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Class Notes, 07 January 2020
I’ve been thinking for a while about trying to make a habit of posting my class notes.
Sometimes they’re silly, and often they’re impossible to read, but I try to write down my corrections and other points that seem really helpful.
In that vein, here’s today’s:
A transcription (which I probably won’t include every time):
- Engage! (Those arrows are pointing at the muscles to either side of the rectus abdominis. My friend SF pointed out that it looks like they’re pointing to the kidneys 🤣)
- It frees up your hips 😶
- Like, really frees them. 😲
- Relax, it’s just turns 😑
- Pull (and push) towards your standing leg!
- That way, if you tip over, you can correct
- Your free foot has to PUSH OFF so you’re centered on your standing leg
On that last note: you would think I knew that already!
And, I mean, I do. I did. I have. And yet!
I just realized I haven’t really been actively using the soon-to-be free foot as much as I should when initiating turns, so I’m not always pushing myself onto my standing leg as effectively as I could.
My focus at the moment is staying on my leg (or legs, as applicable) and really using the floor.
And also not allowing my arms to do ridiculous BS like they did today during our medium allegro, because ffs, arms 😑
On Technique: How Not To Turn From Fourth
Okay, so my turns are often, erm, not horrible these days (probably because my AD is relentless in his quest to make us do six billion turns per class) … And yet I’m still entirely capable of making a complete hash of them from time to time.
In the interest of full disclosure, clarity, and the greater good, then, here’s a spectacular example caught on video in the wild today and translated into handy screenshots. (I am NOT posting the video. I don’t want to scar you guys for life.)
I just can’t even with this. No part of my core is even a little engaged. I’m jello
Erm … That’s not where that goes. How embarassing.
Look at that standing leg. I dare you. That’s right: I’m serving up fresh horror just in time for Hallowe’en, Betches.
I didn’t fall out of this turn in the sense that I didn’t literally go splat. In every other way, though…
We’re not even going to talk about my arms. They’d just doing it for the attention, and we cannot reward their egregious behavior by acknowledging it. I haven’t been this disappointed since … Well, tbh, 2016, but … you know.
Okay, I will say one thing about my arms. See that first photo? Balanchine prep up top; Cecchetti downstairs. No wonder this turn failed. It was the balletic equivalent of a mullet … replete with hamberder hands.
I’m going to cry.
This turn was not assisted by the fact that there’s a divot in the subfloor under my standing foot, but honestly that excuses nothing. Without said divot, it still would’ve been a fugly turn. You could take it to a salon and give it hours and hours of mud wraps and so forth, and it wouldn’t do any good. Lipstick on a pig*.
*I mean … some members of the porcine family are quite handsome. But lipstick? They don’t really, like, have lips.
Here’s a less bad example, just so I can feel better about life
The non-standard port de bras is intentional.
The gesture leg is attached. The supporting leg is … well, sort-of turned out. My core, like, exists. The balance is fairly straight up and down. And in the video it’s evident that I spotted this turn like a boss.
That last one was of the “effortless double” species. The MOST important factor, for me, is simply keeping my coreengaged. This prevents Slinky Back (would that it could prevent Nickleback), which in turn basically prevents EVERYTHING ELSE THAT IS WRONG WITH THE FIRST TURN.
So engage those core muscles, kids!
…And remember: only YOU can prevent Nickelback slinkyback!
danseur ignoble 