Category Archives: class notes
Wednesday Class: Still Feeling It
Back to Brienne’s class today: not the hardest barre she’s ever given us, but still pretty demanding; center work felt fairly easy physically right up to the end, but technically there were a few demanding elements.
Specifically, today’s adagio (which, interestingly, included one of the same transitions I’m using in the audition video choreography) was built on extensions wherein the working leg travels slowly across the center of balance — from croisé, développé avant, hold, though passé, extend first arabesque…
That sort of thing, only with pivots and little promenades happening at the same time. The second half did a similar thing with ecarté extensions (and then we did the other side, and then reverse of both sides, including “backwards” pas we bourré).
Développé no longer vexes me, but I had trouble finding the calm, still place from which adagio works best for me: I was nervous today, which is unusual.
I was also feeling critical of my body, which isn’t unusual, especially given that I’m having that weird response wherein you get dehydrated while exercising (Monday) and then your body retains water line crazy for three to five days. Oy vey.
By the time we got to turns, I was, however, able to make good use of the note Brienne gave us about pausing and breathing before the turn in our devilishly simple combination (devilishly simple as in it’s really simple, so you have to do it right! :P).
She also did that thing that ballet instructors do — you know, when they offer a general note, but make really direct eye contact with the people who need it most? …And gently reminded us (and especially me) to rise to relève for turns, rather than jumping to it.
It helps immensely, by the way, if you’re wondering … which I know, if only I can remember to do it 
I replayed my mental footage of Baryshnikov doing turns and tried to channel him (is it acceptable to channel living people?). This led to some pretty dancing and one reasonably acceptable double.
I really need to get my turns back together, though. There isn’t much excuse for not having a reliable double, at least, at this juncture: I’m just not putting enough time into turns, even in my kitchen (in which turns from second, which I’m working on via Brian, are also iffy).
Ironically, the better I get at dancing, the harder it is to dance in my house. I can still work turns en place in my kitchen (that’s one way to mix the batter, am I right?) as long as they don’t require extension.
Big jumps, on the other hand, are generally impossible (small, restrained versions can be done, but you perform as you rehearse, so I don’t do them often — the occasional entrelacé might slip out now and then…).
A little petit ou moyenne allegro fits into the living room, as do a pas de chat or two, as does adagio if its travel is limited and I’m careful about where I put my extensions and I remember to move our giant ottomans and my exercise ball (don’t judge) first.
I practice balancé a lot because it can be done back and forth, back and forth and thus fits into various places; consequently, my balancé is a lot prettier now 🙂
I need to think about how I want to respond to this. I feel confident enough to actually practice stuff, now, and practice could improve my technique. I am considering regularly reserving a room at church on Thursday prior to bells, maybe.
… More practice could also improve my condition. I definitely felt Monday’s excesses at the end of class today.
Such is life.
My trapezii have rarely been this sore (except back when I had just started dancing again and my arms and back had done basically nothing through all those years of long-distance cycling), and I felt it in my port de bras and épaulement. They still looked okay, but I was more aware than usual of those muscles.
Needless to say, I am not planning on riding the bike all the way home. I had an appointment with my therapist this afternoon, and now I’m drinking tea and thinking about which bus to take.
In other news, I am once again considering the addition of Friday morning class to the rotation as soon as I’m really feeling on top of my three-days-a-week schedule (it’s definitely getting there). I might have to pick up some part-time work to cover the additional expense, but I don’t really mind that idea, provided that it doesn’t entail a long commute.
So that’s today. Don’t jump into your turns (except, of course, when appropriate!) and find your happy quiet place.
À bientôt, mes amis!
Monday Class: I Feel Somewhat More Human Now
Class went well today. I continue to be fascinated by the changes in how I perceive the tiny muscles in my hips and thighs.
Violinists (by way of example) develop more refined receptive fields and richer-than-average somatosensory cortical representation of their left hands through use. I would guess that dancers’ nervous systems adapt in a similar way, affording a more minute porprioceptive experience of what are, in fact, some pretty obscure muscles.
My mood is also significantly better. I was definitely a tad paranoid this morning, but I talked myself out of it on the bus — or, well, I gave myself a stern talking-to about it and made myself go to class anyway.
