Category Archives: balllet
My (Sort Of) Beautiful Ballet: First Class at LBS
In this case, that’s Louisville Ballet School, not Local Bike Shop.
Needless to say, while I have not forgotten everything, there is much I shall have to relearn in terms of, well, terms. Also balance. There will be much practicing of Barre exercises at home. Furthermore, I have reverted to the level of confusion about port-des-bras that I enjoyed when I was, like, seven – only now I understand my own learning style a lot better, so with a little study that should resolve pretty quickly. I am also evidently not great at counting to four while moving my feet, but I think that will resolve itself as we progress.
Fortunately, I have somehow retained more flexibility than I expected – cycling and running can really tighten things up.
Also fortunately, Denis survived his first class and went along gamely for as long as he could. He got dehydrated and took a break during the across-the-floor part only class. For someone with no dance background who normally gets very little continuous exercise, I think he did very well. I also managed to concentrate on what I was doing instead of worrying about him the whole time. Next time, we will bring water and he will feel a little more at home than he did this time.
We did not end class with reverence, but we did give our lovely teacher a round of applause afterwards. If I catch up the finances this week I can go to class on Saturday as well. I am very much looking forward to that!
That’s it for now. Keep the rubber leather side down.
Strengths This Week:
Flexibility
Points to Work On:
Frappe
Arms!
Chaines Turns
Edit: Sorry about the crazy typos. I wrote this entry last night on my phone, which has a little thing that I like to call “Autocorrupt.” I’ve been fixing and re-fixing it ever since…
Here Is Fine.
Just a quick check-in today.
We’re having a snow day, which is sort of irrelevant for me since I don’t have classes on Monday anyway. Denis and I got the walk and driveway shoveled this morning, and now the remaining scrim of crusty gritty ice-snow stuff is melting off as the sun hits it. The world looks all pretty and properly winter-y.
I’m starting to feel a little bit more like myself these days. I’m working on damage control for the time being and hoping that things will remain on a more even keel until I can start to get this under control.
The tough part now is kind of accepting where I am right now. In his book Dark Nights of the Soul, author Thomas Moore writes about the appreciating the “night sea journey” for what it is — a concept that fits neatly with Zen teachings about being here, now.
It isn’t always comfortable to be where you are. It definitely isn’t comfortable to be where I am right now, though it is more comfortable to be here, now than to be where I was, like, a week ago.
Of course I want to rush forward to “the good part.” I want to get to the next phase where I feel okay or even good. I want to get to spring, so I can get out on the bike and ride. I want to get there.
Thing is, here is where I am now. The trick is to be here, now — to be in this when and this where — and not be quite so focused on getting to the next phase, the next destination.
Shamelessly stolen from Hendy Mp/Solent News via The Telegraph. Captions mine.
In other news, tomorrow I’ll be handing in all my reams of research paperwork. Friday evening we head up to Bedford to irresponsibly watch cable TV in a hotel room feast upon the bones of our enemies attempt to not die during Death March (which is on Saturday).
Neither Timothy nor I have spent any time on the bike worth speaking of, so this year’s “race,” as it were, might be interesting. Conveniently, I will get to knock out both my first significant ride of the year and my first (and probably my only) race of the year. I’ll leave it to you, gentle readers, to determine whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I’ll report back on it at some juncture, though evidently I’m horrible at getting race reports posted. I definitely won’t be posting directly after the race, because we’ll have just enough time to shower, change, and haul bacon back to town to catch The Trocks at the Brown Theater. Any way, I’m sure I’ll manage to fill you all in on whether I live or die. That is, assuming I live. Which is probable.
In other, other news, I made my first lasagna ever last night, and it was gooooooood. Needless to say, a recipe that I’m happy to have in my repertoire (Denis is a good teacher!) and one I plan to make again.
That’s it for now. Nothing else to report.
Rubber side down, everyone 🙂
danseur ignoble 