I’m still very much in the “Was that, ‘Carry wood, chop water?'” phase of my quasi-Zen existence. Like, I know the basic idea, but I’m not great at remembering it when I need it.
And, frankly, those gaps in the map kinda freak me out.
But, you know. Writing about it makes me feel a little better, so there you are.
That’s it for now. Homework does not seem to be forthcoming, so I’m going to go do housework instead in an effort to do accomplish something useful prior to running away to the Giant Ballet Party tonight.
Notes
- The knee is a bike fit problem. Specifically, there’s something about the pedals on the Karakoram that makes my left knee (and ankle, but the knee gets the worst of it) very unhappy if I clip in. The knee is fine on the Tricross, on which I use the same shoes, so I think it’s a question of the pedal stand-off being a little too wide.
I kind of hate the pedals on the Karkoram anyway, so I think I’m going to donate them to our local bike collective (whenever I finally get down there!) and find something else. I might even try platforms with mini toe-clips (the “urban” kind without straps). - I now totally have that “Be All You Can Be” song from the old Army commercials stuck in my head.
- Ni!
- There is an official Alternate Route to becoming a DMT, and it’s there on the map if I need it.
Giant Ballet Part-ay!
I skipped class tonight to go on a date with my husband. This involved a whole lot of mental wrangling, which mostly revolved around the fact that I’m forever kvetching at him about how This Afternoon Will Never Happen Again But The Dishes (or Billing, or Whatever) Will Still Be There When We Get Back, So Let’s Go For This Walk Now.
This evening, we had a one-time chance to go see a friend from church speak about her amazing bike adventure, so I sucked it up and went. It was fun and illuminating. The best lesson percolated in my mind this way: When you’re reading, the adventure doesn’t really happen with things are going exactly how Bilbo or Frodo or Harry (and/or Hermione and/or Ron, etc.) want(s) them to go. The adventure happens when things are off the rails and the unexpected rolls in. The adventure happens when our intrepid heroes encounter giant spiders or Dark Lords or, you know, flat tires. Or just hours and hours of rain and hills.
So, anyway. Pretty cool stuff!
Tomorrow night, Louisville Ballet is throwing a party at ReSurfaced, which is an interesting little outdoor happening space that has materialized in downtown Loutown. We are going, which I am using to assuage the part of my mind that is totally having Wednesday Class Withdrawals right now.
I have no idea if anyone I know from class is going, but darnit, we’re going. Or, at least, I am. I hope Denis is, because I frankly have no idea what to do at a party by myself, even if it’s a ballet-related party. At least, I have no idea what to do until the dancing starts. Then I can hold my own until someone shuts the music down.
I’ll be doing Friday class again, and probably just Essentials on Saturday because it’s Opera day, so the noon class will be too tight a fit, and I’m not ballsy enough to brave Advanced class yet. I don’t think they’d kick me out or anything; I’m pretty sure that if you’re a game Intermediate student and you know how to play along without holding the class back, they’ll let you jump in.
I have discovered that, where ballet is concerned, “Game” is my middle name. I will try anything once, and then again, and then an infinite number of times until I finally get it right, or at least sufficiently un-wrong to cease being a living embarrassment to the art form (at which point I will keep going until I do get it right. Even if I do keep forgetting what comes between the last saute arabesque and the brisée — assuming I heard that part right*.
So that’s it for tonight. I’m off to bed. Much homework to do tomorrow, plus conditioning workout, plus party taimz.
Notes
*I spent about an hour on Monday night lying in bed trying to figure out if I’d heard the first part of the combo right — like, was it sauté arabesque or piqué arabesque? I missed the visual. I did sauté the whole time and nobody complained, and since I went (as always) in the first group, I figure someone might have said something if I was totally freaking wrong.
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Attack of the Pros!
Neither PDG nor PDG2 happened to be in class tonight.
Instead, the Paul Taylor Dance Company arrived en masse for Claire’s 7:15 class.