Brian gave us a barre that felt short and fairly gentle, then followed it up with interesting combinations at center and across the floor, which (as usual) I mostly did right, with the exception of occasionally firing off a turn the wrong way because thinking.
Pro tip: if say to yourself, “Crap! Which way do I turn?” the answer your brain provides almost always be wrong. At least, it will if you’re me.
Repeat to yourself (in your best Early 90s Tom Hanks voice):
There’s no thinking in ballet!
… And then just fly, little birdie.
Our final combination went:
Sauté arabesque
Tombe
Pas de bourré
Glissade
Assemblé
Échappé
Demi fouette
Jump back to 2nd
Demi fouette
Brush through failli
Full fouette
Coupe to tombé
Pas de bourré
Glissade
Assemblé
Sous sous balance
Sauté arabesque
Run away!
… And then repeat going the other way as soon as the 2nd group finishes.
It was fun; very high-energy. Set to that same lively piece from Swan Lake that I enjoyed so much last week.
There were a bunch of implied steps that we had to work out to keep everything linked.
In other news, I am getting much better at spacing, largely by dint of not having to focus so hard on just doing the steps, which used to use up a lot of mental clock cycles.
So, anyway, that’s it. My friend B. will be back this week from a conference she attended over the Thanksgiving break, and she’s going to join me in my audition video, which I suppose I could post here if it turns out all right.
It’s the opening piece from the ballet I’ll be working on for the rest of my life, “Simon Crane,” which is actually supposed to be a corps piece, but will work okay with two dancers. The video has to be between 1 and 3 minutes long, so “Shadowlands” is right out. It’s 7 minutes from start to end. (Edit: I realize that, the way I wrote this, it reads as if I mean that the entire ballet is a corps piece. While it is, in fact, corps-heavy, I just meant that the opening dance is a corps dance. Derp.)
Anyway, I need to go catch the bus.
À bientôt, mes amis!
PS: I am out of Adderall and also I am an embarrassing stereotype, so I left my coffee cup *and* my water bottle at the studio.
Monday Class: Click!
Click! is the sound of “getting it” — and while there are a few awkward spots today, there were also a lot of click! moments.
I have noticed, in the past month or so, that I feel the small muscles in my hips and throughout my legs far more subtly than I used to.
I suppose this is part of the process of ballet — much like pitch training when you’re learning to sing. As a singer, you often begin by learning to sing pitches and scales: fourths, thirds, and so forth come next, then eventually chromatic scales as you learn to feel your vocal apparatus more subtly.
In ballet, first you are simply happy to get your leg off the ground (or something like that); then you learn, perhaps, lead back with your knee; then you learn to also rotate your heel forward while keeping the knee back; later, your begin to feel all the subtle little goings-on deeper within your leg that allow you to do this cleanly, with maximum turnout, while maintaining freedom of movement. Presumably, down the line somewhere, there’s some even more sublime destination.
Bizarrely, in the midst of learning all of this, I have somehow lost my petit battement (or, well, lost its speed). I assume it will return, in time, better than it was — but I’m glad we didn’t do petit battement today.
What we did do was a really nice combination with assemblés en tournant to one of the really lively bits from Swan Lake. That was fun.
It went:
Chasée
Tournant
Tournant
Tournant
Tombe
Pas de Bourée
Glissade
Assemblée (no change)
… Repeat going the other way.
Doing all chassées, all tournants, or alternating were also options. I did the alternating version once on each side, but I liked the “one chassé; three tournants” version better.
You guys, it felt like flying.
That was our closing combination; the one immediately before it ended with:
Tombe
Pas de bourré-Chassé to fourth
Développé
Fouette to attitude
Which looked and sounded harder than it was, provided you were doing it right. At first, I for some reason thought the second-to-last step was a pique with extension avant. That version was way harder.
We are all getting better; our whole class. It’s very encouraging.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I am writing some thoughts about ballet and my body; I’ll probably get those up here tomorrow-ish.
À Bientôt!
Saturday Class: Pretty Decent, All Things Considered
I did haul my butt out of bed on time this morning, and since I had everything ready to go (including instant coffee already in the Hydra flask and granola bars sitting next to it so even I couldn’t forget them), I made it out the door more or less on time with everything.
… Which is good, because the bus was early, and pulled away from my stop as I was rolling down to it.
So TIL (that’s Internets for “today I learned”) that I can still bang out a 27 MPH flat sprint while wearing a peacoat and only half-awake. I guess occasionally mania has its advantages o.O
Class itself was actually much better than I expected. Thanks to coffee and Adderall, I was generally able to remember the combinations and execute them, so most of my corrections were technical (our instructor didn’t have to shout, “Inside leg!” at me, for example) — particularly, launching my turns Up, à le Balanchine.
I also noticed, though it was not mentioned, that I decoupled from passé too soon once.
I mostly made it through the combinations, though for some reason I kept losing count on the final one (a glissady-thing that was quick and ziggy-zaggy). I think at that point I was more or less just kind of tired, mentally, though I didn’t feel it physically.
I do feel better, mentally. Ballet is good like that.
Now, off to four hours of Berg…
Wednesday Class: Coming Together, Coming Apart
Ha! Started this post yesterday, then totally forgot to post it.
Derp.
Here you go:
I have an appointment at 12:30, so I just did barre.
It was a lovely barre today with a nice adagio before grand battement. Brienne spent a lot of time with me — getting my développés aligned and higher, refining my épaulement, and making sure I was keeping my knees straight.
(Addendum: for me at least, really keeping the turnout and alignment solid during developpé makes a huge difference in getting the extensions higher. I’m not sure whether this is just because it uses the muscles more efficiently or if my hip impinges much sooner when I’m not correctly turned out, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’ve hit a snag there.)
My knees are still my ballet kryptonite: I’m figuring out where “straight” is, but since it’s just shy of locking my hyperextensions, I sometimes overcorrect when I’m concentrating on another detail.
For a long time, I just locked those puppies without realizing it, but that causes two problems: first, it’s bad for your knees; second, it can make transitions and weight-shifts awkward. It can also make you feel faint when you’re just standing there,but that’s a different problem.
So instead, these days, I focus on keeping my knees straight and pulled up without locking them, which can be hard, because I’m combating a lifetime of standing with my knees locked both in and out of class.
Ballet is like that: you’re doing so many things all at once, and they all need to be as perfect as possible. It takes time to train the muscle memory, and each time you add a new element (you’ve got the feet, legs, alignment, port de bras, and even the combination; now let’s sharpen up your épaulement!), the cognitive load is just immense.
Fortunately, it gets better, as I’m learning — both in terms of getting all the motor programming in place and in terms of correcting more easily when something isn’t quite right. Like, I no longer have to concentrate hard on my feet to correct them; I just sort of send a balloon of awareness towards them when they do funny things, and they get and stay sorted (at least for a while).
Things come together so much more readily now.
They came back apart, today, when I started really concentrating on épaulement in complex combinations — especially when, in addition, I suddenly received these amazing jolts of body-awareness during fondue and rond de jambe (Ohai! I can feel my hip and thigh doing the right thing!).
The part that dissolved, interestingly, was my command of the combination itself — so I’d do part of it, get a string of good corrections, work them, and immediately forget the details of the combo 😛 (At least once, I forgot it so badly that I couldn’t remember how it started when we turned to do the other side o.O’)
So then I’d be all, “Développé, fondu, extend, tendu, close fifth … which way was next? Oh, heck, I’ll just go à la seconde and pray.”
Since the exercise in question when avant, arrière, à la seconde, that didn’t entirely work. Though I guess doing the wrong thing well is still better than doing the wrong thing badly!
On the other hand, my développé is about a thousand times better than it was a few weeks ago, so there’s that.
Fortunately, we were all kind of faking it through bits of some of the combinations — so it wasn’t just me, and I didn’t feel like a complete disaster.
In other news, the new vesty thing worked just fine during barre, though it was too chilly this morning to take off my top layer (I actually wished I hadn’t forgotten my sweater).
We’ll see how it goes at center and across the floor on Saturday. It’s less itchy and cooler than my other ones, so I think I’m a convert at this point.
But for now, I must jet(é) off to catch a bus.
À bientôt!
Advanced Class
So it turns out that, actually, I hold up fairly well in Advanced class. This wasn’t my greatest ballet day ever, but there was nothing I flatly couldn’t do.
I got another useful correction on my turns: evidently, I’ve been dropping out of passé before competing my turns sometimes. Derp.