Needless to say, they brought a new dimension to class, along with great energy.
They were all lovely people, very fun to have in class, and (of course) amazing dancers.
Also, we got to do brisées tonight amidst our very fun choreography. Claire is great at convincing us to transcend our perceived limitations. One of our regular classmates was afraid she couldn’t do the brisée, and Claire sais, “Yes you can!” and showed her how, and she did it*! Very cool stuff.
In other news, I’m glad I brought my legwarmers. The studio was cold tonight! The legwarmers worked brilliantly. I left them on through all of Margie’s class and through Claire’s barre.
My adagio is improving. I think half my problem is that I tense up because I think I don’t know how to do it. That’s half of everyone’s problem all the time, though, as best I can tell. Anyway, when I relax, it goes better; when I don’t I fall over (well, partly), in penché. Good to know.
That’s it for tonight. Class was amazing.
We loved having the folks from Paul Taylor in class and we all hope they come back soon!
Notes
*I did several brisées of diminishing quality, but the first one surprised me! Also tried entrechats but they weren’t as good. A couple of my turns were quite nice, though.
Errbody Wearin’ Tights
Last semester, I was frequently the only person on campus in tights.
Being as I leave the house at 8 in the morning on a bike and proceed to run around on the bike all day and then head to ballet class, it just makes sense to live my life in tights (jogging tights, usually; capri-length if it’s hot out).
This semester, tights have asploded all over campus. As far as I know, I’m still the only dude in tights (because not everyone can be as cool as Robin Hook, ‘k?), but there are all kinds of girls wearing tights — and I really do mean all kinds. All shapes, sizes, and colors. And I think that’s pretty awesome.
I would like to think that this means that Health At Every Size is starting to make a really visible impact. Hard to say. But, anyway, lots of people are wearing tights, and it’s not just the skinny little societally-approved-image people. And everyone looks pretty great in them.
Personally, I prefer “workout clothes” to regular clothes — as I’ve often said, it’s like you get to wear your pajamas all day! — so I’m down with this.
So that’s it for now. More later.
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Like Legs, Only Warmer
So, I put my legwarmers together today, using the simple Internet recipe of “recycled sweater arms with part of the bottom hem of the sweater sewn on at the top of each sleeve.”
I made mine with a foldover cuff at the top. Attached one cuff upside-down, so I’ll redo it when I have time. For now, it’s fine.
Stripey legwarmers, check. Crazy warm-up pants, check. Fat 'n' sassy orange cat, check.
Amazingly, I will actually need to make the top openings a tad smaller as well. My calves are ridiculous, so I figured that wouldn’t be necessary. Maybe I’ll just sew in a little elastic.
The wrist cuffs are now feet cuffs. Also, please disregard my filthy floor.
The idea is to keep my ankles and arches warmer during barre and before and after class. I guess that’s usually the purpose of leg warmers — you know, keeping legs, like, warm and stuff.
If I get really ambitious, I might convert these to stirrup-style (I’ll practice on a more boring pair, first, though). For now, though, I’ll just pull the back edges up on my heels so I don’t slip.
So there you have it. Instant leg warmers, just add sweater. Um, and Internet. And, you know, needle, thread, and about half an hour (to sew the top cuffs).
I’ll try to remember to So here’s a link to the how-to blog that inspired these. That’s where I got the idea for the foldover cuffs.
Ballet Squid Chronicles: I Survived Friday Morning Intermediate Class!
And, in fact, it went pretty well!
The class comprised five of us, including PDG, who just did barre, and B, who is always lovely.
I didn’t know the other two ladies, but one drove all the way from Georgetown, IN*, which makes me very glad I live close enough to ride the bus.
Compared to Wednesday’s class, the barre was more challenging, but the centre work was about the same level. There’s a lot more focus on detail and refinement in this class (he says, having taken it all of once!), though.