So paying attention to that makes my turns prettier and more reliable. It should also make my doubles, etc, much better. I think what I’m doing is anticipating the “landing,” as if the floor isn’t going to be there anymore when I put my working leg back down … to which I can say only, “Hurr de durr.”
I was having one of those mildly dysphoric days: every time I looked in the mirror, I was all like, “Yay! Long, slender, graceful arms and — WTF! I am made from two completely different people :(”
Fortunately, I was on a wall barre, and for some reason my brain chose to more or less accept the rear-wheel drive reality of my body by the time we got to little jumps.
So there you have it. Advanced class did not cause me to burst into flames. I acquitted myself acceptably well. Nobody died.
That said, I must now dash off to buy groceries.
I think I shall enjoy this new routine.
At the Joffrey: In Which I Start Out Strong And Then Blow It Completely
Intermediate class at the Joffrey tonight: really nice barre, lovely adagio (which went surprisingly well), then increasingly complex traveling combinations.
I felt like I generally had my waterfowls in a linear array during barre, with the exception of an occasional hiccup or two — like the one where our instructor, Ms. S, called out the direction of a turn and I froze because suddenly I was thinking about whether or not I was turning the right way. That said, I succeeded in doing turns at a double barre without cracking my knee on the lower barre, which is a first.
I’m not sure how to describe how this class compares with our Intermediate class at home, overall: the barre was very comparable, if not as long and just plain physically hard as Brienne’s. The adagio was also comparable; it felt eminently doable, but I think that’s just because I suck way, way less at adagio than I used to.
The traveling stuff, meanwhile, started out comparable, then ramped up a bit, then a bit more.
I didn’t feel like the final combination, which I bombed magnificently (and failed to finish in the left side because I thought we were done) was comparable to anything we’ve done in our classes at home — it was quite long, quite complex, and involved grands assemblés en tournants.
Which I can actually do, but apparently not while remembering, like, any other step in a combination.
To be fair, I could neither see or hear Ms. S when she was giving the combination (this class was delightfully huuuuuuuge), and knew I didn’t have it when we marked it, and yet, for some reason, I didn’t speak up. Still not sure what that was about.
So, anyway. In short, as always, if you’re in Chicago, just go do class at the Joffrey. You might get pushed a bit past the edges of your comfort zone, but it will be worth it.
At the Joffrey: In Beginner Class, I Rethink Grand Jeté
The Joffrey’s 10 AM Saturday beginner class is taught by a gentleman, Ariel Cisneros, who may be the most effective instructor I’ve ever encountered for my particular body. In short, he immediately zeroed in on and fixed two holes in my body awareness; he also explains things in ways that automatically make sense to me.
Barre was lovely — not particularly difficult, but the combinations were unique. Mr. C used unique methods to focus us on using our feet and maintaining turnout. His methods very effectively complement those that Brian and Brienne have been using with me.
As Mr. C gave us the opening plié combination, I realized I was really, really going to have to pay attention: while there was nothing gimmicky about his combinations, they were unusual (in a good and effective way) and complex.
I really liked the fondu-et-rond de jambe combination we did, which approached Brienne’s fondu combinations in terms of complexity and physical demand, though it wasn’t as soul-crushingly long as hers can be.
At center, we did a lovely little bit of choreography with promenades, turns, and développés that went quite well indeed; I called on work we did in Brian’s Saturday class a while back to make the développés solid and pretty.
More importantly, perhaps, Mr. C gave me some very specific, apt notes of improving my turns.
Across the floor we did a really nice combination (edit: which evidently I forgot to finish writing about — the perils of small-screen blogging).
At the end, we did glissades and pas de chats, then grand jetés. For some reason (see below), my grand jetés were disastrously bad. I have sort of given myself a mental block about grand jeté of late, but after class I was able to figure out what the problem was.
I really wish I could do class with Mr. C every Saturday (heck, every single day would be better). I’ll have to bring the lessons I learned today back to the studio at home.
I came out of this class feeling, once again, like I have the makings of a good dancer, and like the problems in encountering can be solved.
Sometimes the perspective of an instructor who doesn’t see you three times a week can really help!
~
About grand jetés…
I pretty a cracking good grand jeté as a kid, and I’ve been despairing over it as a returning adult dancer.
I realized today that the problem lies in how I’m using my upper body.
Instead of keeping my upper body, well, up (and slightly back), I’ve evidently been trying to launch the jump with my shoulders.
You guys, WTF is that?
I don’t do that when doing tour jeté or saut de Basque because it wouldn’t work. I suspect, though, that’s because I like having teeth and don’t want to land on my face, which is probably what would happen. Instinctively, then, I avoid executing what would be a Very Bad Plan.
Anyway, jumping from the shoulders doesn’t leave any room for the front leg to go anywhere and makes it much harder for the rear leg to launch you up. At best, it launches you forwards; at worst, down.
So I will concentrate on retraining my grand jeté, along with everything else.
At the Joffrey: Keep Fit Ballet
So, regardless of bizarre Soviet renditions of Gisele in which convulsing zombie wilis are … well, were … a thing, it turns out that Keep Fit Ballet (as opposed to “just normal ballet”) is a difference more of degree than of kind.
It’s a one-hour long lunch break class with some extra stretching/warm-up stuff thrown in at the beginning. I say “thrown,” but actually it’s well-chosen.
Class was packed, and I was one of four guys (one of whom was a professional whom I think I’ve seen in class at the Joffrey before). Everyone was lovely and people went out of their way to talk to me and make me feel welcome, which was very nice.
I enjoyed it immensely, even the final combination, during which my brain said (correctly):
Chassée
Chassée
Saute (arabesque)
Saute (passe)
Tombe pas bourré
Glissade
Assemblée
… while my body said (bizarrely) :
Glissade
Glissade
Saute (arabesque)
Saute (passe)
Failli
Pas de basque, maybe?
Glissade
Saut de chat
Note to body: no matter how much you enjoy it, Saute de Chat is not assemblée!
You guys, has that ever happened to you?
Like, your brain has the combination, but your body merrily does something completely (or almost completely) different?
And no matter what you do — you as in your conscious mind, here … not that the conscious mind, in such moments, has much recourse to begin with: all you can do is think loudly at yourself; maybe yell at yourself if your verbal faculties haven’t all gone on sabbatical.
Perhaps this explains the Attic form of dualism — TL;DR: “the soul is shiny and eternal; the body is a stinking, rebellious meat sack.”
Anyway, no matter what your conscious mind tried, your body just goes on with its bad self, as it were? As if it’s been hijacked by insane Ballet Fairies? (o.O … What if it’s my Inner Odile trying to emerge?!)
It’s possible, even probable, that my breakfast had simply worn off. That said, eating immediately before class would have been a much, much worse idea. Next time I’m doing a noon class, I’ll just eat breakfast later.
Regardless, I had a great time as always as the Joffrey.
I forgot to upload my draft of Strangers to Googly Docs, so I won’t be able to post chapter 2 until I get home 😦
Pas de Basque? Pas de Problème!
Today I made it all the way through Brienne’s class, though I was having a bad day in terms of remembering the choreography.
I definitely felt the classes I’ve missed — legs be all, “Développé above 90? Ha! As if!” I also couldn’t do more than two reps of the lift-your-leg-off-the-barre thing. Bleh. So back to working on strength and flexibility at home. Feh.
(OTOH, splits are back on both sides.)
Tomorrow I’ll have to make sure to do some moving around before I sit on a bus for six hours. Otherwise, I won’t be able to walk, come Friday.
I intend to try the Joffrey’s Friday afternoon Keep Fit Ballet class (since I won’t be able to make the normal ballet class on Friday evening), so being able to use my legs is a good plan.
We did pas saut de Basque (Edit: why did I write “pas?” Ceci n’est pas un pas! Further edit: I’m leaving the title alone, though.) today, which was fun. For whatever reason, I was too thinky at first and hosed it up on the first run; second time through I got it down.
I’ve historically thought of it as “tour en l’air at passé,” but it actually works better to think of it as more like “tour jeté coming to/through passé.” You brush the first leg through and bring the second leg to passé as you turn.
I’m going to keep this short, as I’m still out running errands (You guys, WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND COOL SHOE LACES? The Internet is crammed to the gills with them; meanwhile, no shop I’ve entered today had any!).
I plan to post Chapter 2 of Strangers later on, though it might not happen — I have a billion travel-prep things to do when I get home.
That’s it for now. Leather side down, &c.
danseur ignoble 