We did a rather lovely bit of adagio with all these développés during which, at one point, I totally lost it and almost fell over completely, y’all. If it was Swan Lake it would’ve been like, “Oh look, that one Swan is drunk.” Also it would’ve been Bourne’s production or the Trocks (because male Swans). Come to think of it, drunken swans would fit right in with the Trocks.
We also did a petit allegro thing with glissades, assembles (tons of assembles, omg), jetes, and temps lève. I would start out with the arms playing along, and then every time they would decide they’d had enough and do it backwards. Every time.
And then I ran into the piano, just about. I like to use up the whole floor. I didn’t think of that when I chose my spot.
In other news, my turns from fifth were uniformly terrible for some reason, though better than they were a couple months ago, I’m sure, but I managed a couple nice ones from fourth and my jumps were mostly pretty (except for random Squid Arms on a couple of sauts de chat).
After, most of us stayed and chatted about arms, which evidently are everyone’s nemesis (file under: Yay! It’s not just me!). Tawnee answered my question about what to do with one’s arms for saut de chat, and I feel better informed now.
So there you have it. Friday morning intermediate class. I lived and was not so horrible. Today was one of those days that I find myself thinking, “I can’t wait to see how this all looks a year from now.”
Notes
*I’m assuming Gtown, IN, and not Gtown, KY because the KY one is closer to Lexington, which also has a ballet company with a school.
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Friday Morning Intermediate Class
So I’m off to try the Friday morning intermediate class. Tawnee is teaching, so I will probably forget how to dance. Why must I have a Tawnee-specific mental block?
Scratch that. I am wearing my favorite tights, which will endure, and as result I will to be so brilliant and amazing that LB will offer me a corps job*.
If I survive, I shall dutifully report back after.
In other news, I mostly survived my conditioning workout video! I wrote a brief review, which I will post as soon as a convergence of “having my laptop handy” and “remembering” occurs.
Notes
*I wish!
Conditioning Begins
Happy Thursday, everybody! (As you can see, my mood is rather better. Thanks, ballet!)
I am actually awake and have been awake for a couple of hours, amazingly enough, which is kind of a big deal for me. In short, I got to sleep at a decent hour last night (thanks again, ballet!), slept reasonably well, used the Oxford comma, and woke up around 7 AM today.
I have Way Too Much Stuff To Do today, but since I was sort of assuming I’d wake up around 9 and be fumbly and only quasi-functional until, say, 10:30 or so, I’m ahead of the curve. Seriously, I’ve even managed to eat some oatmeal and everything.
As such, it seems like a good day to do the ballet conditioning video workout thing, and maybe even make it all the way through.
When I made up my mind that A) some at-home physical conditioning was necessary (because wow ballet is demanding), and B) some guidance would help, I decided to order a copy of NYCB’s workout which, sadly, is not available as a download or for streaming (nooooo!).
Because I am an impatient and spoiled child of the digital age, I also bought streaming/download rights for one of the Ballet Beautiful Body series workouts (which are well-rated even though the name of the series makes it sound like all fluffy and non-serious). That particular video is called Ballet Beautiful Body Blast, hereafter to be known as BBBB.
It’s a good thing I did, because apparently I somehow failed to actually hit the “Shut Up And Take My Money” button for the NYCB set (seriously, there is no record of the order anywhere in my Amazon account; I checked about a week after I thought I placed my order).
Since then, things have been crazy, and I have not once managed to make it through more than 15 minutes of the BBBB, skipping around and doing different bits — but I have done enough to know that stuff is hard, yo.
It doesn’t look hard — but it is (hmm, kind of like ballet itself). Take the “swan arms” segment, for example: the part of me that spent ages doing competitive gymnastics initially looked at it and went, “Meh, she’s just waving her arms around. Eeeeeasy.”
Ha! Well, I ask you, when was the last time you spent 15 minutes gracefully flapping your arms while maintaining good form (with your belly zipped up and your core tight and all of that good stuff) and keeping your shoulders down and using muscles that you didn’t know you had (because, seriously, people don’t fly)? So, um, yeah. Way harder than it looks.
I am forced to admit that I couldn’t even make it through the core segment without reducing the counts and wanting to weep in desolation at my limp-noodly body. Made me realize exactly how much core strength I’ve lost (because I totally used to be that obnoxious people that can hook their knees over and feet under one of those double railing bars and just effortlessly hang out there, horizontal, as if reclining upon the air).
So today, before I do anything else, I plan to try to get through the whole of the BBBB (with much cursing and possibly some cheating by reducing counts) if it kills me.
And then I will do all the other stuff I need to do, because for all that I like to believe my life is entirely about ballet at the moment, I have non-ballet related responsibilites, like math homework and the dreaded bookkeeping.
So, yeah. I would offer to live-blog the whole Ballet Conditioning Video Workout Experience, only I can’t crunch and type at the same time. Instead, I’ll try to keep enough brain cells alive and working to write a review of the BBBB. Eventually, I will get around to really ordering the NYCB workout DVDs, and I’ll try to review those, too.
‘Til then, keep the bottom side down ^-^
Ballet Squid Chronicles: Wardrobe Malfunction!
In the middle of barre I noticed A Draft.
In horror, I did a quick, “Ohai, just rearranging my shirt!” and discovered that little hole had conveniently opened in the back seam of my ersatz tights (which are really leggings, which is unimportant).
It was not in The Worst Possible Place – I was able to arrange my tights pro-dance-guy-on-stage stylie (yes, in case you’re wondering, the in/famous Male Ballet Wedgie is very much intentional).
Thus, I more or less made it through class, occasionally making nice lines when I could forget that at any moment I might burst a seam and horrify the girl behind me or PDG* or our teacher (regardless of what my husband may believe, most people probably do not want to see my nekkid behind).
I say “more or less” because my head was not in the game and Tawnee likes to give us long, complicated combos at the barre. So basically I spent the whole class approximating with half my brain while the other half worried about my backside.
Worse, because the demiurge of ballet has a twisted sense of humor, Tawnee decided today was a good day for a barre stretch. One with lots of bending over and pivoting and so forth. In the studio with the Really High Barre. Needless to say, I approached that exercise with trepidation.
Fortunately, the impending Wardrobe Disaster did not arrive.
I fumbled my way through basically everything else. I seem to have a mental block regarding doing anything right, ever, in Tawnee’s class.
Afterwards, I went directly to Big Lots without passing Go or collecting $200 and bought some ridiculous fuzzy lounge pants to literally cover my behind:
These pants scream either "I'm crazy" or "I'm a dancer and I don't care" or maybe both. Hell, probably both.
(Sorry it’s so dark, y’all.)
I had been thinking of buying some warm – uppish pants anyway, because winter, y’all.
So now I have fuzzy warm – up pants and a way to get home without blinding anyone (though, come to think of it, if my tail-light dies, there are few surfaces as blazingly pale as those parts of me that never see the sun, and my behind could probably double as a reflector). My leg muscles are really happy to be wearing these, oddly enough, so there’s a nice silver lining.
So that’s it for Wednesday class. On Monday, I was Coming Together; today, I was Coming Apart.
Notes
*Who was totally in class tonight and upon whom I totally have a kind of Ballet Crush. Someone please tell me I am not the only proto-dancer who develops Ballet Crushes?
Brraaaaaiaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnggzzzz
Last night, I had a wicked sinus headache, so I took some night-time decongestant-y liquid stuff in order to A) quell the Sinus Beasts and B) actually get to sleep.
This morning, I am a zombie. Hence: BRAAAAAAAAINNNGZZZ.
And lots of caffeine. Loooooots of caffeine.
I did manage to make it to school with essentially everything I need for school and ballet. I do wish I’d had the sense to bring a sweater. It’s cold in here and I’m freezing my tuchas off.
We’ll see if I can stay awake through math, and senior sem, and all the way though 7 PM. At least it’s pretty much impossible to actually fall asleep in ballet class.
Might be an interesting day.
danseur ignoble 